Paternal but not maternal age influences early-life performance of offspring in a long-lived seabird

• Published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
• Main Authors: Fay, Rémi, Barbraud, Christophe, Delord, Karine, Weimerskirch, Henri
• Other Authors: Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé - UMR 7372 (CEBC), Université de La Rochelle (ULR)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2016
• Subjects: juvenile survival; long-term effects; ageing; capture–mark–recapture; Diomedea exulans; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; Wandering Albatross
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01302373; https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.2318

International audience Variability in demographic traits between individuals within populations has profound implications for both evolutionary processes and population dynamics. Parental effects as a source of non-genetic inheritance are important processes to consider to understand the causes of individual variation. In iteroparous species, parental age is known to influence strongly reproductive success and offspring quality, but consequences on an offspring fitness component after independence are much less studied. Based on 37 years longitudinal monitoring of a long-lived seabird, the wandering albatross, we investigate delayed effects of parental age on offspring fitness components. We provide evidence that parental age influences offspring performance beyond the age of independence. By distinguishing maternal and paternal age effects, we demonstrate that paternal age, but not maternal age, impacts negatively post-fledging offspring performance.