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Age-specific changes in different components of reproductive output in female reindeer: terminal allocation or senescence?

Oecologia volume 162, pages 261–271 (2010)Cite this article

Abstract

Two different processes can lead to a change in individual reproductive output with age in long-lived iteroparous vertebrates. The senescence hypothesis predicts a decline of performance in old age, whereas the terminal allocation hypothesis predicts an increase. Using long-term (>30 years) individually based data of female reindeer, we first assessed age-specific variation in body mass and different components of reproductive output. Then we investigated the contribution of senescence and terminal allocation (the increase in components of reproductive output) processes for shaping observed patterns. We found that female reindeer body mass increased up to about 11.5 years of age, and decreased afterwards, supporting the senescence hypothesis. Calf birth mass, both in absolute terms or for a given female mass, first increased and then declined with female age, also supporting the senescence hypothesis. The female mass gain (June–September) decreased with increasing age, and female change in mass between 2 consecutive years decreased with female age, all patterns again supporting the senescence hypothesis. However, the autumn calf mass did not change with age. Calf body mass in autumn tended to be positively related to female mass gain, supporting a quality effect. Raising a calf had a marked negative effect on female mass gain, indicating energetic reproductive costs of raising a calf. Calf body mass in autumn did not influence yearly female mass change. Overall, our results provided consistent evidence for general effects of senescence on most components of reproductive output and highlighted that both individual heterogeneity and reproductive costs shape female reindeer reproductive tactics.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute (and specifically the Reindeer Research Station in Kaamanen), and Veijo Tervonen and his crew at the Kaamanen Reindeer Experimental Station for the data. For their valuable assistance and support, Heikki Törmänen, Harri Norberg, Jouko Kumpula and Leena Aikio of the Reindeer Research Station in Kaamanen are also thanked. Thanks to Anne Loison and Marco Festa-Bianchet for inspiring discussions on an early draft of the manuscript. This research is supported by funding from the Norwegian Research Council (project no. 157891/432) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to R. B. W.

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, QC, H4B 1R6, Canada

    Robert B. Weladji

  2. Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432, Ås, Norway

    Øystein Holand

  3. Laboratoire de Biométrie et de Biologie Evolutive, UMR-CNRS 5558, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 69622 Villeurbanne, Cedex, France

    Jean-Michel Gaillard

  4. Department of Biology, University of Tromsø, 9037, Tromsø, Norway

    Nigel G. Yoccoz

  5. Department of Biology, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES), University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1066, Blindern, 0316, Oslo, Norway

    Atle Mysterud & Nils C. Stenseth

  6. Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute, Reindeer Research Station, 99910, Kaamanen, Finland

    Mauri Nieminen

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  1. Robert B. Weladji
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  2. Øystein Holand
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  7. Nils C. Stenseth
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Correspondence to Robert B. Weladji.

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Communicated by Jörg Ganzhorn.

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Weladji, R.B., Holand, Ø., Gaillard, JM. et al. Age-specific changes in different components of reproductive output in female reindeer: terminal allocation or senescence?. Oecologia 162, 261–271 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-009-1443-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-009-1443-5

Keywords

  • Energy allocation
  • Life history tactics
  • Mother-age effects
  • Rangifer tarandus
  • Threshold models