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Indeterminate growth in long-lived freshwater turtles as a component of individual fitness

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Abstract

Although evidence that reptiles exhibit indeterminate growth remains equivocal and based on inadequate data, the assumption that they do is still widely accepted as a general trait of reptiles. We examined patterns of variation in adult growth using long-term mark-recapture data on 13 populations of 9 species representing 3 families of freshwater turtles located in South Carolina, Michigan, and Arizona in the USA and in Ontario, Canada. Across 13 study populations, growth rates of all adults and only those that grew averaged 1.5 and 1.9 mm/yr respectively. Sources of variation in growth rates included species, population, sex, age, and latitude. Most adults of both sexes with recapture intervals greater than 10 years grew, but across all populations an average of 19 % of individuals did not grow (some with recapture intervals up to 30 years). For known-age adults of three species, the highest growth rates occurred during the 10 years following sexual maturity, and the proportions of non-growing individuals increased with age. Growth rates of adults were on average 92 % lower than those of juveniles. Based on linear relationships of clutch size and body size of females at average juvenile and adult growth rates it would take 0.7 (0.2–1.2) years and 8.6 (min–max = 2.3–18.5) years, respectively, to grow enough to increase clutch size by one egg. The majority of within population variation in adult body size in 3 species appeared to be a combination of differences in ages at maturity and juvenile and early adult growth, rather than indeterminate growth. The results from our study populations indicate that increases in body size (and associated reproductive output) that results from indeterminate growth are not substantial enough to represent a major factor in the evolution of life histories in general or the evolution of longevity and aging specifically.

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Acknowledgments

Roy Nagle and Owen Kinney, Richard van Loben Sels, and Todd Quinter provided many years of field assistance and continuity to the ESGR study. Judy Greene, Peggy Burkman, and Ruth Estes provided invaluable assistance with managing the extensive data sets from SREL and the ESGR. We thank Tony Tucker, Judy Greene, and Mike Dorcas for providing data on Malaclemys terrapin. R. G. Farmer provided assistance with analyses of growth rates. National Science Foundation grants supported some of the long-term research conducted by J.W.G. (DEB-79-04758) and J.D.C. (DEB-74-070631, DEB-79-06301, BSR-84-00861 and BSR-90-19771). The last half of the E. S. George Reserve study was primarily funded by J. Congdon and N. Dickson. Manuscript preparation was aided by the Environmental Remediation Sciences Division of the Office of Biological and Environmental Research, U.S. Department of Energy through the Financial Assistant Award no. DE-FC09-96SR18546 to the University of Georgia Research Foundation. Previous drafts of the manuscript were improved by comments from N. Dickson, M. Pappas, and L Vitt.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bar Boot Ranch, PO Box 1128, Douglas, AZ, 85608, USA

    Justin D. Congdon

  2. Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia, Drawer E, Aiken, SC, 29802, USA

    Justin D. Congdon, J. Whitfield Gibbons & Ria N. Tsaliagos

  3. Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada

    Ronald J. Brooks

  4. Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, B3H 4J1, Canada

    Njal Rollinson

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  1. Justin D. Congdon
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  2. J. Whitfield Gibbons
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  3. Ronald J. Brooks
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  4. Njal Rollinson
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  5. Ria N. Tsaliagos
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Correspondence to Justin D. Congdon.

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Congdon, J.D., Gibbons, J.W., Brooks, R.J. et al. Indeterminate growth in long-lived freshwater turtles as a component of individual fitness. Evol Ecol 27, 445–459 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-012-9595-x

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