Abstract
Life-history theory predicts that animals should develop adaptive trade-offs between survival and reproduction to maximize their fitness. This results in a continuum of life-history strategies among species, ranging from slow to fast paces-of-life. The optimal pace-of-life has been shown to vary within environmental gradients, with a commonly observed pattern of a slow-to-fast continuum from the tropics to the poles. Within species, pace-of-life variability has however received much less attention. In this study, we investigated whether or not the pace-of-life of populations within a species follows the expected slow–fast continuum associated with latitude. We analysed the variability of life-history strategies among populations of the European roller Coracias garrulus, a long-distance migratory species, comparing breeding parameters and adult survival between populations across a latitudinal gradient. The findings showed a negative correlation between survival and clutch size in roller populations, with a slower pace-of-life in the northern populations and a faster pace-of-life in the southern populations: a reverse gradient to what might be expected from inter-specific studies. These results suggest that northern populations would benefit from measures enhancing adult survival probability, such as reduction in harvesting rates, while southern populations would respond better to actions favouring reproductive success, such as nesting site provisioning. This study highlights that life-history traits can vary substantially between populations of a single species with a large latitudinal breeding range, and pinpoint how knowledge about this variability may be key in anticipating different populations’ responses to threats as well as to conservation strategies.
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The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dr Laura Benestan for her useful comments on the manuscript. We are also grateful to the Groupe Ornithologique du Roussillon, Patrick Mayet, Juan Rodríguez and Mónica Expósito, all the national park rangers involved in the field, BirdLife Hungary volunteers and ringers, and the numerous A Rocha France interns, students, and volunteers who participated in the fieldwork. We also thank the National Parks of Bükk, Kiskunság, Hortobágy, Körös-Maros, and Duna-Ipoly for their contribution to the fieldwork and allowing us to work on national park grounds. Two anonymous reviewers provided useful comments which improved an earlier version of this paper.
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Fieldwork in Hungary was supported by LIFE13/NAT/HU/000081 and HU-SRB/0901/122/120. Financial support was provided by FCT/MCTES through national funding to CESAM (UID/AMB/50017/2019) and InBIO (UID/BIA/50027/2013 and POCI-01–0145-FEDER-006821). TC and IC were also supported by FCT (contract IF/00694/2015 and DL57/2016/CP1440/CT0023, respectively), and OK was supported by a grant (NKFI KH 130338).
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TS, IC, and AB conceived the ideas; all authors contributed substantially to the fieldwork methodology and data collection; TS analysed the data; TS, IC, and AB led the writing of the manuscript. All authors contributed critically to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.
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Communicated by Thomas Koert Lameris.
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Schwartz, T., Besnard, A., Avilés, J.M. et al. Geographical variation in pace-of-life in a long-distance migratory bird: implications for population management. Oecologia 197, 167–178 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-05012-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-05012-8