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The contribution of extra-pair paternity to the variation in lifetime and age-specific male reproductive success in a socially monogamous species

Raj Pant, Sara1

Published Feb 24, 2022 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dfn2z350d

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Feb 24, 2022 version files 122.14 KB

Abstract

In socially monogamous species, extra-pair paternity (EPP) is predicted to increase variance in male reproductive success beyond that resulting from genetic monogamy, thus increasing the ‘opportunity for selection’ (maximum strength of selection that can act on a trait). This prediction is challenging to investigate in wild populations because lifetime reproduction data are often incomplete. Moreover, age-specific variances in reproductive success have been rarely quantified. We analysed 21 years of near-complete social and genetic reproduction data from an insular population of Seychelles warblers (Acrocephalus sechellensis). We quantified the contribution of EPP to lifetime and age-specific opportunities for selection in males. We also compared the variance in male genetic reproductive success (RS) vs. social (‘apparent’) reproductive success (RSap) to assess if EPP increased the opportunity for selection over that resulting from genetic monogamy. EPP contributed substantially to the variance in lifetime RS, despite not causing a statistically significant excess of this over the variance in lifetime RSap. Partitioning the opportunity for selection into age-specific (co)variance components, showed that EPP provided a substantial contribution at most ages, varying with age. Therefore, in Seychelles warblers EPP likely provides an age-dependent contribution to the opportunity for selection, which can influence evolutionary processes in age-structured populations.