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The cost of maturing early in a solitary carnivore

  • Population ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Central to the theory of life history evolution is the existence of trade-offs between different traits, such as the trade-off between early maturity and an extended period of body growth. Based on analysis of the reproductive tracts of harvested Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) females in Norway, we find that females that mature early are generally heavier than those that postpone maturation. A higher proportion of 1.5-year-old females showed signs of ovulation in areas with high prey density, where they were also heavier. Further, we show that female Eurasian lynx that mature early have the same number of placental scars (an index of breeding investment and litter size) as older females, suggesting that they have a relatively high investment in their first litter. This induces a cost in terms of body weight development, as those females that had matured at the age of 1.5 years were substantially lighter by the age of 2.5 years than those that postponed breeding. This effect tended to be more pronounced in areas with low prey density. We discuss to what extent this might affect their future fitness prospects, and suggest that such costs of maturing early in terms of body weight development might be high in terrestrial large carnivores due to a prolonged period of postnatal care.

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Acknowledgments

This study is based on data from the Norwegian Large Predator Monitoring Program financed by the Ministry of the Environment through the Directorate for Nature Management in Norway. We are grateful to Frode Holmstrøm for conducting the post-mortems, Håkon Slutaas for making the prey distribution maps, and to the Directorate for Nature Management and the Norwegian Research Council for financing this study. This project was also partly supported by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. Three anonymous referees provided valuable comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, 7485, Trondheim, Norway

    Erlend B. Nilsen, Henrik Brøseth, John Odden & John D. C. Linnell

Authors
  1. Erlend B. Nilsen
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  2. Henrik Brøseth
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  3. John Odden
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  4. John D. C. Linnell
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Correspondence to Erlend B. Nilsen.

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Communicated by Janne Sundell.

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Nilsen, E.B., Brøseth, H., Odden, J. et al. The cost of maturing early in a solitary carnivore. Oecologia 164, 943–948 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1713-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1713-2

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