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Integrating Fitness Components Reveals That Survival Costs Outweigh Other Benefits and Costs of Group Living in Two Closely Related Species

Brouwer, Lyanne; Cockburn, Andrew; van de Pol, Martijn

Description

Group living can be beneficial when individuals reproduce or survive better in the presence of others, but, simultaneously, there might be costs due to competition for resources. Positive and negative effects on various fitness components might thus counteract each other, so integration is essential to determine their overall effect. Here, we investigated how an integrated fitness measure (reproductive values [RVs]) based on six fitness components varied with group size among group members in...[Show more]

dc.contributor.authorBrouwer, Lyanne
dc.contributor.authorCockburn, Andrew
dc.contributor.authorvan de Pol, Martijn
dc.date.accessioned2020-09-11T03:32:17Z
dc.identifier.issn0003-0147
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/209978
dc.description.abstractGroup living can be beneficial when individuals reproduce or survive better in the presence of others, but, simultaneously, there might be costs due to competition for resources. Positive and negative effects on various fitness components might thus counteract each other, so integration is essential to determine their overall effect. Here, we investigated how an integrated fitness measure (reproductive values [RVs]) based on six fitness components varied with group size among group members in cooperatively breeding red-winged and superb fairy wrens (Malurus elegans and Malurus cyaneus, respectively). Despite life-history differences between the species, patterns of RVs were similar, suggesting that the same behavioral mechanisms are important. Group living reduced RVs for dominant males, but for other group members, this was true only in large groups. Decomposition analyses showed that our integrated fitness proxy was most strongly affected by group size effects on survival and was amplified through carryover effects between years. Our study shows that integrative consideration of fitness components and subsequent decomposition analysis provide much needed insights into the key behavioral mechanisms shaping the costs and benefits of group living. Such attribution is crucial if we are to synthesize the relative importance of the myriad group size costs and benefits currently reported in the literature.
dc.description.sponsorshipWork was supported by a Rubicon fellowship of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO825.08.003) awarded to L.B. and by fellowships and grants from the Australian Research Council awarded to L.B. (DE130100174), A.C. (DP0451018, DP1092565), and M.v.d.P. (FT120100204).
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.language.isoen_AU
dc.publisherUniversity of Chicago Press
dc.rights© 2020 by The University of Chicago
dc.sourceThe American Naturalist
dc.titleIntegrating Fitness Components Reveals That Survival Costs Outweigh Other Benefits and Costs of Group Living in Two Closely Related Species
dc.typeJournal article
local.description.notesImported from ARIES
local.identifier.citationvolume195
dc.date.issued2020-02-28
local.identifier.absfor060201 - Behavioural Ecology
local.identifier.ariespublicationu9511635xPUB2016
local.publisher.urlhttp://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/journals/journal/an.html
local.type.statusPublished Version
local.contributor.affiliationBrouwer, Lyanne, College of Science, ANU
local.contributor.affiliationCockburn, Andrew, College of Science, ANU
local.contributor.affiliationvan de Pol, Martijn, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW)
dc.relationhttp://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE130100174
dc.relationhttp://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP0451018
dc.relationhttp://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP1092565
dc.relationhttp://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/FT120100204
local.bibliographicCitation.issue2
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage201
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage215
local.identifier.doi10.1086/706475
local.identifier.absseo970106 - Expanding Knowledge in the Biological Sciences
dc.date.updated2020-06-07T08:20:50Z
local.identifier.scopusID2-s2.0-85077910092
dcterms.accessRightsOpen Access
dc.provenancehttps://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/id/publication/14504..."The published version can be archived in a Non-Commercial Institutional Repository. 12 months embargo" from SHERPA/RoMEO site (as at 11/09/2020).
CollectionsANU Research Publications

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