Life Sciences Commons^™

Sex Effects On Life Span And Senescence In The Wild When Dates Of Birth And Death Are Unknown, Felix Zajitschek, Chad Brassil, Russell Bonduriansky, Robert C. Brooks

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Males and females allocate and schedule reproductive effort in very different ways. Because the timing and amount of reproductive effort influence survival and thus the optimization of life histories, mortality and senescence are predicted to be sex specific. However, age-specific mortality rates of wild animals are often difficult to quantify in natural populations. Studies that report mortality rates from natural populations are, therefore, almost entirely confined to long-lived, easy-to-track species such as large mammals and birds. Here, we employ a novel approach using capture–mark–recapture data from a wild population of black field crickets (Teleogryllus commodus) to test for …