Authors: Travis E Wilcoxen Raoul K Boughton Stephan J Schoech
Publish Date: 2010/04/30
Volume: 64, Issue: 10, Pages: 1527-1535
Abstract
In species that undergo actuarial senescence the value of current reproduction is predicted to increase relative to the value of future reproduction with age as the probability of survival to another reproductive event is reduced Therefore life history theory predicts that aging animals should increase their investment in reproduction However an increase in reproductive investment may carry significant costs to the breeding individuals We recorded provisioning rates of Florida scrubjay male breeders followed by their immediate capture to assess body condition and collect blood for an in vitro test of immunocompetence and an assay of baseline corticosterone for a measure of stress Older males provisioned offspring and brooding mates at the highest rates There was no evidence of any physiological deficits in males with high provisioning rates independent of age It appears that birds that survive to old age are high quality birds that maintain good physiological condition which complements the value of experience and permits maximal investment in offspringWe thank everyone at Archbold Biological Station for continued hospitality and support particularly R Bowman We are greatly indebted to MA Rensel and ES Bridge for their leadership and numerous contributions throughout the long field seasons Furthermore we thank GM Morgan MA Desrosiers and ZD Seilo for their hard work in the field and MD Venesky for cooking breakfast This work was supported by the National Science Foundation IBN034632 to SJS IBN0508418 to RKB and SJS and IOS0909620 to TEW and SJS Sigma Xi GrantinAid of Research to TEW the American Ornithologists’ Union Josselyn Van Tyne Student Research Award to TEW and the Florida Ornithological Society Cruickshank Research Award to TEW TEW was also supported by a Van Vleet Memorial Fellowship from the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Memphis during the course of this research The experiments in this work comply with the current laws of the United States of America and all methods were approved by the University of Memphis Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee
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