Increased reproductive investment associated with greater survival and longevity in Cassin's auklets

Abstract

Individuals increase lifetime reproductive output through a trade-off between investment in future survival and immediate reproductive success. This pattern may be obscured in certain higher quality individuals that possess greater reproductive potential. The Cassin's auklet ( Ptychoramphus aleuticus ) is a long-lived species where some individuals exhibit greater reproductive ability through a behaviour called double brooding. Here, we analyse 32 years of breeding histories from marked known-age auklets to test whether double brooding increases lifetime fitness despite the increased mortality and reduced lifespan higher reproductive effort would be expected to incur. Multistate mark–recapture modelling revealed that double brooding was strongly positively associated with higher annual survival and longevity. The mean (95% confidence interval) apparent survival was 0.69 (0.21, 0.91) for individuals that executed a single brood and 0.96 (0.84, 0.99) for those that double-brooded. Generalized linear mixed models indicated individuals that attempted multiple double broods over their lifetime were able to produce on average seven times as many chicks and live nearly 6 years longer than birds that never attempted a double brood. We found that high-quality individuals exhibited both increased reproductive effort and longevity, where heterogeneity in individual quality masked expected life-history trade-offs.