Centre for Agri-Environmental Research, School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading, Earley Gate, Reading, UK.
Ecol Lett. 2013 Apr;16(4):438-45. doi: 10.1111/ele.12060. Epub 2013 Jan 30.
Dispersal is a key process in population and evolutionary ecology. Individual decisions are affected by fitness consequences of dispersal, but these are difficult to measure in wild populations. A long-term dataset on a geographically closed bird population, the Mauritius kestrel, offers a rare opportunity to explore fitness consequences. Females dispersed further when the availability of local breeding sites was limited, whereas male dispersal correlated with phenotypic traits. Female but not male fitness was lower when they dispersed longer distances compared to settling close to home. These results suggest a cost of dispersal in females. We found evidence of both short- and long-term fitness consequences of natal dispersal in females, including reduced fecundity in early life and more rapid aging in later life. Taken together, our results indicate that dispersal in early life might shape life history strategies in wild populations.
扩散是种群和进化生态学中的一个关键过程。个体决策受到扩散的适应后果的影响，但在野生种群中很难测量这些后果。一个关于地理上封闭的鸟类种群——毛里求斯隼的长期数据集提供了一个探索适应后果的难得机会。当本地繁殖地点的供应受到限制时，雌性会扩散得更远，而雄性的扩散则与表型特征相关。与靠近家乡定居相比，雌性的扩散距离较长时，其适应性较低，但雄性的适应性没有降低。这些结果表明，雌性的扩散存在成本。我们发现了雌性在扩散方面的短期和长期适应后果的证据，包括在早期生活中降低了繁殖力，以及在后期生活中更快的衰老。总的来说，我们的结果表明，早期生活中的扩散可能会塑造野生种群的生活史策略。
