Olsson Mats, Shine Richard
School of Biological Sciences, The University of Sydney, Zoology Building AO8, 2006, NSW, Australia.
Oecologia. 1996 Jan;105(2):175-178. doi: 10.1007/BF00328543.
Most data on determinants of reproductive success (RS) and reproductive "tactics" are correlational in nature, and hence cannot be used to infer causation. Consistent patterns-such as an increase in RS with age, as seen in many types of organisms-may result from diverse underlying mechanisms. Ontogenetic increases in RS in mammals and birds may be due largely to direct effects of age (via learning, etc.) but our analyses show that apparently analogous ontogenetic shifts in reproductive tactics and increases in RS in sand lizards (Lacerta agilis) are actually due to ontogenetic changes in body size. When size effects are removed, age exerts very little effect on either reproductive behaviour or RS in either sex. In many taxa, both age and body size may exert important effects on reproductive biology, and disentangling these effects should be a focus of further research.
大多数关于繁殖成功率（RS）的决定因素和繁殖“策略”的数据本质上都是相关性的，因此不能用于推断因果关系。一些一致的模式——比如在许多生物种类中都能看到的繁殖成功率随年龄增长而增加——可能是由多种潜在机制导致的。哺乳动物和鸟类繁殖成功率的个体发育增加可能主要归因于年龄的直接影响（通过学习等方式），但我们的分析表明，沙蜥（捷蜥蜴）繁殖策略中明显类似的个体发育转变以及繁殖成功率的增加实际上是由于体型的个体发育变化。去除体型影响后，年龄对两性的繁殖行为或繁殖成功率的影响都很小。在许多分类群中，年龄和体型都可能对繁殖生物学产生重要影响，厘清这些影响应该是进一步研究的重点。
