Independent Researcher, Canada.
Biol Lett. 2021 Jan;17(1):20200643. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2020.0643. Epub 2021 Jan 27.
Island species are often predictably different from their mainland counterparts. Milder climates and reduced predation risk on islands have been involved to explain shifts in body size and a suite of life-history traits such as clutch size and offspring growth rate. Despite the key role of adult survival on risk taking and reproduction, the prediction that living on islands increases adult survival has yet to be tested systematically. I gathered data on adult annual apparent survival from the island and mainland year-round resident species of birds from around the world. With this large dataset (697 species), I found that species of birds living on islands showed higher apparent survival than their mainland counterparts in the two Hemispheres and at all latitudes, controlling for several known predictors of adult survival, including body size, clutch size and breeding system. These results shed light on the ecological factors that influence survival on islands and extend the life-history island syndrome to adult survival.
岛屿物种通常与它们的大陆同类有可预测的差异。岛屿上较温和的气候和较低的捕食风险被认为是导致体型和一系列生活史特征（如窝卵数和后代生长率）发生变化的原因。尽管成年个体的存活率对冒险和繁殖行为有重要影响，但关于生活在岛屿上会增加成年个体存活率的预测尚未得到系统验证。我从世界各地的岛屿和大陆全年居住的鸟类中收集了有关成年个体年度明显存活率的数据。利用这个大型数据集（697 个物种），我发现，在两个半球和所有纬度上，生活在岛屿上的鸟类物种的明显存活率都高于它们的大陆同类，同时控制了包括体型、窝卵数和繁殖系统在内的几个已知的成年个体存活率预测因素。这些结果揭示了影响岛屿上生存的生态因素，并将生活史岛屿综合征扩展到了成年个体的存活率上。
