Cargando…

When fecundity does not equal fitness: evidence of an offspring quantity versus quality trade-off in pre-industrial humans

Maternal fitness should be maximized by the optimal division of reproductive investment between offspring number and offspring quality. While evidence for this is abundant in many taxa, there have been fewer tests in mammals, and in particular, humans. We used a dataset of humans spanning three gene...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Gillespie, Duncan O.S, Russell, Andrew F, Lummaa, Virpi
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2366115/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18211874
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2007.1000
_version_ 1782154262605725696
author Gillespie, Duncan O.S
Russell, Andrew F
Lummaa, Virpi
author_facet Gillespie, Duncan O.S
Russell, Andrew F
Lummaa, Virpi
author_sort Gillespie, Duncan O.S
collection PubMed
description Maternal fitness should be maximized by the optimal division of reproductive investment between offspring number and offspring quality. While evidence for this is abundant in many taxa, there have been fewer tests in mammals, and in particular, humans. We used a dataset of humans spanning three generations from pre-industrial Finland to test how increases in maternal fecundity affect offspring quality and maternal fitness in contrasting socio-economic conditions. For ‘resource-poor’ landless families, but not ‘resource-rich’ landowning families, maternal fitness returns diminished with increased maternal fecundity. This was because the average offspring contribution to maternal fitness declined with increased maternal fecundity for landless but not landowning families. This decline was due to reduced offspring recruitment with increased maternal fecundity. However, in landowning families, recruited offspring fecundity increased with increased maternal fecundity. This suggests that despite decreased offspring recruitment, maternal fitness is not reduced in favourable socio-economic conditions due to an increase in subsequent offspring fecundity. These results provide evidence consistent with an offspring quantity–quality trade-off in the lifetime reproduction of humans from poor socio-economic conditions. The results also highlight the importance of measuring offspring quality across their whole lifespan to estimate reliably the fitness consequences of increased maternal fecundity.
format Text
id pubmed-2366115
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2008
publisher The Royal Society
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-23661152008-12-08 When fecundity does not equal fitness: evidence of an offspring quantity versus quality trade-off in pre-industrial humans Gillespie, Duncan O.S Russell, Andrew F Lummaa, Virpi Proc Biol Sci Research Article Maternal fitness should be maximized by the optimal division of reproductive investment between offspring number and offspring quality. While evidence for this is abundant in many taxa, there have been fewer tests in mammals, and in particular, humans. We used a dataset of humans spanning three generations from pre-industrial Finland to test how increases in maternal fecundity affect offspring quality and maternal fitness in contrasting socio-economic conditions. For ‘resource-poor’ landless families, but not ‘resource-rich’ landowning families, maternal fitness returns diminished with increased maternal fecundity. This was because the average offspring contribution to maternal fitness declined with increased maternal fecundity for landless but not landowning families. This decline was due to reduced offspring recruitment with increased maternal fecundity. However, in landowning families, recruited offspring fecundity increased with increased maternal fecundity. This suggests that despite decreased offspring recruitment, maternal fitness is not reduced in favourable socio-economic conditions due to an increase in subsequent offspring fecundity. These results provide evidence consistent with an offspring quantity–quality trade-off in the lifetime reproduction of humans from poor socio-economic conditions. The results also highlight the importance of measuring offspring quality across their whole lifespan to estimate reliably the fitness consequences of increased maternal fecundity. The Royal Society 2008-01-23 2008-03-22 /pmc/articles/PMC2366115/ /pubmed/18211874 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2007.1000 Text en Copyright © 2008 The Royal Society http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Gillespie, Duncan O.S
Russell, Andrew F
Lummaa, Virpi
When fecundity does not equal fitness: evidence of an offspring quantity versus quality trade-off in pre-industrial humans
title When fecundity does not equal fitness: evidence of an offspring quantity versus quality trade-off in pre-industrial humans
title_full When fecundity does not equal fitness: evidence of an offspring quantity versus quality trade-off in pre-industrial humans
title_fullStr When fecundity does not equal fitness: evidence of an offspring quantity versus quality trade-off in pre-industrial humans
title_full_unstemmed When fecundity does not equal fitness: evidence of an offspring quantity versus quality trade-off in pre-industrial humans
title_short When fecundity does not equal fitness: evidence of an offspring quantity versus quality trade-off in pre-industrial humans
title_sort when fecundity does not equal fitness: evidence of an offspring quantity versus quality trade-off in pre-industrial humans
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2366115/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18211874
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2007.1000
work_keys_str_mv AT gillespieduncanos whenfecunditydoesnotequalfitnessevidenceofanoffspringquantityversusqualitytradeoffinpreindustrialhumans
AT russellandrewf whenfecunditydoesnotequalfitnessevidenceofanoffspringquantityversusqualitytradeoffinpreindustrialhumans
AT lummaavirpi whenfecunditydoesnotequalfitnessevidenceofanoffspringquantityversusqualitytradeoffinpreindustrialhumans