Oecologia, volume 183, issue 4, pages 1065-1076

Reproductive allocation in pulsed-resource environments: a comparative study in two populations of wild boar

Marlène Gamelon 1
Stefano Focardi 2
Eric Baubet 3
Serge Brandt 3
Barbara Franzetti 4
Francesca Ronchi 4
Samuel Venner 5
Bernt–Erik Sæther 1
Jean-Michel Gaillard 5
Show full list: 9 authors
2
 
CNR, Istituto per i Sistemi Complessi, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
3
 
Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage, Châteauvillain, France
4
 
Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale, Ozzano dell’emilia, Bologna, Italy
5
 
Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Évolutive, CNRS UMR 5558, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France
Publication typeJournal Article
Publication date2017-02-03
Journal: Oecologia
scimago Q1
wos Q2
SJR0.962
CiteScore5.1
Impact factor2.3
ISSN00298519, 00298549, 14321939
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Abstract
Pulsed resources influence the demography and evolution of consumer populations and, by cascading effect, the dynamics of the entire community. Mast seeding provides a case study for exploring the evolution of life history traits of consumers in fluctuating environments. Wild boar (Sus scrofa) population dynamics is related to seed availability (acorns/beechnuts). From a long-term monitoring of two populations subjected to markedly different environmental contexts (i.e., both low vs. high frequency of pulsed resources and low vs. high hunting pressure in Italy and in France, respectively), we assessed how pulsed resources shape the reproductive output of females. Using path analyses, we showed that in both populations, abundant seed availability increases body mass and both the absolute and the relative (to body mass) allocation to reproduction through higher fertility. In the Italian population, females equally relied on past and current resources for reproduction and ranked at an intermediate position along the capital-income continuum of breeding tactics. In contrast, in the French population, females relied on current more than past resources and ranked closer to the income end of the continuum. In the French population, one-year old females born in acorn-mast years were heavier and had larger litter size than females born in beechnut-mast years. In addition to the quantity, the type of resources (acorns/beechnuts) has to be accounted for to assess reliably how females allocate resources to reproduction. Our findings highlight a high plasticity in breeding tactics in wild boar females and provide new insight on allocation strategies in fluctuating environments.
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