Data from: Senescence rates and late adulthood reproductive success are strongly influenced by personality in a long lived seabird

Studies are increasingly demonstrating that individuals differ in their rate of ageing, and this is postulated to emerge from a trade-off between current and future reproduction. Recent theory predicts a correlation between individual personality and life-history strategy, and from this comes the prediction that personality may predict the intensity of senescence. Here we show that boldness correlates with reproductive success and foraging behaviour in wandering albatrosses, with strong sex-specific differences. Shy males show a strong decline in reproductive performance with age, and bold females have lower reproductive success in later adulthood. In both sexes, bolder birds have longer foraging trips and gain more mass per trip as they get older. However, the benefit of this behaviour appears to differ between the sexes, such that it is only matched by high reproductive success in males. Together our results suggest that personality linked foraging adaptations with age are strongly sex-specific in their fitness benefits and that the impact of boldness on senescence is linked to ecological parameters.

越来越多的研究证实，个体的衰老速率存在差异，该现象被认为源于当前繁殖与未来繁殖之间的权衡取舍。最新理论预测，个体人格与生活史策略之间存在相关性，由此可推导出人格或许能够预测衰老的强度。本研究以漂泊信天翁（wandering albatrosses）为研究对象，证实大胆性（boldness）与其繁殖成功率和觅食行为存在相关性，且该关联存在显著的性别特异性差异。害羞的雄性个体的繁殖性能随年龄增长出现显著下降，而大胆的雌性个体在成年后期的繁殖成功率更低。在两个性别中，个体的大胆程度越高，其觅食航程越长，且随年龄增长每次觅食航程获得的体质量增益越多。然而，该行为带来的益处存在性别差异：仅在雄性个体中，这种行为模式与高繁殖成功率相匹配。综上，本研究结果表明，与人格相关的、随年龄变化的觅食适应策略，其适合度收益存在强烈的性别特异性，且大胆性对衰老的影响与生态参数存在关联。