Effects of food availability on female condition (body mass), fertility (timing of oestrus, urinary estradiol level at oestrus - noted urinary E2) and mating success.

‘Experiment’ accounts for potential differences in baseline levels among experiments 1 and 2. ‘Food effect’ accounts for the effect of food shortage (CR individuals, whatever the level of food shortage) versus no food limitation (AL individuals). ‘Food × Experiment’ interaction accounts for a difference in the impact of chronic versus acute caloric restriction (see methods for more details). Estimates (mean ±SE) and tests were obtained from linear models for body mass and E2 (after log-transformation), and with generalized linear models with a log-link (date of oestrus) or a logit-link function (Mating success). Significant differences are indicated in bold. Urinary E2 values were expressed in pg of E2 per mg of Creatinine.