Dataset: Reproductive ageing and pace-of-life syndromes

A common pattern of reproductive ageing is that reproductive performance increases during early life and reaches a peak, followed by a decline with age. Such quadratic reproductive ageing patterns can differ among individuals. Moreover, if individual differences in reproductive ageing patterns reflect individual-specific life-history trade-off strategies, they are also predicted to be associated with behaviour according to the pace-of-life syndrome. For example, more active, aggressive or bolder individuals may invest more in early reproduction, resulting in more rapid reproductive ageing. In this study, we estimated individual differences in quadratic reproductive ageing patterns and the relationship between reproductive ageing and the activity of the virgin female bean bug (Riptortus pedestris) in the absence of mating costs. We found that the egg production of virgin females followed a parabolic trajectory with age and that individuals varied significantly in their quadratic reproductive ageing patterns. In addition, we found that females that were relatively more active during early life invested in egg production more heavily at a young age and suffered from a sharper decline in egg production later in life. Thus, our results indicate that individual reproductive ageing patterns may be a key component in the study of pace-of-life syndromes. We suggest that within-individual plastic characteristics of life-history traits such as reproductive ageing patterns may explain the mixed results from multiple studies on pace-of-life syndromes.