Data from: Do avian cooperative breeders live longer?

Cooperative breeding is not common in birds but intriguingly over-represented in several families, suggesting that predisposing factors, similar ecological constraints or a combination of the two facilitate the evolution of this breeding strategy. The life-history hypothesis proposes that cooperative breeding is facilitated by high annual survival, which increases the local population and leads to a shortage of breeding opportunities. An earlier comparative analysis in a small sample of birds supported the hypothesis but this conclusion has been controversial. Here, I extend the analysis to a larger, worldwide sample, and take into account potential confounding factors that may affect estimates of a slow pace of life. In a sample of 81 species pairs consisting of closely related cooperative and non-cooperative breeders, I did not find an association between maximum longevity and cooperative breeding, controlling for diet, body mass and sampling effort. However, in a smaller sample of 37 pairs, adult annual survival was indeed higher in the cooperative breeders, controlling for body mass. The results support the facilitating effect of high annual survival on the evolution of cooperative breeding in birds and cast doubts about the use of maximum longevity to estimate lifespan.