Pathways to fitness: carry-over effects of late hatching and urbanisation on lifetime mating success

Life history theory and most empirical studies assume carry-over effects of larval conditions to shape adult fitness through their impact on metamorphic traits (age and mass at metamorphosis). Yet, very few formal tests of this connection across metamorphosis exist, because this entails longitudinal studies from the egg stage and requires measuring fitness in (semi)natural conditions. In a longitudinal one-year common-garden rearing experiment consisting of an outdoor microcosm part for the larval stage and a large outdoor insectary part for the adult stage, we studied the effects of two factors related to time constraints in the larval stage (egg hatching period and urbanisation) on life history traits and lifetime mating success in the males of the damselfly Coenagrion puella. We reared early- and late-hatched larvae from each of three rural and three urban populations from the egg stage throughout their adult life. Key findings were that both the hatching period and urbanisation shap...