A comparison of sex-specific senescence patterns in a long-lived marine mammal

The lifetime fitness of an individual is determined by the integrated results of survival and reproduction. Improving our understanding of variation in survival senescence within and between species will therefore provide greater insight into the evolution of different life history strategies. Survival is influenced by multiple factors, consequently, variation in patterns of senescence is expected between individuals and sexes and across mating systems and the continuum of life history strategies. To date there is little consensus regarding the mechanisms driving the evolution of sex differences in actuarial senescence, necessitating the need for studies of sex-specific senescence for species across a wide range of life histories. Here we used 37 years of data for 1,879 female and 1,474 male Weddell seals from Erebus Bay, Antarctica, to estimate and compare sex-specific patterns of survival rates using basis splines which allow flexible modeling of age-specific patterns. The Weddell sea..., Every Weddell seal pup born in the Erebus Bay study area has been marked in the interdigital webbing of the rear flippers with unique livestock tags. Each year surveys are conducted throughout the study area to record every seal present. This information has been processed to create encounter histories of individuals that were used in modeling age-specific probabilities of survival and detection.  , , # A comparison of sex-specific senescence patterns in a long-lived marine mammal

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4b8gthtp1](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4b8gthtp1)

## Description of the data and file structure

These data include encounter histories of Weddell seals that were born between 1982 and 2016 in the Erebus Bay study area. Encounter histories start at age 3 for each individual and include observations from 1985-2019.
### Files and variables

#### File: EH\_female.rds

**Description:** This file includes encounter histories of female Weddell seals from 1985-2019. The encounter history begins at age 3 for each individual. Each row is associated with an encounter history for a single individual. Each column represents each year of the encounter history. 

The following values represent different states:

0: Zero represents an individual that was not recaptured in that year and has yet to be seen for the first time after age 2 or was not subsequently seen again after final recapt...