Data from: Grooming time predicts survival in American kestrels

Animals have evolved a variety of adaptations to care for the body
surface, such as grooming behavior, which keeps the integument clean,
parasite-free, and properly arranged.  Despite extensive research
on the grooming of mammals, birds, and arthropods, the survival value of
grooming has never been measured directly in natural
populations.  We monitored grooming and survival in a population
of marked American kestrels (Falco sparverius) on San Salvador Island,
Bahamas. We found a strong association between time spent grooming and
survival over a two-year period.  The quadratic relationship we
show is consistent with stabilizing natural selection on grooming
time.  To our knowledge, this is the first evidence for a
correlation between grooming time and survival in a natural
population.  Grooming time may predict the survival of many
animal taxa, but additional studies are needed to determine the shape and
strength of the relationship among birds, mammals and arthropods.