Hurricanes affect diversification among individual life courses of a primate population

Extreme climatic events may influence individual-level variability in phenotypes, survival, and reproduction, and thereby drive the pace of evolution. Climate models predict increases in the frequency of intense hurricanes, but no study has measured their impact on individual life courses within animal populations. We used 45 years of demographic data of rhesus macaques to quantify the influence of major hurricanes on reproductive life courses using multiple metrics of dynamic heterogeneity accounting for life course variability and life history trait variances. To reduce intraspecific competition, individuals may explore new reproductive stages during years of major hurricanes, resulting in higher temporal variation in reproductive trajectories. Alternatively, individuals may opt for a single optimal life history strategy due to trade-offs between survival and reproduction. Our results show that heterogeneity in reproductive life courses increased by 4% during years of major hurricanes, despite a 2% reduction in the asymptotic growth rate due to an average decrease in mean fertility and survival, i.e. shortened life courses and reduced reproductive output. In agreement with this, the population is expected to achieve stable population dynamics faster after being perturbed by a hurricane (ρ = 1.512; 95% CI: 1.488, 1.538), relative to ordinary years (ρ = 1.482;1.475,1.490). Our work suggests that natural disasters force individuals into new demographic roles to potentially reduce competition during unfavorable environments where mean reproduction and survival are compromised. Variance in lifetime reproductive success and longevity are differently affected by hurricanes, and such variability is mostly driven by survival.