Testing frameworks for early life effects: The developmental constraints and adaptive response hypotheses do not explain key fertility outcomes in wild female baboons

In evolutionary ecology, two classes of explanations are frequently invoked to explain \"early life effects\" on adult outcomes. Developmental constraints (DC) explanations contend that costs of early adversity arise from limitations adversity places on optimal development. Adaptive response (AR) hypotheses propose that later life outcomes will be worse when early and adult environments are poorly \"matched.\" Here, we use recently proposed mathematical definitions for these hypotheses and a quadratic-regression based approach to test the long-term consequences of variation in developmental environments on fertility in wild baboons. We evaluate whether low rainfall and/or dominance rank during development predict three female fertility measures in adulthood, and whether any observed relationships are consistent with DC and/or AR. Neither rainfall during development nor the difference between rainfall in development and adulthood predicted any fertility measures. Females who were low-ranking..., , , These data sets correspond to the analyses described in Rosenbaum et al. 2024, “Testing frameworks for early life effects: the developmental constraints and adaptive response hypotheses do not explain key fertility outcomes in wild female baboons.” (BIORXIV/2024/590627)

All three of the below data sets are described in detail in Section 2 and Tables 2 and 3 in the main text of the paper:

Conception data set (conception_data_4.16.2024.dta OR conception_data_4.16.2024.csv)
Live birth data set (live_birth_data_4.16.2024.dta OR live_birth_data_4.16.2024.csv)
Infant survival data set (infant_survival_data_4.16.2024.dta OR infant_survival_data_4.16.2024.csv)

The below data set is described in Section D and Table A5 in the supplementary materials:

Restricted version of the conception data set (conception_data_restricted_4.16.2024.dta OR conception_data_restricted_4.16.2024.csv)

Outcome variables (1 per data set; “conception” is the outcome in both conception_data_4.16.2024 *and* conceptio...