Data from: Apparent annual survival estimates of tropical songbirds better reflect life history variation when based on intensive field methods

Adult survival is central to theories explaining latitudinal gradients in life history strategies. Life history theory predicts higher adult survival in tropical than north temperate regions given lower fecundity and parental effort. Early studies were consistent with this prediction, but standard-effort netting studies in recent decades suggested that apparent survival rates in temperate and tropical regions strongly overlap. Such results do not fit with life history theory. Targeted marking and resighting of breeding adults yielded higher survival estimates in the tropics, but this approach is thought to overestimate survival because it does not sample social and age classes with lower survival. We compared the effect of field methods on tropical survival estimates and their relationships with life history traits.

成体存活率是阐释生活史策略纬度梯度差异的核心理论要素。生活史理论预测，鉴于热带地区的繁殖力与亲本投入更低，其成体存活率应高于北温带区域。早期研究与该预测相符，但近数十年开展的标准化采样投入网捕研究却显示，温带与热带地区的表观存活率高度重叠。这类结果与生活史理论并不契合。针对繁殖成体的定向标记与重见调查得到了更高的热带地区存活率估算值，但该方法被认为会高估存活率，因其未对存活率较低的社会类群与年龄类群进行采样。本研究对比了不同野外调查方法对热带地区存活率估算的影响，以及这些估算值与生活史性状的关联关系。