High hunting pressure selects for earlier birth date: wild boar as a case study.
Exploitation by humans affects the size and structure of populations. This has evolutionary and demographic consequences that have typically being studied independent of one another. We here applied a framework recently developed applying quantitative tools from population ecology and selection gradient analysis to quantify the selection on a quantitative trait-birth date-through its association with multiple fitness components. From the long-term monitoring (22 years) of a wild boar (Sus scrofa scrofa) population subject to markedly increasing hunting pressure, we found that birth dates have advanced by up to 12 days throughout the study period. During the period of low hunting pressure, there was no detectable selection. However, during the period of high hunting pressure, the selection gradient linking breeding probability in the first year of life to birth date was negative, supporting current life-history theory predicting selection for early births to reproduce within the first year of life with increasing adult mortality.
Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, Unité Mixte de Recherche 5175, campus CNRS, 1919 route de Mende, Montpellier Cedex 5, France. marlene.gamelon@univ-lyon1.fr
Marlène
M
Gamelon
Aurélien
A
Besnard
Jean-Michel
JM
Gaillard
Sabrina
S
Servanty
Eric
E
Baubet
Serge
S
Brandt
Olivier
O
Gimenez
D000367:Age Factors; D000818:Animals; D005602:France; D056084:Genetic Fitness / Q000502:physiology*; D006802:Human Activities; D008954:Models, Biological; D036801:Parturition / Q000502:physiology*; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012641:Selection, Genetic / Q000502:physiology*; D034421:Sus scrofa / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors