Meeting Abstract
Senescence is defined as the decline in an individual’s prospect of survival and reproductive rate with increasing age. In the lab and in wild populations of vertebrates, the theory of senescence has illustrated links between onset of reproduction, reproductive effort, and later survival. Even so, studies of reproductive senescence in wild populations of long-lived oviparous organisms are relatively rare. Turtles are well suited for investigating this issue because they display variation in reproduction, indeterminate growth, and are long-lived organisms. We used a long-term data set focusing on a specific subset of adult females from a wild population of painted turtles (Chrysemys picta) to explore long-term fitness consequences of reproductive strategies and aging. This was done by statistically evaluating females of known age classes and comparing egg, offspring, and nesting characteristics over many years across entire reproductive lifetimes. We provide results that offer insights into the interactions of age, reproduction, and fitness.
