A future food boom rescues the negative effects of early-life adversity on adult lifespan in a small mammal.

Early-life adversity, even when transient, can have lasting effects on individual phenotypes and reduce lifespan across species. If these effects can be mitigated by a high-quality later-life environment, then differences in future resources may explain variable resilience to early-life adversity. Using data from over 1000 wild North American red squirrels, we tested the hypothesis that the costs of early-life adversity for adult lifespan could be offset by later-life food abundance. We identified six adversities that reduced juvenile survival in the first year of life, though only one-birth date-had continued independent effects on adult lifespan. We then built a weighted early-life adversity (wELA) index integrating the sum of adversities and their effect sizes. Greater weighted early-life adversity predicted shorter adult lifespans in males and females, but a naturally occurring food boom in the second year of life ameliorated this effect. Experimental food supplementation did not replicate this pattern, despite increasing lifespan, indicating that the buffering effect of a future food boom may hinge on more than an increase in available calories. Our results suggest a non-deterministic role of early-life conditions for later-life phenotype, highlighting the importance of evaluating the consequences of early-life adversity in the context of an animal's entire life course.

Habitat alteration or climate: What drives the densities of an invading ungulate?

Anthropogenic habitat alteration and climate change are two well-known contributors to biodiversity loss through changes to species distribution and abundance; yet, disentangling the effects of these two factors is often hindered by their inherent confound across both space and time. We leveraged a contrast in habitat alteration associated with the jurisdictional boundary between two Canadian provinces to evaluate the relative effects of spatial variation in habitat alteration and climate on white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) densities. White-tailed deer are an invading ungulate across much of North America, whose expansion into Canada's boreal forest is implicated in the decline of boreal caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), a species listed as Threatened in Canada. We estimated white-tailed deer densities using 300 remote cameras across 12 replicated 50 km2 landscapes over 5 years. White-tailed deer densities were significantly lower in areas where winter severity was higher. For example, predicted deer densities declined from 1.83 to 0.35 deer/km2 when winter severity increased from the lowest value to the median value. There was a tendency for densities to increase with increasing habitat alteration; however, the magnitude of this effect was approximately half that of climate. Our findings suggest that climate is the primary driver of white-tailed deer populations; however, understanding the mechanisms underpinning this relationship requires further study of over-winter survival and fecundity. Long-term monitoring at the invasion front is needed to evaluate the drivers of abundance over time, particularly given the unpredictability of climate change and increasing prevalence of extreme weather events.

Effectiveness of population-based recovery actions for threatened southern mountain caribou.

Habitat loss is affecting many species, including the southern mountain caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) population in western North America. Over the last half century, this threatened caribou population's range and abundance have dramatically contracted. An integrated population model was used to analyze 51 years (1973-2023) of demographic data from 40 southern mountain caribou subpopulations to assess the effectiveness of population-based recovery actions at increasing population growth. Reducing potential limiting factors on threatened caribou populations offered a rare opportunity to identify the causes of decline and assess methods of recovery. Southern mountain caribou abundance declined by 51% between 1991 and 2023, and 37% of subpopulations were functionally extirpated. Wolf reduction was the only recovery action that consistently increased population growth when applied in isolation, and combinations of wolf reductions with maternal penning or supplemental feeding provided rapid growth but were applied to only four subpopulations. As of 2023, recovery actions have increased the abundance of southern mountain caribou by 52%, compared to a simulation with no interventions. When predation pressure was reduced, rapid population growth was observed, even under contemporary climate change and high levels of habitat loss. Unless predation is reduced, caribou subpopulations will continue to be extirpated well before habitat conservation and restoration can become effective.

Inferring condition in wild mammals: body condition indices confer no benefit over measuring body mass across ecological contexts.

Many studies assume that it is beneficial for individuals of a species to be heavier, or have a higher body condition index (BCI), without accounting for the physiological relevance of variation in the composition of different body tissues. We hypothesized that the relationship between BCI and masses of physiologically important tissues (fat and lean) would be conditional on annual patterns of energy acquisition and expenditure. We studied three species with contrasting ecologies in their respective natural ranges: an obligate hibernator (Columbian ground squirrel, Urocitellus columbianus), a facultative hibernator (black-tailed prairie dog, Cynomys ludovicianus), and a food-caching non-hibernator (North American red squirrel, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). We measured fat and lean mass in adults of both sexes using quantitative magnetic resonance (QMR). We measured body mass and two measures of skeletal structure (zygomatic width and right hind foot length) to develop sex- and species-specific BCIs, and tested the utility of BCI to predict body composition in each species. Body condition indices were more consistently, and more strongly correlated, with lean mass than fat mass. The indices were most positively correlated with fat when fat was expected to be very high (pre-hibernation prairie dogs). In all cases, however, BCI was never better than body mass alone in predicting fat or lean mass. While the accuracy of BCI in estimating fat varied across the natural histories and annual energetic patterns of the species considered, measuring body mass alone was as effective, or superior in capturing sufficient variation in fat and lean in most cases.

Benefits of living closer to kin vary by genealogical relationship in a territorial mammal.

While cooperative interactions among kin are a key building block in the societies of group-living species, their importance for species with more variable social environments is unclear. North American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) defend individual territories in dynamic neighbourhoods and are known to benefit from living among familiar conspecifics, but not relatives. However, kin-directed behaviours may be restricted to specific genealogical relationships or strongly mediated by geographical distance, masking their influence at broader scales. Using distance between territories as a proxy for the ability of individuals to interact, we estimated the influence of primary kin (parents, offspring, siblings) on the annual survival and reproductive success of red squirrels. This approach revealed associations between fitness and access to kin, but only for certain genealogical relationships and fitness components. For example, females had enhanced annual survival when living closer to their daughters, though the reverse was not true. Most surprising was the finding that males had higher annual reproductive success when living closer to their father, suggesting possible recognition and cooperation among fathers and sons. Together, these findings point to unexpected nuance in the fitness consequences of kinship dynamics for a species that is territorial and largely solitary.

When death comes: linking predator-prey activity patterns to timing of mortality to understand predation risk.

The assumption that activity and foraging are risky for prey underlies many predator-prey theories and has led to the use of predator-prey activity overlap as a proxy of predation risk. However, the simultaneous measures of prey and predator activity along with timing of predation required to test this assumption have not been available. Here, we used accelerometry data on snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) and Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) to determine activity patterns of prey and predators and match these to precise timing of predation. Surprisingly we found that lynx kills of hares were as likely to occur during the day when hares were inactive as at night when hares were active. We also found that activity rates of hares were not related to the chance of predation at daily and weekly scales, whereas lynx activity rates positively affected the diel pattern of lynx predation on hares and their weekly kill rates of hares. Our findings suggest that predator-prey diel activity overlap may not always be a good proxy of predation risk, and highlight a need for examining the link between predation and spatio-temporal behaviour of predator and prey to improve our understanding of how predator-prey behavioural interactions drive predation risk.

Does coat colour influence survival? A test in a cyclic population of snowshoe hares.

Some mammal species inhabiting high-latitude biomes have evolved a seasonal moulting pattern that improves camouflage via white coats in winter and brown coats in summer. In many high-latitude and high-altitude areas, the duration and depth of snow cover has been substantially reduced in the last five decades. This reduction in depth and duration of snow cover may create a mismatch between coat colour and colour of the background environment, and potentially reduce the survival rate of species that depend on crypsis. We used long-term (1977-2020) field data and capture-mark-recapture models to test the hypothesis that whiteness of the coat influences winter apparent survival in a cyclic population of snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) at Kluane, Yukon, Canada. Whiteness of the snowshoe hare coat in autumn declined during this study, and snowshoe hares with a greater proportion of whiteness in their coats in autumn survived better during winter. However, whiteness of the coat in spring did not affect subsequent summer survival. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the timing of coat colour change in autumn can reduce overwinter survival. Because declines in cyclic snowshoe hare populations are strongly affected by low winter survival, the timing of coat colour change may adversely affect snowshoe hare population dynamics as climate change continues.

Density-dependent plasticity in territoriality revealed using social network analysis.

Territories are typically defined as spatially exclusive areas that are defended against conspecifics. Given the spatial nature of territoriality, it is inherently density dependent, but the economics of territoriality also depend on the distribution and abundance of defended resources. Our objectives were to assess the effects of changing population density and food availability on individually based territorial phenotypes. We developed a novel analytical framework that bridges spatially explicit territories with social network analysis to model density-dependent territorial phenotypes. Using the outputs from our data pipeline, we modelled plasticity in territory size and territory intrusion rates in a long-term study population of North American red squirrels Tamiasciurus hudsonicus. Red squirrels defend year-round territories around a central hoard (midden) of white spruce Picea glauca cones. Importantly, white spruce is a masting species that produces large cone crops every 4-7 years (i.e. mast years) in our study area interspersed with non-mast years when few cones are produced. In the spring following mast years, populations are approximately double in size, but are lower in the spring of non-mast years. We predicted that territory size and intrusion rates would decrease as resource abundance, and consequently population density, increased. By contrast, as resource abundance decreased via depletion, and therefore density decreased, territories should increase in size and intrusions should also increase. As we expected, individual territory size and territorial intrusions were negatively density dependent, such that increased density after mast years resulted in smaller territories and fewer intrusions. When considering between-individual variation in plasticity across a density gradient, individuals responded differently to changes in population density within their lifetime. Our results show that territory size and intrusion rates display negative density dependence. When food becomes available in the autumn of a mast year and density in spring of the following year increases, territories shrink in size to effectively a small area around the midden. While our findings for red squirrels are unique compared to other systems, they serve as a reminder that the direction and strength of fundamental ecological relationships can depend on the nature of the system.

The ecology of human-carnivore coexistence.

With a shrinking supply of wilderness and growing recognition that top predators can have a profound influence on ecosystems, the persistence of large carnivores in human-dominated landscapes has emerged as one of the greatest conservation challenges of our time. Carnivores fascinate society, yet these animals pose threats to people living near them, resulting in high rates of carnivore death near human settlements. We used 41 y of demographic data for more than 2,500 brown bears-one of the world's most widely distributed and conflict-prone carnivores-to understand the behavioral and demographic mechanisms promoting carnivore coexistence in human-dominated landscapes. Bear mortality was high and unsustainable near people, but a human-induced shift to nocturnality facilitated lower risks of bear mortality and rates of conflict with people. Despite these behavioral shifts, projected population growth rates for bears in human-dominated areas revealed a source-sink dynamic. Despite some female bears successfully reproducing in the sink areas, bear persistence was reliant on a supply of immigrants from areas with minimal human influence (i.e., wilderness). Such mechanisms of coexistence reveal a striking paradox: Connectivity to wilderness areas supplies bears that likely will die from people, but these bears are essential to avert local extirpation. These insights suggest carnivores contribute to human-carnivore coexistence through behavioral and demographic mechanisms, and that connected wilderness is critical to sustain coexistence landscapes.

Balancing food acquisition and predation risk drives demographic changes in snowshoe hare population cycles.

Snowshoe hare cycles are one of the most prominent phenomena in ecology. Experimental studies point to predation as the dominant driving factor, but previous experiments combining food supplementation and predator removal produced unexplained multiplicative effects on density. We examined the potential interactive effects of food limitation and predation in causing hare cycles using an individual-based food-supplementation experiment over-winter across three cycle phases that naturally varied in predation risk. Supplementation doubled over-winter survival with the largest effects occurring in the late increase phase. Although the proximate cause of mortality was predation, supplemented hares significantly decreased foraging time and selected for conifer habitat, potentially reducing their predation risk. Supplemented hares also lost less body mass which resulted in the production of larger leverets. Our results establish a mechanistic link between how foraging time, mass loss and predation risk affect survival and reproduction, potentially driving demographic changes associated with hare cycles.

MASTREE+: Time-series of plant reproductive effort from six continents.

Significant gaps remain in understanding the response of plant reproduction to environmental change. This is partly because measuring reproduction in long-lived plants requires direct observation over many years and such datasets have rarely been made publicly available. Here we introduce MASTREE+, a data set that collates reproductive time-series data from across the globe and makes these data freely available to the community. MASTREE+ includes 73,828 georeferenced observations of annual reproduction (e.g. seed and fruit counts) in perennial plant populations worldwide. These observations consist of 5971 population-level time-series from 974 species in 66 countries. The mean and median time-series length is 12.4 and 10 years respectively, and the data set includes 1122 series that extend over at least two decades (≥20 years of observations). For a subset of well-studied species, MASTREE+ includes extensive replication of time-series across geographical and climatic gradients. Here we describe the open-access data set, available as a.csv file, and we introduce an associated web-based app for data exploration. MASTREE+ will provide the basis for improved understanding of the response of long-lived plant reproduction to environmental change. Additionally, MASTREE+ will enable investigation of the ecology and evolution of reproductive strategies in perennial plants, and the role of plant reproduction as a driver of ecosystem dynamics.

Aún existen importantes vacíos en la comprensión de la respuesta reproductiva de las plantas al cambio medioambiental, en parte, porque su monitoreo en especies de plantas longevas requiere una observación directa durante muchos años, y estos conjuntos de datos rara vez han estado disponibles. Aquí presentamos a MASTREE +, una base de datos que recopila series de tiempo de la reproducción de las plantas de todo el planeta, poniendo a disposición estos datos de libre acceso para la comunidad científica. MASTREE + incluye 73.828 puntos de observación de la reproducción anual georreferenciados (ej. conteos de semillas y frutos) en poblaciones de plantas perennes en todo el mundo. Estas observaciones consisten en 5971 series temporales a nivel de población provenientes de 974 especies en 66 países. La mediana de la duración de las series de tiempo es de 10 años (media = 12.4 años) y el conjunto de datos incluye 1.122 series de al menos dos décadas (≥20 años de observaciones). Para un subconjunto de especies bien estudiadas, MASTREE +incluye un amplio conjunto de series temporales replicadas en gradientes geográficos y climáticos. Describimos el conjunto de datos de acceso abierto disponible como un archivo.csv y presentamos una aplicación web asociada para la exploración de datos. MASTREE+ proporcionará la base para mejorar la comprensión sobre la respuesta reproductiva de plantas longevas al cambio medioambiental. Además, MASTREE+ facilitará los avances en la investigación de la ecología y la evolución de las estrategias reproductivas en plantas perennes y el papel de la reproducción vegetal como determinante de la dinámica de ecosistemas.

The glucocorticoid response to environmental change is not specific to agents of natural selection in wild red squirrels.

Evolutionary endocrinology aims to understand how natural selection shapes endocrine systems and the degree to which endocrine systems themselves can induce phenotypic responses to environmental changes. Such responses may be specialized in that they reflect past selection for responsiveness only to those ecological factors that ultimately influence natural selection. Alternatively, endocrine responses may be broad and generalized, allowing organisms to cope with a variety of environmental changes simultaneously. Here, we empirically tested whether the endocrine response of female North American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) was specialized or generalized. We first quantified the direction and magnitude of natural selection acting on three female life history traits (parturition date, litter size, offspring postnatal growth rate) during 32 years of fluctuations in four potential ecological agents of selection (food availability, conspecific density, predator abundance, and temperature). Only three of the four variables (food, density, and predators) affected patterns of natural selection on female life history traits. We then quantified fecal glucocorticoid metabolites (FGMs) across 7 years and found that all four environmental variables, regardless of their effects on patterns of selection, were associated with glucocorticoid production. Our results provide support for a generalized, rather than specific, glucocorticoid response to environmental change that can integrate across multiple co-occurring environmental stressors.

Indigenous-led conservation: Pathways to recovery for the nearly extirpated Klinse-Za mountain caribou.

Indigenous Peoples around the northern hemisphere have long relied on caribou for subsistence and for ceremonial and community purposes. Unfortunately, despite recovery efforts by federal and provincial agencies, caribou are currently in decline in many areas across Canada. In response to recent and dramatic declines of mountain caribou populations within their traditional territory, West Moberly First Nations and Saulteau First Nations (collectively, the "Nations") came together to create a new vision for caribou recovery on the lands they have long stewarded and shared. The Nations focused on the Klinse-Za subpopulation, which had once encompassed so many caribou that West Moberly Elders remarked that they were "like bugs on the landscape." The Klinse-Za caribou declined from ~250 in the 1990s to only 38 in 2013, rendering Indigenous harvest of caribou nonviable and infringing on treaty rights to a subsistence livelihood. In collaboration with many groups and governments, this Indigenous-led conservation initiative paired short-term population recovery actions, predator reduction and maternal penning, with long-term habitat protection in an effort to create a self-sustaining caribou population. Here, we review these recovery actions and the promising evidence that the abundance of Klinse-Za caribou has more than doubled from 38 animals in 2013 to 101 in 2021, representing rapid population growth in response to recovery actions. With looming extirpation averted, the Nations focused efforts on securing a landmark conservation agreement in 2020 that protects caribou habitat over a 7986-km2 area. The Agreement provides habitat protection for >85% of the Klinse-Za subpopulation (up from only 1.8% protected pre-conservation agreement) and affords moderate protection for neighboring caribou subpopulations (29%-47% of subpopulation areas, up from 0%-20%). This Indigenous-led conservation initiative has set both the Indigenous and Canadian governments on the path to recover the Klinse-Za subpopulation and reinstate a culturally meaningful caribou hunt. This effort highlights how Indigenous governance and leadership can be the catalyst needed to establish meaningful conservation actions, enhance endangered species recovery, and honor cultural connections to now imperiled wildlife.

Social Effects on Annual Fitness in Red Squirrels.

When resources are limited, mean fitness is constrained and competition can cause genes and phenotypes to enhance an individual's own fitness while reducing the fitness of their competitors. Negative social effects on fitness have the potential to constrain adaptation, but the interplay between ecological opportunity and social constraints on adaptation remains poorly studied in nature. Here, we tested for evidence of phenotypic social effects on annual fitness (survival and reproductive success) in a long-term study of wild North American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) under conditions of both resource limitation and super-abundant food resources. When resources were limited, populations remained stable or declined, and there were strong negative social effects on annual survival and reproductive success. That is, mean fitness was constrained and individuals had lower fitness when other nearby individuals had higher fitness. In contrast, when food resources were super-abundant, populations grew and social constraints on reproductive success were greatly reduced or eliminated. Unlike reproductive success, social constraints on survival were not significantly reduced when food resources were super-abundant. These findings suggest resource-dependent social constraints on a component of fitness, which have important potential implications for evolution and adaptation.

Saving endangered species using adaptive management.

Adaptive management is a powerful means of learning about complex ecosystems, but is rarely used for recovering endangered species. Here, we demonstrate how it can benefit woodland caribou, which became the first large mammal extirpated from the contiguous United States in recent history. The continental scale of forest alteration and extended time needed for forest recovery means that relying only on habitat protection and restoration will likely fail. Therefore, population management is also needed as an emergency measure to avoid further extirpation. Reductions of predators and overabundant prey, translocations, and creating safe havens have been applied in a design covering >90,000 km2 Combinations of treatments that increased multiple vital rates produced the highest population growth. Moreover, the degree of ecosystem alteration did not influence this pattern. By coordinating recovery involving scientists, governments, and First Nations, treatments were applied across vast scales to benefit this iconic species.

Trophic consequences of terrestrial eutrophication for a threatened ungulate.

Changes in primary productivity have the potential to substantially alter food webs, with positive outcomes for some species and negative outcomes for others. Understanding the environmental context and species traits that give rise to these divergent outcomes is a major challenge to the generality of both theoretical and applied ecology. In aquatic systems, nutrient-mediated eutrophication has led to major declines in species diversity, motivating us to seek terrestrial analogues using a large-mammal system across 598 000 km2 of the Canadian boreal forest. These forests are undergoing some of the most rapid rates of land-use change on Earth and are home to declining caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) populations. Using satellite-derived estimates of primary productivity, coupled with estimates of moose (Alces alces) and wolf (Canis lupus) abundance, we used path analyses to discriminate among hypotheses explaining how habitat alteration can affect caribou population growth. Hypotheses included food limitation, resource dominance by moose over caribou, and apparent competition with predators shared between moose and caribou. Results support apparent competition and yield estimates of wolf densities (1.8 individuals 1000 km-2) above which caribou populations decline. Our multi-trophic analysis provides insight into the cascading effects of habitat alteration from forest cutting that destabilize terrestrial predator-prey dynamics. Finally, the path analysis highlights why conservation actions directed at the proximate cause of caribou decline have been more successful in the near term than those directed further along the trophic chain.

Maternal glucocorticoids have minimal effects on HPA axis activity and behavior of juvenile wild North American red squirrels.

As a response to environmental cues, maternal glucocorticoids (GCs) may trigger adaptive developmental plasticity in the physiology and behavior of offspring. In North American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus), mothers exhibit increased GCs when conspecific density is elevated, and selection favors more aggressive and perhaps more active mothers under these conditions. We tested the hypothesis that elevated maternal GCs cause shifts in offspring behavior that may prepare them for high-density conditions. We experimentally elevated maternal GCs during gestation or early lactation. We measured two behavioral traits (activity and aggression) in weaned offspring using standardized behavioral assays. Because maternal GCs may influence offspring hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dynamics, which may in turn affect behavior, we also measured the impact of our treatments on offspring HPA axis dynamics (adrenal reactivity and negative feedback), and the association between offspring HPA axis dynamics and behavior. Increased maternal GCs during lactation, but not gestation, slightly elevated activity levels in offspring. Offspring aggression and adrenal reactivity did not differ between treatment groups. Male, but not female, offspring from mothers treated with GCs during pregnancy exhibited stronger negative feedback compared with those from control mothers, but there were no differences in negative feedback between lactation treatment groups. Offspring with higher adrenal reactivity from mothers treated during pregnancy (both controls and GC-treated) exhibited lower aggression and activity. These results suggest that maternal GCs during gestation or early lactation alone may not be a sufficient cue to produce substantial changes in behavioral and physiological stress responses in offspring in natural populations.

The impact of variable predation risk on stress in snowshoe hares over the cycle in North America's boreal forest: adjusting to change.

The boreal forest is one of the world's ecosystems most affected by global climate warming. The snowshoe hare, its predators, and their population dynamics dominate the mammalian component of the North American boreal forest. Our past research has shown the 9-11-year hare cycle to be predator driven, both directly as virtually all hares that die are killed by their predators, and indirectly through sublethal risk effects on hare stress physiology, behavior, and reproduction. We replicated this research over the entire cycle by measuring changes in predation risk expected to drive changes in chronic stress. We examined changes in hare condition and stress axis function using a hormonal challenge protocol in the late winter of 7 years-spanning all phases of the cycle from the increase through to the low (2014-2020). We simultaneously monitored changes in hare abundance as well as those of their primary predators, lynx and coyotes. Despite observing the expected changes in hare-predator numbers over the cycle, we did not see the predicted changes in chronic stress metrics in the peak and decline phases. Thus, the comprehensive physiological signature indicative of chronic predator-induced stress seen from our previous work was not present in this current cycle. We postulate that hares may now be increasingly showing behavior-mediated rather than stress-mediated responses to their predators. We present evidence that increases in primary productivity have affected boreal community structure and function. We speculate that climate change has caused this major shift in the indirect effects of predation on hares.

Contribution of late-litter juveniles to the population dynamics of snowshoe hares.

Determining the factors driving cyclic dynamics in species has been a primary focus of ecology. For snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus), explanations of their 10-year population cycles most commonly feature direct predation during the peak and decline, in combination with their curtailment in reproduction. Hares are thought to stop producing third and fourth litters during the cyclic decline and do not recover reproductive output for several years. The demographic effects of these reproductive changes depend on the consistency of this pattern across cycles, and the relative contribution to population change of late-litter versus early litter juveniles. We used monitoring data on snowshoe hares in Yukon, Canada, to examine the contribution of late-litter juveniles to the demography of their cycles, by assigning litter group for individuals caught in autumn based on body size and capture date. We found that fourth-litter juveniles occur consistently during the increase phase of each cycle, but are rare and have low over-winter survival (0.05) suggesting that population increase is unlikely to be caused by their occurrence. The proportion of third-litter juveniles captured in the autumn remains relatively constant across cycle phases, while over-winter survival rates varies particularly for earlier-litter juveniles (0.14-0.39). Juvenile survival from all litters is higher during the population increase and peak, relative to the low and decline. Overall, these results suggest that the transition from low phase to population growth may stem in large part from changes in juvenile survival as opposed to increased reproductive output through the presence of a 4th litter.

The new kid on the block: immigrant males win big whereas females pay fitness cost after dispersal.

Dispersal is nearly universal; yet, which sex tends to disperse more and their success thereafter depends on the fitness consequences of dispersal. We asked if lifetime fitness differed between residents and immigrants (successful between-population dispersers) and their offspring using 29 years of monitoring from North American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) in Canada. Compared to residents, immigrant females had 23% lower lifetime breeding success (LBS), while immigrant males had 29% higher LBS. Male immigration and female residency were favoured. Offspring born to immigrants had 15-43% lower LBS than offspring born to residents. We conclude that immigration benefitted males, but not females, which appeared to be making the best of a bad lot. Our results are in line with male-biased dispersal being driven by local mate competition and local resource enhancement, while the intergenerational cost to immigration is a new complication in explaining the drivers of sex-biased dispersal.