Lifetime reproductive success in reproductively suppressed female voles

Abstract

SummaryA population of the grey red‐backed vole, Clethrionomys rufocanus bedfordiae, was investigated on a 1 ha control grid and a 1 ha grid on which the voles were fed within a 2.1 ha outdoor enclosure in Hokkaido, Japan by live trapping from 1984 to 1986, for testing the Reproductive Suppression Model of Wasser and Barash (1983)‐females can optimize their lifetime reproductive success by suppressing reproduction when future conditions for the survival of offspring are likely to be sufficiently better than present ones as to exceed the costs of the suppression itself. Age at the first pregnancy more varied in a higher density population on the experimental grid and females could be classified into the early and the late reproductive type in two generations (A: females born from February to June 1985; B: females born from September to November 1985). Lifetime reproductive success (the number of pregnancies, the number of successful litters, and the number of offspring) was not different between the early and the late reproducing females. The late reproducing females lived for longer periods than the early reproducing females, so that the loss by delayed start of reproduction was compensated for by a longer life span. Life span was not different between offspring of the early and the late reproducing females. These facts supported the Reproductive Suppression Model.