Abstract
Maturation (the age when organisms are physiologically capable of breeding) is one of the major life history traits that have pervasive implications for reproductive strategies, fitness, and population growth. Sex differences in maturation are common in nature, although the causes of such differences are not understood. Fisher and Lack proposed that delayed maturation in males is expected when males are under intense sexual selection, but their proposition has never been tested across a wide range of taxa. By using phylogenetic comparative analyses and the most comprehensive dataset to date, including 201 species from 59 avian families, we show that intense sexual selection on males (as indicated by polygamous mating and male‐skewed sexual size dimorphism) correlates with delayed maturation. We also show that the adult sex ratio (ASR), an indicator of the social environment, is associated with sex‐specific maturation because in species with a female‐skewed ASR, males experience later maturation. Phylogenetic path analyses suggest that adult sex ratio drives interspecific changes in the intensity of sexual selection which, in turn, influences maturation. These results are robust to alternative phylogenetic hypotheses and to potential life‐history confounds, and they provide the first comprehensive support of Fisher's and Lack's propositions. Importantly, our work suggests that both social environment and mate competition influence the evolution of a major life history trait, maturation.
Highlights
Maturation times have major fitness consequences by influencing longevity and the number of breeding opportunities, and males and females often mature at different ages
Consistent with these results, maturation bias is correlated with sexual size dimorphism, since the larger sex matures later than the smaller sex (Fig. 2B)
Our results suggest that females may delay maturation when they are more polygamous, and experience more intense sexual selection than males
Summary
Maturation times have major fitness consequences by influencing longevity and the number of breeding opportunities, and males and females often mature at different ages. This is attributed to selection favoring divergent maturation optima among sexes, but the selective factors driving maturation bias. Age at sexual maturation is one of the most important lifehistory traits of organisms because it greatly affects fitness by influencing the number of reproductive opportunities and survival (Roff 2002) and, mating success in males and fecundity in females (Stearns and Koella 1986). The nature of these selective forces and the ultimate causes of maturation bias, are controversial and not fully understood (Wiley 1974; Stamps and Krishnan 1997)
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