Rural populations of the red fox Vulpes vulpes show little evidence of reproductive senescence |
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| Institution: | 1. Grupo de Investigación Arqueobiología, Instituto de Historia, CCHS, CSIC, Albasanz 26-28, 28037 Madrid, Spain;2. University of Caen Normandy, CNRS, EPHE PSL, Université d''Angers, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Université de Nantes, Université de Rennes 2, UMR LETG, Esplanade de la Paix, 14032 Caen, France;3. Department of Forestry and Natural Environment Management, Eastern Macedonia & Thrace Institute of Technology, 66100 Drama, Greece;4. LGP-UMR 8591 CNRS, Université de Paris Est-Créteil, 1 place Aristide Briand, 92195 Meudon Cedex, France;1. Univ. Rennes, CNRS, Géosciences Rennes, UMR 6118, CNRS, F-35000 Rennes, France;2. Applied Isotope Research Group, Departamento de Geologia, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, MG 35400000, Brazil;3. Sorbonne Universités, Paléobotanique & Paléoécologie, CR2P, UPMC Paris 6 - MNHN -CNRS, F-75005 Paris, France;4. State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, People’s Republic of China;1. Laboratoire Lagrange (UMR7293), Université Côte d’Azur / Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, Boulevard de lObservatoire, CS 34229, 06300 Nice, France;2. Institut Universitaire de France, 103 Boulevard Saint-Michel, 75005 Paris, France;3. Lund Observatory, Department of Astronomy and Theoretical Physics, Lund University, Box 43, 22100 Lund, Sweden |
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| Abstract: | The ageing theory predicts fast and early senescence for fast-living species. We investigated whether the pattern of senescence of a medium-sized, fast-living and heavily-culled mammal, the red fox (Vulpes vulpes), fits this theoretical prediction. We used cross-sectional data from a large-scale culling experiment of red fox conducted over six years in five study sites located in two regions of France to explore the age-related variation in reproductive output. We used both placental scars and embryos counts from 755 vixens’ carcasses aged by the tooth cementum method (age range: 1–10), as proxies for litter size. Mean litter size per vixen was 4.7 ± 1.4. Results from Generalized Additive Mixed Models revealed a significant variation of litter size with age. Litter size peaked at age 4 with 5.0 ± 0.2 placental scars and decreased thereafter by 0.5 cubs per year. Interestingly, we found a different age-specific variation when counting embryos which reached a plateau at age 5–6 (5.5 ± 0.2) and decreased slower than placental scars across older ages, pointing out embryo resorption as a potential physiological mechanism of reproductive senescence in the red fox. Contrary to our expectation, reproductive senescence is weak, occurs late in life and takes place at an age reached by less than 11.7% of the population such that very few females exhibit senescence in these heavily culled populations. |
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| Keywords: | Litter size Placental scar count Embryo count Reproductive senescence |
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