First grow, then breed and finally get fat: hierarchical allocation to life-history traits in a lizard with invariant clutch size
2009
Abstract
In a laboratory experiment, we manipulated diet in adult females of the Madagascar ground gecko Paroedura picta. Both food-limited and well-fed females followed the same growth trajectory in body and head length.
In contrast, allocation to reproduction was highly nutrition-dependent. Although females in both treatment groups reproduced, food-limited females compromised both quantity and quality of their progeny: they laid clutches of smaller eggs in longer intervals.
Fat storage was formed only in well-fed females. We propose that the results are best explained by the consecutive hierarchical allocation of resources to growth, reproduction and storage, and discuss the consequences for investigation of life-history trade-offs.