Search for: All records

Across mammals, fertility and offspring survival are often lowest at the beginning and end of females’ reproductive careers. However, extrinsic drivers of reproductive success—including infanticide by males—could stochastically obscure these expected age-related trends. Here, we modelled reproductive ageing trajectories in two cercopithecine primates that experience high rates of male infanticide: the chacma baboon (Papio ursinus) and the gelada (Theropithecus gelada). We found that middle-aged mothers generally achieved the shortest interbirth intervals in chacma baboons. By contrast, old gelada females often showed shorter interbirth intervals than their younger group-mates with one exception: the oldest females typically failed to produce additional offspring before their deaths. Infant survival peaked in middle-aged mothers in chacma baboons but in young mothers in geladas. While infant mortality linked with maternal death increased as mothers aged in both species, infanticide risk did not predictably shift with maternal age. Thus, infanticide patterns cannot explain the surprising young mother advantage observed in geladas. Instead, we argue that this could be a product of their graminivorous diets, which might remove some energetic constraints on early reproduction. In sum, our data suggest that reproductive ageing is widespread but may be differentially shaped by ecological pressures.