REPRODUCTIVE POTENTIAL PREDICTS LONGEVITY OF FEMALE MEDITERRANEAN FRUIT FLIES (reproductive clock/mortality/depletion of eggs/egg-laying trajectory/modeling/bootstrap)

Reproduction exacts a price in terms of decreased survival. Our analysis of the interplay between age-patterns of fecundity and mortality for individual female medflies (Ceratitis capitata) reveals that individual mortality is associated with the time dynamics of the egg-laying trajectory. We find, in a sample of 531 medflies, that each individual has a characteristic rate of decline in egg laying with age. This defines an individual’s rate of reproductive exhaustion. This rate is shown to predict subsequent mortality. The larger the remaining reproductive potential, the lower is the subsequent mortality. Increased mortality risk is seen in flies for which egg production declines rapidly early on, irrespective of the level of egg production. Thus reproductive potential and lifetime are coupled in such a way that those flies which are able to profit most from an extended lifespan in terms of increased egg output indeed are likely to live longer.