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Exploring individual quality in a wild population of red deer
Article first published online: 30 OCT 2008
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2008.01497.x
© 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 British Ecological Society
Additional Information
How to Cite
Moyes, K., Morgan, B. J. T., Morris, A., Morris, S. J., Clutton-Brock, T. H. and Coulson, T. (2009), Exploring individual quality in a wild population of red deer. Journal of Animal Ecology, 78: 406–413. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2008.01497.x
Publication History
- Issue published online: 9 FEB 2009
- Article first published online: 30 OCT 2008
- Received 14 May 2008; accepted 29 September 2008; Handling Editor: Peter Bennett
Keywords:
- fitness;
- individual heterogeneity;
- phenotypic variation;
- trade-offs
Summary
- 1A wide range of measures are used to quantify ‘individual quality’, with the term often used but not defined.
- 2Here we use detailed data from a population of red deer (Cervus elaphus) to assess whether frequently used measures of individual quality are well correlated, and therefore likely to lead to comparable ecological and evolutionary insight in analyses.
- 3Correlations between measures were usually small, indicating that individuals may be considered high quality for one trait, but low quality for another.
- 4By using principal component analysis, we illustrate that there are potentially many varied individual life-history tactics within a population.
- 5This variation in tactics makes it challenging to characterize individual quality as a simple scalar; measures of heterogeneity in ecological studies should therefore be both species and question specific.