Hi MarMamers,

We are excited to share our new paper on lifespan in Indo-Pacific
bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia:

McEntee, M. H. F., Foroughirad, V., Krzyszczyk, E., & Mann, J. (2023). Sex
bias in mortality risk changes over the lifespan of bottlenose
dolphins. *Proceedings
of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences*, *290*(2003), 20230675.
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0675

Research on sex biases in longevity in mammals often assumes that male
investment in competition results in a female survival advantage that is
constant throughout life. We use 35 years of longitudinal data on 1003 wild
bottlenose dolphins (*Tursiops aduncus*) to examine age-specific mortality,
demonstrating a time-varying effect of sex on mortality hazard over the
five-decade lifespan of a social mammal. Males are at higher risk of
mortality than females during the juvenile period, but the gap between male
and female mortality hazard closes in the mid-teens, coincident with the
onset of female reproduction. Female mortality hazard is non-significantly
higher than male mortality hazard in adulthood, resulting in a moderate
male bias in the oldest age class. Bottlenose dolphins have an intensely
male-competitive mating system, and juvenile male mortality has been linked
to social competition. Contrary to predictions from sexual selection
theory, however, male–male competition does not result in sustained
male-biased mortality. As female dolphins experience high costs of sexual
coercion in addition to long and energetically expensive periods of
gestation and lactation, this suggests that substantial female investment
in reproduction can elevate female mortality risk and impact sex biases in
lifespan.
Please contact me at mhm95 at georgetown.edu if you have any questions or
would like the pdf!

Best,
Molly

-- 
Molly McEntee, PhD
She/Her

Department of Biology
Georgetown University
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