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Packer, C.; Pusey, A.
The lack of clutch in a communal breeder: Lion litter size is a mixed evolutionarily stable strategy
1995 The American Naturalist (145): 833-841
Several models have been developed to explain why vertebrate clutch sizes are generally smaller than the size that maximizes short-term reproductive success. First, animals may show "individual optimization", where parents with inadequate resources rear smaller broods than those with the highest recourse base. Second, smaller broods may be favored by evolutionary "bet hedging". Third, smaller brood sizes have emphasized game-theoretic aspects of brood size in insects, but vertebrate studies have neglected the possible effects of neighbors' clutch sizes on parental payoffs. Here we present evidence from African lions that the productivity of a female's litter depends on the sizes of her companions' litters. We view communal rearing in lions as a discrete-strategy game in which large litter sizes can invade populations with small litter size and vice versa. We suggest that the "optimal" litter size in lions is frequency-dependent and that the observed distribution of litters sizes is adaptive.
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