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Exploring individual quality in a wild population of red deer
Author(s) -
Moyes Kelly,
Morgan Byron J. T.,
Morris Alison,
Morris Sean J.,
CluttonBrock Tim H.,
Coulson Tim
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of animal ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.134
H-Index - 157
eISSN - 1365-2656
pISSN - 0021-8790
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2008.01497.x
Subject(s) - trait , ecology , cervus elaphus , population , quality (philosophy) , range (aeronautics) , biology , geography , demography , computer science , philosophy , materials science , epistemology , sociology , composite material , programming language
Summary1 A wide range of measures are used to quantify ‘individual quality’, with the term often used but not defined. 2 Here 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. 3 Correlations between measures were usually small, indicating that individuals may be considered high quality for one trait, but low quality for another. 4 By using principal component analysis, we illustrate that there are potentially many varied individual life‐history tactics within a population. 5 This 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.