CRITERIA OF REPRODUCTIVE SUCCESS

To determine reproductive success, it is necessary for the researcher to specify a criterion of success, such as the number of a parent's of fspring living to the age of reproduction. A measurement model, which includes the researcher's choice of criterion, has been proposed to es timate the lifetime reproductive success (R) of long-lived animals fro m complete or incomplete knowledge of the reproductive life histories of mothers and the survival fates of offspring. This research uses R a nd data from female baboons of Mikumi National Park, Tanzania, as vehi cles to investigate the relationship between reproductive success and several criteria. Secondarily, it also investigates the relationship b etween R and the number and rate of offspring production. Seven criter ia of reproductive success, ranging in 12-month increments from 0 (bir th) to 72 months of offspring life, were applied to 10.5 years of repr oductive data from 61 Mikumi females. Theoretically, the best scenario for comparative purposes is an invariant R across different criteria; however, the mean R systematically increased as the criteria increase d. This is more an inconvenience than a serious problem because high c orrelations indicate high predictability between Rs from pairs of crit eria. R was modestly correlated with the rate of offspring production, indicating that rate can be employed as a rough index of reproductive success. The choice of a criterion is a trade off between theory, pra cticality, the strength of the criterion, and the effect of the choice upon sample representativeness and size. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.