The Soay sheep population of Sr. Kilda fluctuates widely in population size
and ses ratio. so that the level of male-male competition for mates varies
from one rut to the nest. In this paper we investigate variation in indivi
dual male breeding success in relation to age and population size at the ru
t. and its outcome in terms of lifetime breeding success. Since both sexes
are promiscuous, and census-based behavioural data do not predict paternity
, we conducted the whole analysis on breeding success derived by molecular
techniques. We assumed that every male living in our study area during the
rut (N= 68-294 in different years) was a candidate father for each subseque
nt lamb, and used the parentage inference software CERVUS 1.0, applied to u
p to 17 allozyme and microsatellite loci; to infer paternity at 95% and 80%
confidence. Using 945 paternities assigned at 80% confidence, we show that
juvenile rams (aged 7 months) and yearling rams (aged 19 months, regularly
obtained paternities and that mean individual breeding success varied inve
rsely with levels of competition in the rut for all age classes of ram. The
proportion of young (juvenile and yearling) and adult rams gaining one or
more paternities showed similar variation with population size, but the sib
ship size sired by young and adult breeders showed different patterns: adul
t rams sired larger sibships at low population size. while the size of sibs
hips sired by young rams was small across all population sizes. Variable br
eeding success by young rams approximately halved the estimated coefficient
of variation in lifetime breeding success of Soay rams. (C) 1999 The Linne
an Society of London.