Understanding life history evolution in tropical and southern hemisphere bi
rds has been hindered by a paucity of knowledge of key life history traits
and this is particularly true of African songbirds. Here we use a unique lo
ng-term mark-recapture data set collected over 16 years in Malawi (latitude
16 degreesS) to estimate adult survival rates for 28 African passerine spe
cies. Survival of these and 11 other African songbirds (taken from the lite
rature) showed a bi-modal distribution with annual survival of insectivores
and nectarivores (bulbuls, thrushes, warblers and sunbirds) averaging 72%
(quartiles 63-80%) compared to 54% (50-62%) in granivores (weavers, finches
and canaries). The mean adult life expectancy of African insectivores and
nectarivores (3.1 yr) was more than twice that of related European insectiv
ores (1.4 yr) and nearly twice that of African granivores (1.6 yr). These m
arked differences in survival were highly significant after controlling for
body mass and phylogeny. Among African songbirds there was a strong negati
ve correlation between adult survival and clutch size with granivores layin
g relatively large clutches and living relatively short lives. We hypothesi
ze that these differing life history trade-offs reflect Variation in the se
asonality of food resources whereby survival rates of northern temperate so
ngbirds may be limited by food availability and cold weather during winter,
while survival of southern African granivores may be limited by the influe
nce of a variable and unpredictable rainfall regime on seed availability.