Trade‐offs between age‐related breeding improvement and survival senescence in highly polygynous elephant seals: Dominant males always do better

Life‐history trade‐off theory predicts that current reproduction can negatively affect survival and future reproduction. Few studies have assessed breeding costs for males of polygynous species compared to females, despite substantial variation in breeding success among individual males (e.g. subordinate cf. dominant breeders). Specifically, differentiating between the cost of attending breeding events, and the additional cost of successfully securing and mating females is lacking. We investigated whether trade‐offs are present in the highly polygynous male southern elephant seal Mirounga leonina using 34 years of individual‐level data. We compare age‐specific survival, recruitment and future breeding success probabilities of pre‐breeders (males yet to recruit) and breeders (subordinate and dominant social ranks) using multievent models. Pre‐breeders and breeders of overlapping ages had similar survival probabilities, suggesting that there was no attendance cost for early recruits. In addition, the probability of recruiting as a dominant breeder never exceeded recruitment probability as a subordinate breeder of the same age. Therefore, older pre‐breeders that delayed attendance costs generally did not improve their breeding success (probability of being dominant) at recruitment more than younger recruits. Rather, recruitment age may be a function of individual quality, with lower quality individuals requiring more time to socially mature. When comparing subordinate and dominant breeders, we found clear evidence for survival senescence, with subordinate breeders having a higher baseline mortality. In contrast, age‐specific future breeding success (probability of being dominant at t + 1) increased with age, with dominant breeders maintaining higher subsequent breeding success than subordinate breeders. The opposite trends in survival and future breeding success for both subordinate and dominant breeders may indicate a lifetime, population‐level trade‐off. However, we found no evidence to suggest that being a dominant breeder consecutively (and having a higher accumulated breeding cost) accelerated the rate of senescence when compared to individuals that were previously subordinate. Thus, males experienced actuarial senescence regardless of social rank, with dominant (and possibly high quality) breeders showing a reduced trade‐off between survival and future breeding success. We make several novel contributions to understanding polygynous male life histories