Viability of Booby Offspring is Maximized by Having One Young Parent and One Old Parent.

Four of six breeding traits measured during the period of parental care showed highly significant quadratic and linear effects of female age, and fledging success also showed highly significant quadratic and linear effects of male age, but none of the six was affected by the interaction of male and female ages ( Fig 2 , Table 2 ).Thus the pattern of parental age effects at the egg and nestling stages did not anticipate the pattern of their effects on fledgling recruitment.

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