The sperm of aging male bustards retards their offspring's development

Understanding whether the sperm of older males has a diminished capacity to produce successful offspring is a key challenge in evolutionary biology. We investigate this issue using 10 years of reproductive data on captive long-lived houbara bustards (Chlamydotis undulata), where the use of artificial insemination techniques means parents can only influence offspring quality via their gametes. Here we show that paternal aging reduces both the likelihood that eggs hatch and the rate at which chicks grow, with older males producing the lightest offspring after the first month. Surprisingly, this cost of paternal aging on offspring development is of a similar scale to that associated with maternal aging. Fitting with predictions on germline aging, the sperm of immature males produce the fastest growing offspring. Our findings thus indicate that any good genes benefit that might be offered by older 'proven' males will be eroded by aging of their germline DNA.