Table 4.

Components of reproductive skew among populations of Thamnophis elegans for males and females

Ecotype	Population	Number of breeders	Reproductive successa	% multiply-sired littersa	I-Va	Skew within litter	Observed sires per litter	Operational sex ratio
L-fast
	Dams	30
	L2	13	11.84	38%	0.91		1.46	0.62
	L3	4	6.50	50%	1.49		1.50	0.86
	L4	13	11.00	62%	0.45		1.77	0.25
	Dam Avg.		10.77	50%	0.98		1.60	0.55
	Sires	39				0.12***
	L2	16	8.69		4.20	0.07*
	L3	5	4.20		2.55	0.06
	L4	18	6.78		2.72	0.17**
	Sires Avg.		7.23		3.59
M-slow
	Dams	26
	M1	8	6.50	25%	1.10		1.25	0.40
	M2	9	3.67	44%	0.27		1.67	0.68
	M3	9	6.11	44%	0.22		1.44	0.97
	Dam Avg.		5.38	38%	0.82		1.46	0.71
	Sires	29				0.07**
	M1	8	6.00		0.81	0.10
	M2	10	3.00		0.89	0.04
	M3	11	4.64		0.96	0.08*
	Sires Avg.		4.45		1.15

Number of breeders in the study for each population; least-squares means of average male and female reproductive success (see text for details); percent of litters with multiple paternity; Index of Variability (I-V) among breeding individuals of the same sex in a population; skew among sires within a litter; average number of observed number of sires; operational sex ratio (values less than 1.0 are female biased). Asterisk denote significant estimates/comparisons (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001).

^aNote that ecotype averages are indices calculated with values for all individuals, not arithmetic means of population values.