| Summary: | Abstract Unlike eusocial systems, which are characterized by reproductive division of labour, cooperative breeders were predicted not to exhibit any reproductive specialization early in life. Nevertheless, also cooperative breeders face a major life-history decision between dispersal and independent breeding vs staying as helper on the natal territory, which might affect their reproductive strategies. In the cooperatively-breeding cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher early-life social and predator experiences induce two behavioural types differing in later-life social and dispersal behaviour. We performed a long-term breeding experiment to test whether the two early-life behavioural types differ in their reproductive investment. We found that the early-dispersing type laid fewer and smaller eggs, and thus invested overall less in reproduction, compared to the philopatric type. Thus N. pulcher had specialised already shortly after birth for a dispersal and reproductive strategy, which is in sharp contrast to the proposition that reproductively totipotent cooperative breeders should avoid reproductive specialization before adulthood.
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