Life History

11/12/2015

Life History the theory of biological evolution that seeks to explain

how aspects of organisms anatomy, behavior, reproductive development,
and life span have been shaped by natural selection
Need to create models and simplify the situation
Everything in life involves trade-offs
o Example: trade-offs of trees
Small seeds can make many and spread far; but dont
have much reserve
Larger seeds cant use wind to really travel but once
they land they have reserves; be able to grow until
make a living on their own
Trade-offs:
Mode of reproduction
Age at first reproduction
Timing of reproduction
Number of seeds, offspring, young
Intrinsic factors:
Genetics
Physiology
Developmental patterns
Extrinsic
Predators
Environment
Prey
Asexual reproduction: seen in bacteria and simple organisms, plants
too

Offspring are genetically identical to the parent

Plants reproduce asexually by stolon; some protists reproduce by
dividing in half
Some asexual organisms also reproduce sexually that is often
triggered by environmental change
Benefits: higher biomass, spread more easily in any environment,
dont need to wait for sexual reproduction, dont need to depend on other
organisms
Costs: loss of genetic recombination, no genetic diversity, less ability
to adapt or respond to changes in the environment
Sexual reproduction: individuals are genetically unique
Benefits: increase in range of adaption and responses to
environmental changes; genetically unique
Cost: difficult to find a mate, energetically expensive, experience is
not shared
In plants: perfect and imperfect flowers
o Perfect flower = bisexual, hermaphrodite and can sometimes
self-pollinate
o Imperfect flower = separate male and female flowers
Animals that are hermaphrodities have both male and female
reproductive organs
Sequential hermaphrodites female changes sex into male
(parrotfish)
o Some individual plants can change sex
May produce male flowers, female flowers, or an
asexual vegetative shoot
Reproduction involves benefits and costs to individual fitness
o Ecology = the economics of nature
o In some cases, relationship is obvious; in others the activities
involved in reproduction increase an individuals probability of
dying
Example: the larger the size of your leaf, more energy and light you
can absorb, and create energy
If you produced no fruit earlier than you have 90% likelihood of
producing a flower the next year; but if you already did then the
probability decreases
When you have an offspring, the chances of producing another
offspring the following year goes down due to you already allocating so
many resources to reproduction and/or raising the young

When to reproduce?
Optimize individuals relative fitness and ability to produce offspring
Need to think about age and size
Example: in European squirrel, lifetime reproductive success is
correlated with body weight
Larger body mass by 18 months, have more babies on average over
lifespan
Look at Life tables
Sx shows the probability of an individual at age x surviving to the
next year
Bx is the average number of female offspring produced by an
individual at age x
Natural selection will favor the individuals that have the greatest
number of individuals over their lifespan
Example: 2 females; one starts reproducing at age 3 and have 10
offspring each year till death; other starts reproducing at age 5 and have 15
offspring a year until death
Which makes more sense?
We find if the females live to age 8, then it makes more sense to
delay fertility till age 5
If she doesnt live till age 8, then she should start having offspring
till age 3
When should an organism begin to reproduce?
Net reproductive rate Guppy experiment: started to allocate more resources to growing
bigger than reproducing; the average body size of the fish
increased
Fecundity number of offspring produced per unit of time
Reproductive effort total energetic cost you give to each reproductive
time
Energy investment the amount of energy invested in reproduction
varies widely across organisms
Plants usually die in one year so spend more of its energy
reproducing
Survival decrease as offspring number increases

o Decrease your own fitness and your offspring fitness

Tradeoffs in energy
Current benefits form producing offspring vs the cost of potential
reproduction in the future
This is an optimization problem
For species that live in unpredictable environments or areas where parental
care is difficult, the probability of survival is lower
Parental care:
Very elaborate in many species
Insects are all social organisms and have very elaborate parental
care
Most birds and mammals provide parental care
Reptiles not really
o Crocodiles defend both nest and young after hatching
Many invertebrates care for eggs by brooding and defending them;
often once they hatch theyre on their own
Species differ in timing of reproduction
Is it more advantageous to reproduce once or many times during
its life cycle?
Iteroparous reproduce more than once
Tradeoffs
Early reproduction not going to live very long, start early, reduced
survivorship that reduces potential future reproduction
Late reproduction later maturity, more growth, increased
fecundity, increases survivorship but less time for reproduction
Semelparous organisms reproduce only once
Initial energy investment to growth, development, and energy
storage
In some insects, plants, and salmon

Some are short lived, some are long-lived

Phenotype Plasticity
Norm of reaction the set of phenotypes expressed by a genotype
under different environmental conditions
o Different organisms respond differently depending on the
environment they live in
o Example: particular fish that matures at age 2 and weights
4kg; but when food is less available in its environment, will
the fish still mature at same age or same size?
Can either reproduce at age 2 but at less than 2kg or at
age 6 with the optimal size
It actually happens somewhere in between in response
to changes in the environment
Mating Systems Describe Male-Female Pairing
Social framework in mate selection
Monogamy formation of a pair bond between one male and one
female
o When the offspring needs a lot of parental care and need 2
organisms taking care of it
o When young are altricial, both parents provide food,
warmth, protection
o Takes forever to take care of young so pushes towards
monogamy
Polygamy the acquisition of two or more mates by one individual
o A pair bond exists between the individual and each mate
o Individual with multiple mates usually does not care for
offspring
o Often favored when resources need to reproduce, such as
food or habitat, are unevenly distributed
Polyandry individual male has a pair bond with two or more
males
o Males are the ones that take care of the offspring; female is
more aggressive
o Role reversal
Intrasexual selection same sex competition for access to mates

 Usually male-male competition

Leads to exaggerated secondary sexual characteristics
Intersexual selection involves an individual of one sex selecting another
based on attractiveness
Usually female choice but can be male choice; a form of assortative
mating
Patterns of Life History Characteristics reflect external selective forces:
High adult mortality has:
o Shorter life span, higher fecundity, early age of maturity,
faster development
Low adult mortality has
o Longer life span, slower rate of development, later age of
maturity, lower fecundity
Life History also reflects adaptations to the environment
Theory:
R strategists and K strategists; organisms are in between
o Habitats are variable over time and short lived
o Habitats are stable over time and long lived
K strategists = live around carrying capacity, stay stable
o Maintain populations at carrying capacity, sustainable
population size
o Lots of parental care
o Long-lived, slow development, larger body size, small number
of offspring with high survival
o Dont destroy environment!
R strategists = boom bust environment; extreme events,
exponentially grow, unstable environment
o Low competition
o Provide almost no care for offspring
o Maximize growth rate
o Small body size, rapid development, large number of offspring
but low survival
Plants: based on habitat; stress and disturbance
Stress restricts plant growth and productivity (restrictions of light,
water, nutrients, minerals)
Disturbance is the destruction of plant biomass (pathogens, natural
disasters)