LIFE HISTORY

EVOLUTION

Scheherazaide Yoradyl A. Pahm

 Life History
• method of understanding evolved
behaviors and strategies to optimize
reproductive success

• LIFE HISTORY THEORY

– postulates that many of the physiological
traits and behaviors of individuals may be
best understood of the key maturational and
reproductive characteristics that define the life
course
• Examples
– age at weaning
– age of sexual maturity or puberty
– adult body size
– age specific mortality schedules
– age specific fecundity
– time to first sexual activity or mating
– time to first reproduction
– duration of gestation
– litter size
– interbirth interval
• variations: differing allocations of an
individual’s resources especially growth,
body maintenance, and reproduction
– i.e. time, effort, and energy expenditure
 LIFE HISTORY EVOLUTION IN
CICHLIDS 1: REVISITING THE
EVOLUTION OF LIFE HISTORIES IN
RELATION TO PARENTAL CARE

N. KOLM, N. B. GOODWIN, S. BALSHINE

& J. D. REYNOLDS

Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation, School of Biological Sciences,

University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
Animal Behaviour Group, Department of Psychology, McMaster University,
Hamilton, Ont., Canada
INTRODUCTION
 Parental Care
• optimal amount of resources : parental
care : trade-off

• trade-off  costs and benefits of care

 Parental Care
• creates strong links between important life
histories and parental care

• insights on the evolution of parental care

• why the level of care is highly diverse

among species
 Parental Care
• life histories related to parental care*
– body size
– clutch size
– egg size

*parental care – care duration

 Theories
• body size
– duration of care decreases with increasing
body size in female convict cichlids
(Cichlasoma nigrofasciatum)

• clutch size
– positively associated with care duration in
mammals, birds, and fish
 Theories
• egg size
– positively correlated to parental care duration
 Cichlids
• cichlid fishes are extremely diverse in all
these life history traits as well as levels of
parental care
Cichlids
• ANATOMY AND APPEARANCE
– fusion of pharyngeal bones into a single tooth-
bearing structure
– division of labor between “true jaws” and
“pharyngeal jaws”
– very efficient feeders
Taxonomy
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Cichlidae
• RANGE AND HABITAT
– in freshwaters worldwide
– most diverse in Africa and South America

• IMPORTANCE
– as food and game fish
– aquarium fish
 OBJECTIVE
• to disentangle the effects of body size,
clutch size, and egg size on parental care
within a multivariate, comparative
framework
METHODS
 Database

• data for 83-595 species with information on:

– body size (mm total max length : 595 sp.)
– clutch size (number of eggs : 247 sp.)
– egg size (mm diameter : 236 sp.)
– care duration (days : 83 sp.)
Phylogeny
 Statistical Analyses
• bivariate correlation analyses on genera
with data on two variables
• multiple regression
Dependent variable Independent variable
care duration body size, clutch size, egg size
body size care duration, clutch size, egg size
clutch size care duration, body size, egg size
egg size care duration, body size, clutch
size
RESULTS
Analyses based on raw
data
 Analyses based on
phylogenetically
independent contrasts
 Table 1. Multiple regressions with care
duration

Variable Species Contrasts Genus Contrasts

Coefficie SE t21 P Coefficie SE t21 P

nt nt

Clutch 0.77 0.26 3.0 0.007 0.62 0.23 2.8 0.01

size

Egg size –0.19 0.20 1.0 0.34 0.12 0.18 0.7 0.50

Body –0.36 0.23 1.6 0.13 0.08 0.21 0.4 0.70

size
DISCUSSION
• clutch size but not egg size nor body size
is positively linked to care duration in
cichlids

• this shows that the level of parental effort

can be strongly linked to the size of the
‘package’ of offspring at stake in a given
reproductive event
• posthatching care duration is driving the
relationships

• cichlids have evolved along a continuum of

two extremes:
– large eggs (small clutches) – prolonged prehatch
and short post-hatch care
– small eggs (large clutches) – short prehatch and
long post-hatch care
• the strong positive correlation between
egg size and care duration reported in
other families was not supported by
bivariate analyses, nor by
phylogenetically-based analyses

• egg size increases with female size

CONCLUSION
• parental care in this family may have evolved
as a response to the value of a clutch, given
primarily by clutch size

• relationships appear to be driven by post-

hatch care rather than pre-hatch care

• next step towards explaining the evolution of

parental care in fishes in relation to life
histories will be to use temporal analyses