Lifehistoryevolution.docVIP

February 24th, 2010 Bioe 109 Winter 2010 Lecture 18 Life history evolution What do mean by “life history” characters? - from a “fitness” perspective, there are only two important events in life: reproduction and death. - the traits that determine the timing and details of these two events are termed “life-history” characters, or life-history traits. - these include the following traits: 1. age at first reproduction 2. total life span 3. mode and frequency of reproduction 4. fecundity 5. parental care - these life-history characters exhibit enormous variation not only among species, but also among individuals of the same species. - if much of this variation among individuals of the same species has a genetic basis (which experiments have generally shown to be the case), then this provides natural selection with an important pool of raw material to direct evolutionary change. - fundamentally, differences in life-history traits involve differences in the allocation of energy. - for example, a female could stop allocating energy to growth and mature at a smaller size. - this strategy involves a trade-off since by maturing at a smaller size she will likely produce smaller litters. - another female could, upon reaching sexual maturity allocate less energy to reproduction and more to repair and maintenance thereby keeping her in better condition and live longer. - again, there is a trade-off: allocating less energy to reproduction means having smaller litters but this could be counter-balanced by living longer to produce additional litters. - there is a also catch – she has to live to produce those additional litters. - trade-offs between life-history traits make it impossible to maximize all components of fitness simultaneously. - today, I will focus on three questions that illustrate some of these trade-offs: 1. Why do individuals age and die? 2. How many offspring should an individual produce in any given year? 3. How large should each offspring be?  Why do organisms