Life History Strategies

Pacific salmon
Red kangaroo
Mayfly
Bamboo
Life History
Life history: species lifetime pattern of growth,
development and reproduction.

A measure of organism’s reproductive success is fitness

Trade-off between growth and reproduction:

--- mode of reproduction, age at rep., allocation to rep.

number and size of eggs, young or seeds, parental care.
 Life History Patterns
• Modes of reproduction: sexual or asexual

• Forms of Sexual reproduction

• Mating systems

• Mate selection

• Females may acquire mates based on resources

• Organisms budget time and energy to reproduction

• Timing of reproduction

• Parental investment

• Fecundity depends on age and size

• Food supply affects the production of young

Sexual or Asexual Reproduction
Asexual reproduction (produce offspring without involving of
egg and sperm)
• New individuals are the same as the parent
• Many plants (underground stem) such as strawberry;
• some animals (hydra, some aphids, parthenogenesis)
• If fitness is high, matches organism to environment
• If fitness is low, possible extinction (less variation)

Sexual Reproduction
• More common form.
• Can produce new gene combinations able to cope with a changing
environment.
• Greater energy commitment
 Specific organelles
 Production of gametes, courtship activities, and mating are energetically
expensive.
 Feeding offspring
 The expense of reproduction is not shared equally by both sexes
Types of sexual reproduction
 Dioecious

 Hermaphroditic

 Monoecious

Floral structure
Plants
 Animals
• Most familiar form involves male and
female individuals

• Hermaphroditic
• Simultaneous hermaphroditic
• Earthworms
• Outbreeding, but maximizes
offspring (twice)

• Sequential hermaphroditic
Parrotfish
• Mollusks, echinoderms
Sometimes vertebrates (fish)
• Allows all individual to
participate in both sides of sexual
cycle
Largest female becomes male when
the male fish is missing
 Mating Systems
Different mating strategies have different advantages and disadvantages
• Monogamy (one to one, form of a lasting pair bond between one male and one female)
 Most prevalent among birds, rare among mammals
 Seasonal or permanent
• Allows sharing of cost of raising offspring
• Increases survival chances of offspring
• Cheating does occur and has specific advantages to fitness

• Polygamy (one to two or more, a pair bond exists between individual and each mate)
 More than one mate of one sex for a single individual of the other sex (polygyny and polyandry)
• Free individual to compete for resources and protect territory
• Better food etc for mates
• Some protection of offspring from competition

• Promiscuity (one to one or many and no pair bond formed)

 Greatest number of offspring
 Large amount of competition
 Female only responsible for offspring in terms of resources
• Poorer survival chance for offspring
 Sexual Selection
 For Monogamy, Polygamy and Promiscuity
• All involve the selection of a mate and
therefore sexual selection
• Selection for secondary sexual
characteristics

• Examples
 Peacock versus Peahen
• Large tail feathers, more mating
• Smaller tail feathers, less mating
 Deer
• Characters that aid competition
such as horns
 Humans
• Faster sports car such as a Ferrari
 Organisms budget time and energy to
reproduction
Reproductive effort: Time and energy
allocated to reproduction

Trade-off between growth,

maintenance and reproduction.

Percentage of annual production to

reproduction:
Perennials: 15-20%
Wild annuals: 15-30%
Crops: 25-30%
Corn and barley: 35-40%
Lizard: 7-9%
Salamander: 48%
Bird species illustrate the tradeoff between “fast” organisms (high
fecundity, high mortality) versus “slow” ones (long life, low annual
fecundity)
Species differ in timing of reproduction
Semelparity
• One reproductive effort with all resources, then death
• Most insects and other invertebrates, some fish (salmon) and many
plants (bamboo, ragweed)
• Some are small, short lived, grown in disturbed habitats;
• Environmental effect can be disastrous

Iteroparity
• Produce fewer young at one time and repeat reproduction throughout
their lifetime
• Multiple cycles of reproduction means the organism must balance
growth, maintenance, escaping predators, defending territory, etc
against reproduction
• Most vertebrates, perennial herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees.
Sockeye salmon, for example, swim as far as 6,000
km from Pacific Ocean from feeding grounds to
spawning streams, lay thousands of eggs, then die
from the exertion.
 Parental investment: depends on the
number and size of offspring
• Given certain resource allocated to rep., one can produce many small young or few large ones.

• Produce large number of offspring, less or no parental care (fish-eggs, plants-seeds)

• Produce helpless offspring (produce young, spend less energy in incubation, but require
considerable parental care)
Altricial
• Mice
• Longer period suckling
• American Robin
• Other bird feeds
• Produce more mature offspring (longer gestation, born in advanced stage of development)
Precocial
• Chicken, cow, deer, turkey

Humans ?
• Family care (Grandmothers, Grandfathers, Aunts, Uncles, Brothers and Sisters)
African elephants produce one offspring at a time,
once every few years over a long lifetime, and protect
each offspring intensively (much like humans)

Few Number
• More resources per individual
• More chance of accidental loss
Many plants and some insects reproduce once (annually),
producing vast numbers of seeds/eggs that are poorly
protected, if at all

Large Number

Less resources
per individual

More chances of
success

Desert annuals
Fecundity depends on age and size
• For many species, number of offspring produced varies with the age
and size of parent.

• But some species do not have a characteristic adult size and can continue to grow
through their adults lives (indeterminate growth)
• Many plants and ectothermic (cold-blooded) animals (fish, reptiles,
amphibians, and invertebrates)
Plants

Perennial: delay flowering until they

have attained a sufficiently large size
Annual: small plants produce less
seeds
Animals:
Ectothermic (cold-blooded) animals
Production of offspring in fish increases with size, which increases with age
Gizzard shad: 2-yr, 59,000 eggs
3-yr, 379,000 eggs
Endothermic (warm-blooded):
similar patterns exist for some animals
European red squirrel: body weight and reproduction success; <300 g, do not
reproduce.
Environmental conditions influence the evolution of life history
characteristics
 Idea was conceived by Robert
MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson:

 “r- vs. K-selected strategists”

Spotted and redback salamanders

Life history strategies
Different organisms have evolved different sets of traits related to population
dynamics
Traits that affect an organism’s schedule of reproduction and survival make up its
life history

Energy is limited.
• Allocation to one function (such as growth) will reduce the
amount of energy an organism can devote to another function
(such as reproduction).

•An organisms life history strategy involves trade-offs.

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 Life history strategies
Different organisms have evolved different sets of traits
related to population dynamics
Traits that affect an organism’s schedule of reproduction
and survival make up its life history

Annual plants
•Reproduction occurs once (semelparity)
•It occurs after one season
•Death occurs after reproduction
•Many small seeds are produced
•Favored in unstable environments

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 Life history strategies
Different organisms have evolved different sets of traits
related to population dynamics
Traits that affect an organism’s schedule of reproduction
and survival make up its life history

Perennial plants
•Reproduction occurs more than once (iteroparity)
•It occurs after many seasons
•Larger seeds are produced (few well-provisioned seeds
have higher survival rates)
•Favored in stable environments

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 Life history strategies
K and r selection (MacArthur and Wilson 1967)
Based on two opposing selective forces r- selection and K-selection, after the
two terms in the logistic equation (however, one should not take these terms too
literally, as the concepts are independent of the equation).
r-selected species
•r refers to the per capita rate of increase
•Selection favoring rapid growth
•Should be favored in new or disturbed
environments
•Less competition

K-selected species
•K refers to carrying capacity
•More prominent in species that are typically
at their carrying capacity
•Favors more efficient use of resources
•Live with competition

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Life history strategies
K and r selection (MacArthur and Wilson 1967)
Characteristics of r- v. K-selected species
r-selection K-selection
Population Growth Rate
Competitive Ability
Pace of Development
Body Size
Type of Reproduction
Environment
Parental Care
Survivorship
Number of Offspring

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Life history strategies
K and r selection (MacArthur and Wilson 1967)
Characteristics of r- v. K-selected species
r-selection K-selection
Population Growth Rate high low
Competitive Ability low high
Pace of Development fast slow
Body Size small large
Type of Reproduction semelparity iteroparity
Environment disturbed stable
Parental Care little A lot
Survivorship Type III Type I
Number of Offspring many few

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Life History: refers to any aspect of
the developmental pattern and mode
of reproduction of an organism.