Sex-based trade-offs among growth, mortality, and maturation in Great Lakes yellow perch stocks

2017 ◽  
Vol 74 (12) ◽  
pp. 2059-2072 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary S. Feiner ◽  
Stephen C. Chong ◽  
David G. Fielder ◽  
James A. Hoyle ◽  
Carey Knight ◽  
...  

Trade-offs among growth, mortality, and reproduction form the basis of life history theory but may vary among populations owing to local ecological conditions. We examined life history trade-offs driving variation in maturation among 13 yellow perch (Perca flavescens) stocks in the Great Lakes using sex-specific age and length at 50% maturity (A50 and L50, respectively) and probabilistic maturation reaction norm midpoints (Lp50,a). Both sexes exhibited positive correlations between growth and mortality, and faster-growing stocks were mature at younger ages but larger sizes. Male and female A50 and L50 were positively correlated among stocks, but Lp50,a estimates were negatively correlated among stocks, indicating stocks that matured at large sizes for a given age in females matured at smaller age-specific sizes in males. Female Lp50,a estimates were negatively related to growth and mortality, while male Lp50,a estimates were positively related to growth. These results suggest that (i) sex-based life history trade-offs sometimes act to differentially structure maturation schedules in males and females and (ii) males may be less responsive to changes in mortality than females.

1991 ◽  
Vol 69 (10) ◽  
pp. 2540-2547 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel T. Wheelwright ◽  
Joanna Leary ◽  
Caragh Fitzgerald

We investigated the effect of brood size on nestling growth and survival, parental survival, and future fecundity in tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) over a 4-year period (1987–1990) in an effort to understand whether reproductive trade-offs limit clutch size in birds. In addition to examining naturally varying brood sizes in a population on Kent Island, New Brunswick, Canada, we experimentally modified brood sizes, increasing or decreasing the reproductive burdens of females by two offspring. Unlike previous studies, broods of the same females were enlarged or reduced in up to 3 successive years in a search for evidence of cumulative costs of reproduction that might go undetected by a single brood manipulation. Neither observation nor experiment supported the existence of a trade-off between offspring quality and quantity, in contrast with the predictions of life-history theory. Nestling wing length, mass, and tarsus length were unrelated to brood size. Although differences between means were in the direction predicted, few differences were statistically significant, despite large sample sizes. Nestlings from small broods were no more likely to return as breeding adults than nestlings from large broods, but return rates of both groups were very low. Parental return rates were also independent of brood size, and there was no evidence of a negative effect of brood size on future fecundity (laying date, clutch size). Reproductive success, nestling size, and survival did not differ between treatments for females whose broods were manipulated in successive years. Within the range of brood sizes observed in this study, the life-history costs of feeding one or two additional nestlings in tree swallows appear to be slight and cannot explain observed clutch sizes. Costs not measured in this study, such as the production of eggs or postfledging parental care, may be more important in limiting clutch size in birds.


2016 ◽  
Vol 181 ◽  
pp. 214-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew E. Honsey ◽  
David B. Bunnell ◽  
Cary D. Troy ◽  
David G. Fielder ◽  
Michael V. Thomas ◽  
...  

2006 ◽  
Vol 362 (1486) ◽  
pp. 1873-1886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Krüger

The interactions between brood parasitic birds and their host species provide one of the best model systems for coevolution. Despite being intensively studied, the parasite–host system provides ample opportunities to test new predictions from both coevolutionary theory as well as life-history theory in general. I identify four main areas that might be especially fruitful: cuckoo female gentes as alternative reproductive strategies, non-random and nonlinear risks of brood parasitism for host individuals, host parental quality and targeted brood parasitism, and differences and similarities between predation risk and parasitism risk. Rather than being a rare and intriguing system to study coevolutionary processes, I believe that avian brood parasites and their hosts are much more important as extreme cases in the evolution of life-history strategies. They provide unique examples of trade-offs and situations where constraints are either completely removed or particularly severe.


1989 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 989-994 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. W. Tanasschuk ◽  
W. C. Mackay

A yellow perch (Perca flavescens) population from a shallow eutrophic north temperate lake was sampled 10 times between March 1976 and June 1977 to determine the characteristics of somatic and gonadal growth. Quantitatively, somatic growth differed in timing and extent among age-sex groups. One + males and females grew mostly in June whereas 2 + males grew mainly in July; 2 + females grew from June through September. Two + males grew less over the year than did the other age-sex groups. The qualitative characteristics of somatic growth were not influenced by sex or maturation. The timing of gonadal growth and the associated endogenous energy utilization differed between the sexes. One + females did not mature. Testes grew in late summer (August). There was no impact of gonad development on somatic composition of 1 + males whereas 2 + males appeared to use visceral fat. Gonadal growth for 2 + females began in August and continued through March and presumably to spawning in April; somatic lipid was depleted during ovarian growth.


2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory E. Blomquist

Trade-offs are central to life-history theory but difficult to document. Patterns of phenotypic and genetic correlations in rhesus macaques, Macaca mulatta —a long-lived, slow-reproducing primate—are used to test for a trade-off between female age of first reproduction and adult survival. A strong positive genetic correlation indicates that female macaques suffer reduced adult survival when they mature relatively early and implies primate senescence can be explained, in part, by antagonistic pleiotropy. Contrasts with a similar human study implicate the extension of parental effects to later ages as a potential mechanism for circumventing female life-history trade-offs in human evolution.


2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce J. Ellis ◽  
Marco Del Giudice

AbstractHow do exposures to stress affect biobehavioral development and, through it, psychiatric and biomedical disorder? In the health sciences, the allostatic load model provides a widely accepted answer to this question: stress responses, while essential for survival, have negative long-term effects that promote illness. Thus, the benefits of mounting repeated biological responses to threat are traded off against costs to mental and physical health. The adaptive calibration model, an evolutionary–developmental theory of stress–health relations, extends this logic by conceptualizing these trade-offs as decision nodes in allocation of resources. Each decision node influences the next in a chain of resource allocations that become instantiated in the regulatory parameters of stress response systems. Over development, these parameters filter and embed information about key dimensions of environmental stress and support, mediating the organism's openness to environmental inputs, and function to regulate life history strategies to match those dimensions. Drawing on the adaptive calibration model, we propose that consideration of biological fitness trade-offs, as delineated by life history theory, is needed to more fully explain the complex relations between developmental exposures to stress, stress responsivity, behavioral strategies, and health. We conclude that the adaptive calibration model and allostatic load model are only partially complementary and, in some cases, support different approaches to intervention. In the long run, the field may be better served by a model informed by life history theory that addresses the adaptive role of stress response systems in regulating alternative developmental pathways.


2017 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bin-Bin Chen

AbstractThe mating-related evolutionary explanation that Maestripieri et al. offer does not apply to (1) infants' positive biases toward attractive individuals and (2) adults' positive biases toward attractive infants and children. They are best understood when integrated into an evolutionary life history framework. I argue that the life history of positive biases toward attractive individuals is driven by fundamental trade-offs made throughout development.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Gerlinde Höbel ◽  
Robb Kolodziej ◽  
Dustin Nelson ◽  
Christopher White

Abstract Information on how organisms allocate resources to reproduction is critical for understanding population dynamics. We collected clutch size (fecundity) and egg size data of female Eastern Gray Treefrogs, Hyla versicolor, and examined whether observed patterns of resource allocation are best explained by expectations arising from life history theory or by expected survival and growth benefits of breeding earlier. Female Hyla versicolor showed high between-individual variation in clutch and egg size. We did not observe maternal allocation trade-offs (size vs number; growth vs reproduction) predicted from life history theory, which we attribute to the large between-female variation in resource availability, and the low survival and post-maturity growth rate observed in the study population. Rather, clutches are larger at the beginning of the breeding season, and this variation in reproductive investment aligns with seasonal variation in ecological factors affecting offspring growth and survival.


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