scholarly journals Patterns of Life-History Diversification in North American Fishes: implications for Population Regulation

1992 ◽  
Vol 49 (10) ◽  
pp. 2196-2218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirk O. Winemiller ◽  
Kenneth A. Rose

Interspecific patterns of fish life histories were evaluated in relation to several theoretical models of life-history evolution. Data were gathered for 216 North American fish species (57 families) to explore relationships among variables and to ordinate species. Multivariate tests, performed on freshwater, marine, and combined data matrices, repeatedly identified a gradient associating later-maturing fishes with higher fecundity, small eggs, and few bouts of reproduction during a short spawning season and the opposite suite of traits with small fishes. A second strong gradient indicated positive associations between parental care, egg size, and extended breeding seasons. Phylogeny affected each variable, and some higher taxonomic groupings were associated with particular life-history strategies. High-fecundity characteristics tended to be associated with large species ranges in the marine environment. Age at maturation, adult growth rate, life span, and egg size positively correlated with anadromy. Parental care was inversely correlated with median latitude. A trilateral continuum based on essential trade-offs among three demographic variables predicts many of the correlations among life-history traits. This framework has implications for predicting population responses to diverse natural and anthropogenic disturbances and provides a basis for comparing responses of different species to the same disturbance.

1988 ◽  
Vol 66 (8) ◽  
pp. 1906-1912 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd W. Arnold

Recently, Zammuto (R. M. Zammuto. 1986. Can. J. Zool. 64: 2739–2749) suggested that North American game birds exhibited survival–fecundity trade-offs consistent with the "cost of reproduction" hypothesis. However, there were four serious problems with the data and the analyses that Zammuto used: (i) the species chosen for analysis ("game birds") showed little taxonomic or ecological uniformity, (ii) the measures of future reproductive value (maximum longevity) were severely biased by unequal sample sizes of band recoveries, (iii) the measures of current reproductive effort (clutch sizes) were inappropriate given that most of the birds analyzed produce self-feeding precocial offspring, and (iv) the statistical units used in the majority of analyses (species) were not statistically independent with respect to higher level taxonomy. After correcting these problems, I found little evidence of survival–fecundity trade-offs among precocial game birds, and I attribute most of the explainable variation in life-history traits of these birds to allometry, phylogeny, and geography.


2005 ◽  
Vol 273 (1587) ◽  
pp. 741-750 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Taborsky

There is increasing evidence that the environment experienced early in life can strongly influence adult life histories. It is largely unknown, however, how past and present conditions influence suites of life-history traits regarding major life-history trade-offs. Especially in animals with indeterminate growth, we may expect that environmental conditions of juveniles and adults independently or interactively influence the life-history trade-off between growth and reproduction after maturation. Juvenile growth conditions may initiate a feedback loop determining adult allocation patterns, triggered by size-dependent mortality risk. I tested this possibility in a long-term growth experiment with mouthbrooding cichlids. Females were raised either on a high-food or low-food diet. After maturation half of them were switched to the opposite treatment, while the other half remained unchanged. Adult growth was determined by current resource availability, but key reproductive traits like reproductive rate and offspring size were only influenced by juvenile growth conditions, irrespective of the ration received as adults. Moreover, the allocation of resources to growth versus reproduction and to offspring number versus size were shaped by juvenile rather than adult ecology. These results indicate that early individual history must be considered when analysing causes of life-history variation in natural populations.


2013 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 162-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabrina Morano ◽  
Kelley M. Stewart ◽  
James S. Sedinger ◽  
Christopher A. Nicolai ◽  
Martin Vavra

2008 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olav A. Ormseth ◽  
Brenda L. Norcross

Abstract Ormseth, O. A., and Norcross, B. L. 2009. Causes and consequences of life-history variation in North American stocks of Pacific cod. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 349–357. Life-history strategies of four Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus) stocks in the eastern North Pacific Ocean are outlined. Southern stocks grew and matured quicker, but reached smaller maximum size and had shorter lifespans than northern stocks. The trade-offs resulted in similar lifetime reproductive success among all stocks. Growth was highly dependent on latitude, but not on temperature, possibly because of differences in the duration of the growing season. Comparisons with Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) revealed similar latitude/growth relationships among Atlantic cod stocks grouped by geographic region. In Pacific cod, greater size and longevity in the north appeared to be adaptations to overcome environmental constraints on growth and to maintain fitness. An egg production-per-recruit model suggested that the life-history strategy of northern Pacific cod stocks made them less resilient to fishing activity and age truncation than southern stocks.


2005 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 872-885 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirk O Winemiller

Life history theories attempt to explain the evolution of organism traits as adaptations to environmental variation. A model involving three primary life history strategies (endpoints on a triangular surface) describes general patterns of variation more comprehensively than schemes that examine single traits or merely contrast fast versus slow life histories. It provides a general means to predict a priori the types of populations with high or low demographic resilience, production potential, and conformity to density-dependent regulation. Periodic (long-lived, high fecundity, high recruitment variation) and opportunistic (small, short-lived, high reproductive effort, high demographic resilience) strategies should conform poorly to models that assume density-dependent recruitment. Periodic-type species reveal greatest recruitment variation and compensatory reserve, but with poor conformity to stock–recruitment models. Equilibrium-type populations (low fecundity, large egg size, parental care) should conform better to assumptions of density-dependent recruitment, but have lower demographic resilience. The model's predictions are explored relative to sustainable harvest, endangered species conservation, supplemental stocking, and transferability of ecological indices. When detailed information is lacking, species ordination according to the triangular model provides qualitative guidance for management and development of more detailed predictive models.


Author(s):  
Mathilde Tissier ◽  
Patrick Bergeron ◽  
Dany Garant ◽  
Sandrine Zahn ◽  
Francois Criscuolo ◽  
...  

Understanding ageing and the diversity of life histories is a cornerstone in biology. Telomeres, the protecting caps of chromosomes, are thought to be involved in ageing, cancer risks and to modulate life-history strategies. They shorten with cell division and age in somatic tissues of most species, possibly limiting lifespan. The resource allocation trade-off hypothesis predicts that short telomeres have thus co-evolved with early reproduction, proactive behaviour and reduced lifespan, i.e. a fast Pace-of-Life Syndrome (POLS). Conversely, since short telomeres may also reduce the risks of cancer, the anti-cancer hypothesis advances that they should be associated with slow POLS. Conclusion on which hypothesis best supports the role of telomeres as mediators of life-history strategies is hampered by a lack of study on wild short-lived vertebrates, apart from birds. Using seven years of data on wild Eastern chipmunks Tamias striatus, we highlighted that telomeres elongate with age and do not limit lifespan in this species. Furthermore, short telomeres correlated with a slow POLS in a sex-specific way. Females with short telomeres had a delayed age at first breeding and a lower fecundity rate than females with long telomeres, whereas those differences were not recorded in males. Our findings support most predictions adapted from the anti-cancer hypothesis, but none of those made under the resource allocation trade-off hypothesis. Results are in line with an increasing body of evidence suggesting that resource allocation trade-offs alone cannot explaining the diversity of telomere length in adult somatic cells and life-histories observed across the tree of life.


2003 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  

AbstractSeven life-history traits were used to describe the life-history strategies of 12 native and introduced species from a permanent lake in Spain. Multivariate analysis identified a continuum of life-history patterns between two extremes: 1) species with one or few spawnings per year, short breeding season, long generation time, large size, high fecundity, and no parental care. This set of life-history traits corresponded to the periodic life-history strategy described by Winemiller (1989) and Winemiller and Rose (1992); and 2) species with multiple spawnings per year, prolonged breeding season, short generation time, small size, low fecundity, parental care, and small to medium size of eggs. This association of life-history traits corresponded to the opportunistic life-history strategy described by Winemiller (1989) and Winemiller and Rose (1992). It seems that there were no apparent differences in life-history strategies between native and introduced species in Lake Banyoles. Native and introduced species were found among periodic and opportunistic strategists. Observed differences in the success of native and introduced species with comparable life-history strategies seems to suggest that the success of fish species in Lake Banyoles could not be explained on the basis of life-history features. Nevertheless, it seems that successful invasive species in Lake Banyoles display a suite of traits such as high fecundity, late maturity, and large body size. These characteristics may perhaps be viewed as biological predictors of successful invaders but more information is needed about life-history features of successful introduced species from other ecosystems.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gretchen F. Wagner ◽  
Szymon Marian Drobniak ◽  
Michael Griesser

Reproductive allocation varies greatly across species and is determined by their life-history and ecology. This variation is usually assessed as the number of eggs or propagules (hereafter: fecundity). However, in species with parental care, individuals face trade-offs that affect the allocation of resources among the stages of reproduction as well as to reproduction as a whole. Thus, it is critical to look beyond fecundity to understand the evolution of life-histories and how investment into different reproductive components interact with each other. Here we assessed the influence of species-specific traits and ecological factors on interspecific variation in reproductive performance at each nesting stage of 72 avian populations. Annual productivity was unrelated to annual fecundity. Annual fecundity correlated positively with a fast life-history pace, precociality and non-migratory habits, but these traits were unrelated to reproductive success. Rather, the breeding ecology of a species determined productivity at each stage of nesting, but did not influence fecundity. These results challenge prevailing theory and emphasize that conclusions of interspecific variation in fitness based on numbers of eggs may be equivocal. Moreover, parental decisions regarding reproductive allocation face diverse constraints at different stages of reproduction, influencing the evolution of reproductive tactics in species with parental care.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gretchen F. Wagner ◽  
Emeline Mourocq ◽  
Michael Griesser

Biparental care systems are a valuable model to examine conflict, cooperation, and coordination between unrelated individuals, as the product of the interactions between the parents influences the fitness of both individuals. A common experimental technique for testing coordinated responses to changes in the costs of parental care is to temporarily handicap one parent, inducing a higher cost of providing care. However, dissimilarity in experimental designs of these studies has hindered interspecific comparisons of the patterns of cost distribution between parents and offspring. Here we apply a comparative experimental approach by handicapping a parent at nests of five bird species using the same experimental treatment. In some species, a decrease in care by a handicapped parent was compensated by its partner, while in others the increased costs of care were shunted to the offspring. Parental responses to an increased cost of care primarily depended on the total duration of care that offspring require. However, life history pace (i.e., adult survival and fecundity) did not influence parental decisions when faced with a higher cost of caring. Our study highlights that a greater attention to intergenerational trade-offs is warranted, particularly in species with a large burden of parental care. Moreover, we demonstrate that parental care decisions may be weighed more against physiological workload constraints than against future prospects of reproduction, supporting evidence that avian species may devote comparable amounts of energy into survival, regardless of life history strategy.


Author(s):  
Maren N. Vitousek ◽  
Laura A. Schoenle

Hormones mediate the expression of life history traits—phenotypic traits that contribute to lifetime fitness (i.e., reproductive timing, growth rate, number and size of offspring). The endocrine system shapes phenotype by organizing tissues during developmental periods and by activating changes in behavior, physiology, and morphology in response to varying physical and social environments. Because hormones can simultaneously regulate many traits (hormonal pleiotropy), they are important mediators of life history trade-offs among growth, reproduction, and survival. This chapter reviews the role of hormones in shaping life histories with an emphasis on developmental plasticity and reversible flexibility in endocrine and life history traits. It also discusses the advantages of studying hormone–behavior interactions from an evolutionary perspective. Recent research in evolutionary endocrinology has provided insight into the heritability of endocrine traits, how selection on hormone systems may influence the evolution of life histories, and the role of hormonal pleiotropy in driving or constraining evolution.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document