Lecture 13: Life Histories

Question 1

Life history

Answer 1

Schedule of an organism’s growth, development, reproduction, and longevity

Question 2

Fecundity

Answer 2

Number of offspring/reproductive event

Question 3

Semelparous

Answer 3

Reproduces only once in lifetime
Concave curves.

Question 4

Iteroparous

Answer 4

Reproduces multiple times in lifetime
Convex curves.

Question 5

r-selected species

Answer 5

High offspring mortality
Rapidly growing populations

Question 6

K-selected species

Answer 6

Low offspring mortality
Populations nearing carrying capacity

Question 7

Residual reproductive value

Answer 7

How likely it is that a parent will survive and have sufficient resources to invest in reproduction.

Question 8

What are the tradeoffs between offspring number and offspring size/quality?

Answer 8

Fewer, more fit offspring: better able to survive, require more energy to produce.

More, smaller offspring: less able to survive individually, but lower cost of reproduction

Question 9

When would it benefit an organism to delay reproducing and reproduce
later in life?

Question 10

cost of reproduction: trade-offs between current & future reproduction.

Know how to interpret graph
(iteroparity vs. semelparity)

Answer 10

Question 11

Lack clutch size

Answer 11

Maximizes the product of clutch size and mean fitness of individuals in that clutch