Optimal reproductive effort in stochastic, density-dependent environments

Benton, T. G. and Grant, Alastair ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1147-2375 (1999) Optimal reproductive effort in stochastic, density-dependent environments. Evolution, 53 (3). pp. 677-688. ISSN 0014-3820

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Abstract

The amount of effort organisms should put into reproducing at any given time has been a matter of debate for many years. Early models suggested a simple rule of thumb: iteroparity should be favored when juvenile survival is relatively variable and semelparity when adult survival is relatively variable. When more mathematically complex models were developed, these simple conclusions were found to be special cases. Variability can select toward iteroparity or semelparity depending on a number of factors irrespective of relative adult/juvenile survival (e.g., the density-independent models of Orzack and Tuljapurkar). Using new techniques, we estimate the ESS reproductive effort for stage-structured models in density-dependent and stochastic conditions. We find that variability causes significant changes in reproductive effort, these changes are often small (± 10% of determinstic ESS effort, but up to 50% change in some instances), and the amount that effort increases or decreases depends on many factors (e.g., the deterministic population dynamics, the vital rates affected by density, the amount of variation, the correlations between the vital rates, the distribution from which the variation is drawn, and the deterministic ESS effort). In a variable environment, semelparity is the ESS in only 3.5% of cases; iteroparity is the rule.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: density-dependence,iteroparity,reproductive effort,semelparity,stochastic environments,ecology, evolution, behavior and systematics,genetics,agricultural and biological sciences(all) ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1100/1105
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Biology
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 24 Jul 2020 23:44
Last Modified: 22 Oct 2022 06:32
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/76269
DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.1999.tb05363.x

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