LIFESCI 2D03 Chapter Notes - Chapter 13: Lactation, Egg Incubation, Sexual Conflict
11 Jan 2017
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13. 1 parental care varies among species and reflects life history trade-offs. Parental care: behaviours by a parent to enhance the fitness of offspring, including incubation, feeding, and defense. Life history traits: traits involved with growth, reproduction, and survivorship. Life history theory proposes that natural selection will favour the evolution of behaviours that maximize an individual"s lifetime reproductive success. Trade-offs in life history: effort allocated toward reproduction reduces effort that can be allocated to the individual"s own growth and survivorship, effort allocated toward current offspring reduces the effort that can be allocated toward future offspring. Fecundity: reproductive rate of an organism, measured by the number of gametes that are available by the male or the female. High fecundity produces many small offspring with low parental care and survivorship (e. g. fruitflies) Low fecundity produces few large offspring with high parental care and survivorship (e. g. elephants) Life history variation in fish (vila-gispert et al.
