BIOB51H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Life History Theory, Brown Antechinus, Collared Flycatcher
10 Apr 2016
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Females prefer males with brightly colored feet; males" foot color dulls with age: life history theory. = branch of evoluionary biology devoted to explaining variaion in reproducive strategies e. g. , variaion in: age at sexual maturity. Number of ofspring per reproducive bout (e. g. kiwi: 1lbs egg, 2/clutch; redback spider: 23 years before maturity, live to 65 years) Evoluion by natural selecion leads to traits that increase lifeime reproducive success relaive to conspeciics. Facts: limited supply of energy/nutrients (resources) available to an organism, limited ime available for biological processes (incubaing eggs) Organisms must balance compeing demands for ime and energy. Time & energy spent on one acivity, or in developing one trait, is not available for another. Natural selecion will favor the balance that leads to higher relaive itness in a given environment. Limitaions on ime and energy require trade-ofs in allocaion to diferent processes such as: growth, reproducion, maintenance/repair.
