Chapter 16- Life histories; Population growth models

life cycle

• any individual organism is born, survives, develops, possibly reproduces and ultimately dies

• any organism’s resulting in life history is the pathway it takes on this journey and comprises key life history traits

• there are countless life history strategies across the tree of life

life history traits

• traits that affect an organism’s schedule of reproduction and survival

• there can be trade-offs between survival and reproductive traits

  • frequency of reproduction

  • number offspring

  • parental care

age of maturity

• organisms vary in at which reach sexual maturity

• in vertebrates, alone, age at sexual maturity varies from 2-3 weeks

semelparity

• organisms that are characterized by a single reproductive episode before they die

• apes and humans are examples

iteroparity

• organisms that experience mutliple reproductive cycles over their lifetime. can be further divided into continous or seasonal ieroparity

• organisms that reproduce multi in lifetime

number of offspring

• some species produce only one or a few offspring per reproductive cycle

• others produce large numbers of offspring

• these species typically differ in how much adults