UNIVERSITY OF ILOILO - PHINMA Education Network

GRADUATE SCHOOL
Iloilo City

BIO 030 – ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION BIOLIGY

DISCUSSANT : ALFRED G. GICO PROFESSOR : DR. RUBY TUVILLA LLAVE

TOPIC: LIFE HISTORY STRATEGIES

Life History: refers to any aspect of the developmental pattern and mode of reproduction of an
organism.
It represents one of the clearest examples of the interaction of evolution and ecology.

What is meant Life History Strategy?

Patterns of life span and reproduction that characterize a species.
A result of natural selection, which acts on individuals, NOT species.

Five fundamental aspects of life history of a species:

Size, Metamorphosis, Diapause, Senescence, Reproductive Patterns
1. The effects of body Size (SIZE - The mass and dimensions typical of adult individuals of a
species)
- Body sizes of an organisms span a tremendous range
- In linear dimension this scale extends from bacteria 1 Micrometer in length to redwoods 100
meters tall.
 Various sizes we observe in nature are adaptive in important ways, for clearly the size of an
organism affects its ecology in many ways.
Example: The great height of redwoods gives them access to light unavailable to smaller plants,
but at the same time it makes them vulnerable to the destructive effects of winds and
lightning that smaller plants may not be.
 The body size has an important influence in life: effects can be ecological/physiological
Example: A water strider can exploit a unique ecological niche; because its mass is small
enough to enable the animal to “walk” on the surface of calm water without breaking the surface
tension.
 Physiological effects of size in part determine organisms’ food habits and the suitability of
habitats.
Example: An 800kg blue whale requires a huge amount of food to sustain life, but because its
surface area (from which heat is lost) is so small relative to its mass (which generates heat), it
can inhabit cold waters of the deep ocean. In contrast, a 10gram shrew requires a far smaller
absolute quantity of food, but its surface area is so large relative to its mass that it loses heat at
a tremendous rate and must therefore eat almost continuously.

Frequency distribution of number of species with respect to log body mass for North American
mammals (a), birds (b), and freshwater fish (c)
Some generalizations about the effects of body size on other aspects of the biology species
An organism’s total food requirements increase with size, while per – gram food
requirements decrease.
Larger organisms have somewhat lower risks of predation
Vulnerability to physical factors also varies with size.
Certainly, all tree is susceptible to lightning damage, but increased girth may protect it
from other effects, such as wind or ice damage.
Larger organisms generally have longer life spans and thus longer generation times,
which affect the potential rate of evolution via natural selection.
Organisms that go through their life cycles very quikly (insects for example) can often
adapt more rapidly to environmental changes.

Cope’s law – suggested that “within a particular taxonomic group, size tends to increase over evolutionary
time”
example: Gotelli and colleagues(1991) showed that in minnows , those places closest to the
phylogenetic root of the family are the smallest.
J.H Brown,P.A. Marquet, and M. L. Taper(1993) – suggest that the distribution of mammalian body sizes has a
mode of about 100 grams . These 100 grams represents an optimal body size in this group. In their model,
fitness is defined as a reproductive power , or the conversion of energy into offspring. Reproductive power
is limited by two process:
1. The acquisition of energy, which increases with mass raised to the 0.75 power
2. The rate of conversion of energy to offspring which changes as a function of mass to the 0.25
power

 The curve of reproductive power as a function of log body mass, as predicted. Closely follows
observed distribution.

 In the evolution of size, different parts of the organisms may be under different selective pressures,
resulting in different patterns of growth for different structures.
 The situations in which different morphological characters change at different rates is referred to as
“allometry”.

 Consequences of body size variation linked to life cycle and generation time
  Variation in size of unitary organisms

2. Metamorphosis
The presence of a major developmental change in shape or form from the juvenile to the adult.
Organisms that metamorphose undergo radical changes in morphology , physiology, and
ecology over the course of their life cycle.
The changes encompassed by the term metamorphosis may be so great that is reasonable to
describe two separate and very different niches for the species.

Organisms that utilize different resources  Exploiting different niches may be

at different stages face an unusual difficult with a single body plan
evolutionary
Problem  The solution is a juvenile form specialized for
one niche, followed by metamorphosis to an
entirely new body plan, adapted to a different
niche, in the adult.

Species that metamorphose must undertake complex genetic and physiological processes in
the transformation. These changes require a complex regulatory mechanisms that involve
turning on and off many genes at appropriate times. But the reorganization of the body plan
in a metamorphic species entails considerable energy costs.

What sort of ecological advantages could outweigh the complications of such a strategy?
 Exploitation of habitats with high, but transient, productivity – and hence high potential
for growth
-specializations for feeding, dispersal and reproduction are separated across stages
Example: a frog tadpole occupies an aquatic environment with extremely high for
potential for growth; the existence of the pond or its high production may be transient.
Whereas an aquatic larva is not capable of dispersal to new ponds if its habitat unsuitable to
adult frog.
The process of metamorphosis allows the organism to specialize it form and function for life
history tasks according to the selective demands of its environment.
If ,however, it sometimes faces extremely harsh environmental conditions, the developmental
process may also include resistant resting stage

3. Diapause : the presence of resting stage in the life history

A stage in the life cycle characterized by a cessation of development and a protein synthesis,
and by suppression of the metabolic rate.
Variety of resistant stages among living organisms is huge:
 Bacteria from highly resistant spores in response to desiccation, heat, and uncertain
chemical environment.
 The spores of fungi are likewise highly resistant.
 Plant seeds fulfill this function as well.
 Many insects pupate in the fall.
 Organisms face two important abiotic problems:
 The SEVERITY of the abiotic regime, including temperature extremes, insufficient or
excess of water, wind; obviously affect organisms ‘ ability to grow and survive.
 The UNPREDICTABILITY of the abiotic conditions
- unpredictable conditions probably pose greaterdifficulties for organisms than harsh,
predictable conditions
Unfavorable conditions that occur unpredictably pose considerable problems for organisms

Two general conditions strategies are associated with this kind of environment:
1. Many adaptations are based on a resting stage that awaits favorable conditions.
2. Vulnerable aspects of life history may be compressed into a short period of favorable
conditions.

Red kangaroo reproductive cycle

 Embryonic diapause and other reproductive

events for a single red kangaroo female.
After a female’s initial pregnancy, estrus
occurs two days after parturation. This
strategy eventually results in the simultaneous
presence of three young at different stages of development.

Resting stages constitute to a series of adaptations that allow the species to avoid the most
difficult abiotic conditions
Regardless of how well adapted the developmental pattern may be, however, the life span of all
organisms is finite

4. Senescence – the process and timing of aging, degeneration and death.

Bioligists define senescence as the degenerative changes that result in an increase in expected
mortality with age. The probability of survival reaches zero.
The timing of senescent changes determines the life span.
The range of life spans of various kinds of organisms reveals just how fertile an area for inquiry
senescence is.

How Does life span evolve?

 It was long thought that life span is determined by how “intensely” or how “fast” the organism
lives. Small animals are known to have shorter life spans than large ones. Because the per
gram metabolic rate, heart rate are much higher in small mammals, their shorter life spans were
believed to be a consequence of this rapid physiology-the organisms simply wears out sooner.
 This theory was discarded when researchers demonstrated that birds generally live longer than
mammals of comparable size, even though birds have higher metabolic rates, heat production
and heart rate.
Many insects have very short life spans. Annual plants have a lifespan of less
The adult mayfly may live only a few hours. than a year.
 Currently, there are two main hypotheses to explain the process of senescence

1. Mutation accumulation hypothesis.

- each cell in an organism is subject to deleterious effects of natural environmental
insults. UV radiation , chemicals and oxygen free radicals produced by the cell degrade the
cellular machinery and cause somatic mutations ( Gensler and Bernstein 1981)
The accumulation of damage ultimately results in a decrease in survivorship with age

2. Evolutionary senescence hypothesis.

 Posit that the pattern of senescence evolves in an organisms.
 It holds that the decline in survivorship with age is a result of mutations whose negative
effects are felt later in life.
 If these mutations act after either all or most reproduction has occurred, then the natural
selection cannot remove from the population. They gradually accumulate, and their
effect will be to increase mortality in older age classes.
 The pattern may cause by genes with pleiotropic effects – beneficial effects before or
during reproduction but negative effects afterwards.

5. Reproductive patterns – the magnitude and timing of reproductive events (clutch size,age at
reproductive maturity, size of young, number of reproductive events in a lifetime, amount of parental
investment and care
Two most fundamental forms of propagation are sexual and asexual reproduction.
Clearly, both sexual and asexual strategies are successful, for they are found among virtually all
taxa of both plants and animals.
From an ecological perspective, asexual reproduction can have advantages for it produces
exact genetic copies of the organism.

Organisms have only a certain amount of energy available to them for reproduction.
1. Species must make an evolutionary “decision” on how to apportion that energy. Clutch size, parental
care, age at reproduction, etc. There are a series of tradeoffs.
2. A relationship exists between the demography of the species and its reproductive pattern.
Reproduction and mortality interact. Each reproductive effort may be expected to increase the mortality
rate.

The reproductive value of an individual of age is the number of offspring that individual is expected to
reproduce in the immediate future and those expected over its remaining lifespan. The reproductive
value of an individual is inevitably rises after birth and falls towards old age. The difference in
reproductive values between individuals provides a powerful predictor of life history strategy.

It is not possible for an organism to reach large adult size shortly after birth, produce many large
offspring and live to a great age. Energy allocated to one aspect of life history cannot be spent on
another, so trade-offs between different traits are inevtable.