The Evolution of Reproductive Strategies

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Reseña del editor: The great diversity of life histories seen in the living world needs explaining. Why should some species live for minutes yet be enormously fecund, whereas others like ourselves live for decades and produce very few offspring? Biologists recognize that such variation has evolved because the production of offspring is costly. What is more, there are many detectable trade-offs between components of fecundity, and between fecundity and mortality. For example, high fecundity early in life may be accompanied by increased mortality, thus preventing the production of offspring later in life. As this volume testifies, we are now at an exciting juncture in our search towards understanding the origin of life-history diversity through evolutionary trade-offs. It is becoming increasingly evident through carefully controlled experimental and comparative studies, how reproductive trade-offs vary with lifestyle. This information, allied with the theoretical framework provided by optimality and population genetic models, furthers our understanding of how evolutionary history and genetically strategic decisions have moulded life-history diversity. In addition to understanding diversity we are also beginning to understand, in evolutionary, functional and physiological terms, the processes that have resulted in such commonplace phenomena as senescence and weaning conflict. This volume shows how biology is now a truly integrated field in which ecologists, ethologists, physiologists, geneticists, evolutionary biologists, and comparative anatomists all have their parts to play.