The life history strategy of the saxicolous desert lizard, Sauromalus obesus

Biparental care systems are a valuable model to examine conflict, cooperation, and coordination between unrelated individuals, as the product of the interactions between the parents influences the fitness of both individuals. A common experimental technique for testing coordinated responses to changes in the costs of parental care is to temporarily handicap one parent, inducing a higher cost of providing care. However, dissimilarity in experimental designs of these studies has hindered interspecific comparisons of the patterns of cost distribution between parents and offspring. Here we apply a comparative experimental approach by handicapping a parent at nests of five bird species using the same experimental treatment. In some species, a decrease in care by a handicapped parent was compensated by its partner, while in others the increased costs of care were shunted to the offspring. Parental responses to an increased cost of care primarily depended on the total duration of care that offspring require. However, life history pace (i.e., adult survival and fecundity) did not influence parental decisions when faced with a higher cost of caring. Our study highlights that a greater attention to intergenerational trade-offs is warranted, particularly in species with a large burden of parental care. Moreover, we demonstrate that parental care decisions may be weighed more against physiological workload constraints than against future prospects of reproduction, supporting evidence that avian species may devote comparable amounts of energy into survival, regardless of life history strategy.

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Age‐related reproductive performance of the Adélie penguin, a long‐lived seabird exhibiting similar outcomes regardless of individual life‐history strategy

Journal of Animal Ecology ◽

10.1111/1365-2656.13422 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Peter J. Kappes ◽

Katie M. Dugger ◽

Amélie Lescroël ◽

David G. Ainley ◽

Grant Ballard ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Life History ◽

Reproductive Performance ◽

Life History Strategy ◽

Adélie Penguin ◽

Adelie Penguin ◽

Individual Life ◽

Age Related

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Genome size variation in deep-sea amphipods

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.170862 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 4 (9) ◽

pp. 170862 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

H. Ritchie ◽

A. J. Jamieson ◽

S. B. Piertney

Keyword(s):

Life History ◽

Genome Size ◽

Deep Sea ◽

Research Effort ◽

Life History Strategy ◽

Size Variation ◽

Genome Size Variation ◽

New Hebrides ◽

Contrast Analysis ◽

Independent Contrast

Genome size varies considerably across taxa, and extensive research effort has gone into understanding whether variation can be explained by differences in key ecological and life-history traits among species. The extreme environmental conditions that characterize the deep sea have been hypothesized to promote large genome sizes in eukaryotes. Here we test this supposition by examining genome sizes among 13 species of deep-sea amphipods from the Mariana, Kermadec and New Hebrides trenches. Genome sizes were estimated using flow cytometry and found to vary nine-fold, ranging from 4.06 pg (4.04 Gb) in Paralicella caperesca to 34.79 pg (34.02 Gb) in Alicella gigantea . Phylogenetic independent contrast analysis identified a relationship between genome size and maximum body size, though this was largely driven by those species that display size gigantism. There was a distinct shift in the genome size trait diversification rate in the supergiant amphipod A. gigantea relative to the rest of the group. The variation in genome size observed is striking and argues against genome size being driven by a common evolutionary history, ecological niche and life-history strategy in deep-sea amphipods.

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The impact of sex ratio and economic status on local birth rates

Biology Letters ◽

10.1098/rsbl.2013.0027 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 20130027 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

A. Chipman ◽

E. Morrison

Keyword(s):

Life History ◽

Sex Ratio ◽

Economic Status ◽

Life History Strategy ◽

Reproductive Behaviour ◽

Female Competition ◽

Birth Rates ◽

Economically Deprived ◽

Human Mating ◽

The Impact

Human mating and reproductive behaviour can vary depending on various mechanisms, including the local sex ratio. Previous research shows that as sex ratios become female-biased, women from economically deprived areas are less likely to delay reproductive opportunities to wait for a high-investing mate but instead begin their reproductive careers sooner. Here, we show that the local sex ratio also has an impact on female fertility schedules. At young ages, a female-biased ratio is associated with higher birth rates in the poorest areas, whereas the opposite is true for the richest areas. At older ages, a female-biased ratio is associated with higher birth rates in the richest, but not the poorest areas. These patterns suggest that female–female competition encourages poorer women to adopt a fast life-history strategy and give birth early, and richer women to adopt a slow life-history strategy and delay reproduction.

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