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Relationships between body size and some life history parameters

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Summary

Patterns in life history phenomena may be demonstrated by examining wide ranges of body weight. Positive relationships exist between adult body size and the clutch size of poikilotherms, litter weight, neonate weight life span, maturation time and, for homeotherms at least, brood or gestation time. The complex of these factors reduces r max in larger animals or, in more physiological terms, r max is set by individual growth rate. Comparison of neonatal production with ingestion and assimilation suggests that larger mammals put proportionately less effort into reproduction. Declining parental investment and longer development times would result if neonatal weight is scaled allometrically to adult weight and neonatal growth rate to neonatal weight. Body size relations represent general ecological theries and therefore hold considerable promise in the development of predictive ecology.

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Author notes

  1. L. Blueweiss

    Present address: Dept. of Evolution and Ecology, State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205 McGregor Avenue, H3A 1B1, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    L. Blueweiss, H. Fox, V. Kudzma, D. Nakashima, R. Peters & S. Sams

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Blueweiss, L., Fox, H., Kudzma, V. et al. Relationships between body size and some life history parameters. Oecologia 37, 257–272 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00344996

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