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Evolution of life history parameters in animals with indeterminate growth, particularly fish

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Summary

Most evolutionary life history theory is developed in terms of the allocation of resources to the competing ends of growth, reproduction, and survivorship. In this paper we show that certain dimensionless numbers may be used to describe the relationship between growth, maturation, and adult mortality; our theory aims to predict these numbers and we are led to aggregate some basic features of life histories, rather than explicitly considering the allocation of a limited resource to different components of fitness. The phenomenology developed here has the convenient property that only parameters describing the shapes of two assumed trade-offs among life history traits appear in the solution of the resulting optimisation problem. Comparative inter- and intraspecific data on fish, lizard, snake and shrimp populations suggest that this approach may help explain some common patterns in the life histories of animals with indeterminate growth.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Utah, 84112, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Eric L. Charnov & David Berrigan

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  1. Eric L. Charnov
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  2. David Berrigan
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Charnov, E.L., Berrigan, D. Evolution of life history parameters in animals with indeterminate growth, particularly fish. Evol Ecol 5, 63–68 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02285246

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02285246

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