Environmental Certainty, Trophic Level, and Resource Availability in Life History Evolution

Wilbur, Henry M.; Tinkle, Donald W.; Collins, James P.

doi:10.1086/282956

Cited by 272 publications

(148 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Current LHT tends to incorporate features from both r-K and demographic theories. Integrating age-specific mortality parameters provided better predictions and mechanistic explanations for the relationship between the environment and life history strategy (Wilbur, Tinkle, and Collins, 1974). As a model of ecological causation, Pianka's (1970) version of r-K theory has thus been extensively elaborated and revised since the 1980s (Reznick, Bryant, and Bashey, 2002;Stearns, 1992).…”

Section: Life History Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

The heritability of life history strategy: The k‐factor, covitality, and personality

Figueredo¹,

Vásquez

Brumbach

et al. 2004

Biodemography and Social Biology

261

367

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Archival data from the MIDUS survey (Brim et al., 2000), a nationally representative sample, on 309 MZ and 333 DZ twin pairs aged 25-74 years were used to test the psychometrics and behavioral genetics of life history strategy. We organized 253 of the originally administered 2,000 questions into 30 scales measuring life history traits (e.g., quality of family relationships and altruism towards kin), medical symptoms (e.g., thyroid problems), personality traits (e.g., neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness), and social background (e.g., financial security). A single higher-order factor, indicating a general life history strategy, composed of three lower-order factors, was replicated. Factor analyses were then performed on the genetic variance-covariance matrices. We found that (a) a single higher-order factor explained the preponderance of the genetic correlations among the scales and (b) this higher-order factor was itself 68 percent heritable and accounted for 82 percent of the genetic variance among the three component lower-order factors.

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Section: Life History Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

The heritability of life history strategy: The k‐factor, covitality, and personality

Figueredo¹,

Vásquez

Brumbach

et al. 2004

Biodemography and Social Biology

261

367

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Explanations for such spatial variation in trophic structure are numerous: predators often have greater resource requirements [9][10][11] , larger body sizes 12 , smaller population sizes 13 and slower population growth rates 14 than species lower in the food web. Moreover, in some ecosystems, predators are poorer dispersers than their prey, making it less likely that they will colonize isolated habitats, let alone persist there 1,15 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Larval dispersal drives trophic structure across Pacific coral reefs

et al. 2014

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Top predators are a critical part of healthy ecosystems. Yet, these species are often absent from spatially isolated habitats leading to the pervasive view that fragmented ecological communities collapse from the top down. Here we study reef fish from coral reef communities across the Pacific Ocean. Our analysis shows that species richness of reef fish top predators is relatively stable across habitats that vary widely in spatial isolation and total species richness. In contrast, species richness of prey reef fish declines rapidly with increasing isolation. By consequence, species-poor communities from isolated islands have three times as many predator species per prey species as near-shore communities. We develop and test a colonization-extinction model to reveal how larval dispersal patterns shape this ocean-scale gradient in trophic structure.

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“…K-selection (selection operating at high population densities) has been suggested as an explanation, but it does not fit all the data (Wilbur et al, 1974;Stearns, 1977) and it oversimplifies (Whittaker and Goodman, 1979). In a declining population, the rate of decrease is minimized when age at maturity is maximized (Hamilton, 1966;Mertz, 1971), but that explanation is probably not general, for such populations have an increased probability of extinction.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%