Individual life histories: neither slow nor fast, just diverse

Walle, Joanie Van de; Fay, Rémi; Gaillard, Jean‐Michel; Pelletier, Fanie; Hamel, Sandra; Gamelon, Marlène; Barbraud, Christophe; Blanchet, F. Guillaume; Blumstein, Daniel T.; Charmantier, Anne; Delord, Karine; Larue, Benjamin; Martin, Julien G. A.; Mills, James A.; Milot, Emmanuel; Mayer, Francine M.; Rotella, Jay J.; Sæther, Bernt‐Erik; Teplitsky, Céline; Pol, Martijn van de; Vuren, Dirk H. Van; Visser, Marcel E.; Wells, Caitlin; Yarrall, John W.; Jenouvrier, Stéphanie

doi:10.1098/rspb.2023.0511

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…On the whole, our results show that between‐species variation in longevity drives most of the patterns relating luck to life history strategy. We found a positive relationship between longevity and variance in lifespan, in line with evidence that taxa with slow life histories exhibit greater variation in lifespan (van de Walle et al., 2023). This is in contrast to work on aging in humans and primates (Colchero et al., 2016) and angiosperm plants (Baudisch et al., 2013) that found higher longevity to be associated with greater senescence and lower variance in lifespan.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Many of the other life history traits we examined were positively related to longevity, so transitive logic explains many of the observed relationships between life history traits and the response variables. Clutch size was not positively related to longevity, but these two traits may be connected through a life history trade‐off (van de Walle et al., 2023). High parental investment per offspring in mammals (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Within natural populations, individuals often vary substantially in their success, as measured by their lifespan or lifetime reproductive output. Many taxa, such as fish and trees, experience high mortality in early life and low mortality at larger sizes (Houde, 1989;Pauly, 1980;van Valen, 1975). This mortality schedule causes high variance and skew in lifespan: Most individuals die young, while some lucky individuals live a long time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The natural history of luck: A synthesis study of structured population models

Hernández,

Ellner,

Snyder

et al. 2024

Ecology Letters

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Chance pervades life. In turn, life histories are described by probabilities (e.g. survival and breeding) and averages across individuals (e.g. mean growth rate and age at maturity). In this study, we explored patterns of luck in lifetime outcomes by analysing structured population models for a wide array of plant and animal species. We calculated four response variables: variance and skewness in both lifespan and lifetime reproductive output (LRO), and partitioned them into contributions from different forms of luck. We examined relationships among response variables and a variety of life history traits. We found that variance in lifespan and variance in LRO were positively correlated across taxa, but that variance and skewness were negatively correlated for both lifespan and LRO. The most important life history trait was longevity, which shaped variance and skew in LRO through its effects on variance in lifespan. We found that luck in survival, growth, and fecundity all contributed to variance in LRO, but skew in LRO was overwhelmingly due to survival luck. Rapidly growing populations have larger variances in LRO and lifespan than shrinking populations. Our results indicate that luck‐induced genetic drift may be most severe in recovering populations of species with long mature lifespan and high iteroparity.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The natural history of luck: A synthesis study of structured population models

Hernández,

Ellner,

Snyder

et al. 2024

Ecology Letters

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“…For example, Van de Walle et al. (2023) show that although across species a slow‐fast continuum could be identified as the main axis of life history variation, there is no alignment to this pattern when examining the populations of a species individually. The authors therefore conclude that individual life‐history variation is likely idiosyncratic across species.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why we cannot always expect life history strategies to directly inform on sensitivity to environmental change

Rademaker,

van Leeuwen,

Smallegange

2024

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Variation in life history traits in animals and plants can often be structured along major axes of life history strategies. The position of a species along these axes can inform on their sensitivity to environmental change. For example, species with slow life histories are found to be less sensitive in their long‐term population responses to environmental change than species with fast life histories. This provides a tantalizing link between sets of traits and population responses to change, contained in a highly generalizable theoretical framework. Life history strategies are assumed to reflect the outcome of life history tradeoffs that, by their very nature, act at the individual level. Examples include the tradeoff between current and future reproductive success, and allocating energy into growth versus reproduction. But the importance of such tradeoffs in structuring population‐level responses to environmental change remains understudied. We aim to increase our understanding of the link between individual‐level life history tradeoffs and the structuring of life history strategies across species, as well as the underlying links to population responses to environmental change. We find that the classical association between lifehistory strategies and population responses to environmental change breaks down when accounting for individual‐level tradeoffs and energy allocation. Therefore, projecting population responses to environmental change should not be inferred based only on a limited set of species traits. We summarize our perspective and a way forward in a conceptual framework.

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“…Although in life history theory (LHT) literature, fast–slow continuum is used both for explaining variation in LH strategies of distinct species as well as differences between individuals within a population, the validity of the latter approach remains under discussion. Traditional LH patterns are often observed on a taxonomic, rather than on an individual level ( Stearnes & Rodrigues, 2020 ; Van de Walle et al, 2023 ). As some researchers point out, differences in LH strategies are well justified at the level of species, occurring mostly due to selection, but there is no “Darwinian” process that could be responsible for LH differences at an individual level ( Zietsch & Sidari, 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life History Strategies of Male Criminal Offenders: Verifying Traditional Life History Patterns

Kwiek,

Piotrowski

2024

Evol Psychol

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Life history (LH) strategies are results of trade-offs that species must make due to inhabiting certain ecological niches. Although it is assumed that, through the process of developmental plasticity, similar trade-offs are made by individuals in response to a certain level of harshness and unpredictability of their local environments, the study results on this matter are not consistent. In LH-oriented psychological research, such inconsistencies are often explained as a consequence of significant individual differences in phenotypical quality and owned resources, which make studying trade-offs difficult due to different costs and benefits of the same behaviors taken by different individuals. To verify if traditional LH patterns can be found among individuals with more comparable qualities, than in the general population, the current study was conducted on a group of male criminal offenders, who are typically associated with a fast LH strategy. Our results did not show any support for either LH trade-offs or unidimensional character of LH strategies in the criminal group studied. The traditional biodemographic LH traits, that we used to assess a LH strategy, merged into three well-known LH dimensions (mating, parenting, and somatic effort) that yet turned out to be entirely independent from each other. Moreover, each LH dimension turned out to be uniquely related to a different aspect of the developmental environment. The implications of the obtained results are discussed.

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Individual life histories: neither slow nor fast, just diverse

Cited by 13 publications

References 55 publications

The natural history of luck: A synthesis study of structured population models

The natural history of luck: A synthesis study of structured population models

Why we cannot always expect life history strategies to directly inform on sensitivity to environmental change

Life History Strategies of Male Criminal Offenders: Verifying Traditional Life History Patterns

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