LESSON 7

Fitness

LIFE HISTORY TRAITS AS COMPONENTS OF FITNESS

• Life History Traits
→ affect rate of fitness (survival and reproduction)
→ affect ecological niches (range of condition of habitat and resources used)
→ includes:
 ages (beginning & end of reproduction)
 fecundity – quantity of gametes (usually eggs) produced by an individual
 average survival
• Potential (maximum) lifespan
→ greatest age reached
• Average life span (life expectancy)
→ average age reached

COST OF REPRODUCTION
• Reproductive effort
→ fraction of energy and nutrients allocated to reproduction
o Brown anoles (Anolis sagrei)
• Cost of reproduction
→ trade-off between reproduction and all other functions
 genotypes allocate more to reproduction, less to themselves – DECREASED
survival/growth (trade-off)
− negative genetic correlation
− prevent indefinitely long-life spans & infinite fecundity
 genetic variation in the number of resources acquired by individuals
− positive genetic correlation (between reproduction & survival)
o seed beetle (Callosobrochus maculatus)

FITNESS
• Fitness – number of offspring produced by an individual
• Life table – probability that a newborn will live at a given age
• changes in survival (lx) or fecundity (mx) affect fitness depending on the age (x)
→ selection for reproduction and survival at advanced ages = weak
• lifetime reproductive success (R) – summation of lmx per age

FITNESS IN AGE-STRUCTURED POPULATIONS

• Semelparous – individual reproduce only once
→ allocate store resources for reproduction
→ big-bang reproduction
o spiders and salmons
• Iteroparous – individual reproduce more than once
o humans
• natural selection does not act to prolong survival beyond last age of reproduction for semelparous
→ reproduction cease because energy is needed more for survival in advanced ages
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Fitness

SENESCENCE
• Senescence – condition or process of deterioration with age (physiological aging)
→ result of negative pleiotropic effects on later age classes of genes, but advantageous
effects on earlier ages
− more deleterious alleles are expressed at later ages

NATURAL SELECTION WEAKENS WITH AGE

• General Model – ultimate evolutionary cause of aging is extrinsic mortality (Hamilton, 19966)
→ INCREASING age, INCREASES extrinsic mortality = death from random causes
 genetic drift
 accidents
 non-age specific diseases
 predation
 factors not having to do with selection
→ natural selection is LESS efficient when deaths are random, not due to particular genetically
determined traits

DIVERSE LIFE HISTORIES

• reproduction at a later age may maximize fitness (even selection for long life) if:
→ juveniles have HIGH mortality
→ adults have HIGH survival
→ large body greatly INCREASES fecundity
1. cabbage palm (Corypha utan) – produce up to million flowers
2. bamboos – engage in highly-synchronous reproduction, then die
3. Australia’s little marsupial mice (Anthechinus) – live fast and die young due to
frenzy of winter mating (big-bang reproduction)
4. Coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisucth) – “big bang” life history (die after spawning)
• delayed onset of reproduction is most likely to evolve in species with HIGH rates of adult survival

NUMBER OF OFFSPRING
• the optimal number of offspring is affected by the following:
 trade-off between number and size (mass) of each offspring
 optimal reproduction effort at that age
 parent’s allocation to reproduction VS continued survival
• British ecologist David Lack – proposed that the optimal clutch size for a bird = number of eggs
with the greatest number of surviving offspring

LIFE HISTORIES AND MATING STRATEGIES

• sequential hermaphroditism – organism changing sex over the course of the lifespan
 Protandry – an organism male to female
 rare
o Clerodendrum
o female slipper shell (Crepidula fornicate) − carries a stack of males
 Protogyny – an organism female to male
 common
o Scrophularia
o bluehead wrasse (Thalassoma bufasciatum)
 females – yellow
 males – blue, white, & green

SPECIALIST AND GENERALIST

• life history of a species includes its ecological niche (range of combinations of all relevant
environmental variables that a species can persist)
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Fitness

 Generalist – species tolerate a wide range of conditions

 Specialist – species can only tolerate a narrow range of conditions
o larva of the juniper geometer (Patalene alyzonaria)
o larva fall cankerworm (Alsophila pometaria)
o blue crab (Callinectes sapidus)
o lady crab (Ovalipes ocellatus)