BIOL 103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 34: Thomas Robert Malthus, Semelparity And Iteroparity

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Biology
• Course: BIOL 103
• Professor: Adam K Chippindale

Document Summary

Fruit fly and royal albatross = high homology (share many genes), but have diff adaptations. Fruit flies have explosive reproduction potential, but die fast by predators, spider webs, etc. Albatross has higher survivorship than fruit flies because they are more stable and not explosive. When fruit flies produces 2 offspring, they are replacing themselves. It is not legitimate to ask this question, as each organism is incredibly well adapted to its environment. The two animals are using different life history strategies: The fly (r-selected) is adapted to exploit available resources with explosive reproductive output; mortality rates are very high with few surviving to reproduce. The albatross (k-selected) is adapted to reproduce slowly, with a high rate of survival. Orga(cid:374)is(cid:373)s (cid:272)a(cid:374)"t do it all: i(cid:374)(cid:448)esti(cid:374)g e(cid:374)erg(cid:455) i(cid:374) reprodu(cid:272)tio(cid:374) (cid:373)a(cid:455) lead to a redu(cid:272)tio(cid:374) i(cid:374) sur(cid:448)i(cid:448)al probability. Tradeoffs occur in individual lives but are also characteristic of species. Virgi(cid:374) fe(cid:373)ale flies (cid:373)a(cid:455) li(cid:448)e 20% lo(cid:374)ger (cid:271)ut the(cid:455) do(cid:374)"t li(cid:448)e forever.