BIOL 2140 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Parental Investment, Fecundity, Senescence
Document Summary
Life history: the traits that effect an organism"s schedule of reproduction and survival. Fecundity: the number of off-spring produced by an organism per reproductive episode. Parity: the number of reproductive episodes an organism experiences. Parental investment: the time and energy given to an offspring by its parent"s longevity (life expectancy): the life span of an organism. Life history traits often vary consistently with life form, habit or environmental conditions. Ex: the number of off-spring is negatively correlated with the size of the offspring. J phillip grime proposed that plant life history depends on stress, competition, and the frequency of disturbances. Plant functioning at the extremes of these environmental axes could be categorized as stress tolerators, competitors (ex. Woody lousewort) are typically small herbs with a long-life time to sexual maturity. Many stress tolerators rely on vegetative reproduction (reproducing from roots and stems) instead of producing costly seeds competitors.
