Complex offspring size effects: variations across life stages and between species

Complex offspring size effects: variations across life stages and between species

Classical optimality models of offspring size and number assume a monotonically increasing relationship between offspring size and performance. In aquatic organisms with complex life cycles, the size-performance function is particularly hard to grasp because measures of performance are varied and their relationships with size may not be consistent throughout early ontogeny. Here, we examine siz...

The evolution of offspring size across life-history stages.

Females vary in the size of offspring that they produce, often in a manner that depends on maternal age or stage. This is puzzling, given that offspring size is predicted to evolve to a single optimal value where the gain in fitness from being larger exactly offsets the fitness lost to the mother by producing fewer offspring. We used a stage-structured life-history model to determine the optima...

Offspring size plasticity in response to intraspecific competition: an adaptive maternal effect across life-history stages.

When provisioning offspring, mothers balance the benefits of producing a few large, fitter offspring with the costs of decreased fecundity. The optimal balance between offspring size and fecundity depends on the environment. Theory predicts that larger offspring have advantages in adverse conditions, but in favorable conditions size is less important. Thus, if environmental quality varies, sele...

For Peer Review 1 Offspring size effects across multiple life - history stages 1 in a marine invertebrate

Geographical variation in offspring size effects across generations

Offspring size is thought to strongly affect offspring fitness and many studies have shown strong offspring size/fitness relationships in marine and terrestrial organisms. This relationship is strongly mitigated by local environmental conditions and the optimal offspring size that mothers should produce will vary among different environments. It is assumed that offspring size will consistently ...