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Age‐specific life history tactics in organisms with determinate growth: Optimal models for non‐optimal behavior?
Author(s) -
Thomson David L.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
ecological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.628
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1440-1703
pISSN - 0912-3814
DOI - 10.1007/bf02347820
Subject(s) - biology , senescence , selection (genetic algorithm) , population , life history , mutation accumulation , evolutionary biology , population growth , overlapping generations model , life history theory , ecology , genetics , gene , demography , mutation rate , economics , computer science , microeconomics , artificial intelligence , sociology
Among organisms with determinate growth, optimization models predict that reproductive effort should increase as individuals approach old age, but the assumptions of these models may be inappropriate because the senescence that generates the necessary selective pressure may be not itself be optimal. Population genetics models were constructed to examine whether genes for age‐specific changes in reproductive effort could invade a population in which senescence was maintained at equilibrium levels by a balance between mutation and selection. In asexually reproducing organisms, it was found that strategies of increasing reproductive effort could not normally invade the population. In sexually reproducing organisms, however, recombination was found to be important and genes for age‐specific changes in effort could spread in the population under most circumstances.