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Journal ArticleDOI

The evolution of life histories

01 Oct 1993-Journal of Animal Ecology (Oxford University Press)-Vol. 62, Iss: 4, pp 796
TL;DR: In this article, age and size at maturity at maturity number and size of offspring Reproductive lifespan and ageing are discussed. But the authors focus on the effects of age and stage structure on fertility.
Abstract: Prologue Part I: Evolutionary explanation Demography: age and stage structure Quantitative genetics and reaction norms Trade-offs Lineage-specific effects Part II: Age and size at maturity Number and size of offspring Reproductive lifespan and ageing Appendices Glossary References Author index Subject index.
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Fisheries managers should be alert to the evolutionary change caused by fishing, because such changes are likely to be hard to reverse and, if properly controlled, could bring about an evolutionary gain in yield.
Abstract: Large changes are taking place in yield-determining traits of commercially exploited fish, including traits such as size-at-age and age-at-maturation. The cause of these phenotypic changes is often not understood, and genetic change arising from the selective effects of fishing may be a contributory factor. Selection generated by fishing gear is strong in heavily exploited fish stocks, and the spatial location of fishing can also cause strong selection. The success of selective breeding in aquaculture indicates that significant amounts of genetic variation for production-related traits exist in fish populations. Fisheries managers should be alert to the evolutionary change caused by fishing, because such changes are likely to be hard to reverse and, if properly controlled, could bring about an evolutionary gain in yield.

921 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Current research on the ecological impacts of incidental take, or bycatch, in global fisheries is reviewed to address challenging questions in the face of uncertainty, analytical limitations and mounting conservation crises.
Abstract: Hunting by humans played a major role in extirpating terrestrial megafauna on several continents and megafaunal loss continues today in both terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Recent declines of large marine vertebrates that are of little or no commercial value, such as sea turtles, seabirds and marine mammals, have focused attention on the ecological impacts of incidental take, or bycatch, in global fisheries. In spite of the recognition of the problem of bycatch, few comprehensive assessments of its effects have been conducted. Many vulnerable species live in pelagic habitats, making surveys logistically complex and expensive. Bycatch data are sparse and our understanding of the demography of the affected populations is often rudimentary. These factors, combined with the large spatial scales that pelagic vertebrates and fishing fleets cover, make accurate and timely bycatch assessments difficult. Here, we review the current research that addresses these challenging questions in the face of uncertainty, analytical limitations and mounting conservation crises.

911 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
23 Dec 2008-PLOS ONE
TL;DR: It is suggested that local adaptation is less common in plant populations than generally assumed, and the clear role of population size for the ability to evolve local adaptation raises considerable doubt on the ability of small plant populations to cope with changing environments.
Abstract: Local adaptation is of fundamental importance in evolutionary, population, conservation, and global-change biology The generality of local adaptation in plants and whether and how it is influenced by specific species, population and habitat characteristics have, however, not been quantitatively reviewed Therefore, we examined published data on the outcomes of reciprocal transplant experiments using two approaches We conducted a meta-analysis to compare the performance of local and foreign plants at all transplant sites In addition, we analysed frequencies of pairs of plant origin to examine whether local plants perform better than foreign plants at both compared transplant sites In both approaches, we also examined the effects of population size, and of the habitat and species characteristics that are predicted to affect local adaptation We show that, overall, local plants performed significantly better than foreign plants at their site of origin: this was found to be the case in 710% of the studied sites However, local plants performed better than foreign plants at both sites of a pair-wise comparison (strict definition of local adaption) only in 453% of the 1032 compared population pairs Furthermore, we found local adaptation much more common for large plant populations (>1000 flowering individuals) than for small populations (<1000 flowering individuals) for which local adaptation was very rare The degree of local adaptation was independent of plant life history, spatial or temporal habitat heterogeneity, and geographic scale Our results suggest that local adaptation is less common in plant populations than generally assumed Moreover, our findings reinforce the fundamental importance of population size for evolutionary theory The clear role of population size for the ability to evolve local adaptation raises considerable doubt on the ability of small plant populations to cope with changing environments

909 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This work has shown that replacement of vulnerable taxa by rapidly spreading taxa that thrive in human-altered environments will ultimately produce a spatially more homogenized biosphere with much lower net diversity.
Abstract: ▪ Abstract Extinction is rarely random across ecological and geological time scales. Traits that make some species more extinction-prone include individual traits, such as body size, and abundance. Substantial consistency appears across ecological and geological time scales in such traits. Evolutionary branching produces phylogenetic (as often measured by taxonomic) nesting of extinction-biasing traits at many scales. An example is the tendency, seen in both fossil and modern data, for higher taxa living in marine habitats to have generally lower species extinction rates. At lower taxononomic levels, recent bird and mammal extinctions are concentrated in certain genera and families. A fundamental result of such selectivity is that it can accelerate net loss of biodiversity compared to random loss of species among taxa. Replacement of vulnerable taxa by rapidly spreading taxa that thrive in human-altered environments will ultimately produce a spatially more homogenized biosphere with much lower net diversity.

885 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors suggest that sexual differences in disease have evolved just as sex differences in morphology and behavior, and are the result of selection acting differently on males and females.

855 citations