11 Life History Evolution

Description: Principles of Evolution, Ecology and Behavior (EEB 122) Life history covers three main classes of traits in organisms: age and size at maturity, number and size of offspring, and lifespan and reproductive investment. Organisms must make tradeoffs among these traits that typically cause them to come to evolutionary equilibrium at intermediate values. Life history traits are evolutionary solutions to the ecological problems of the risk of mortality and the acquisition of food, and they are expressed in reaction norms that determine the particular traits that an organism will exhibit when its genes encounter a specific environment during development. Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: open.yale.edu This course was recorded in Spring 2009.