Social Behaviors and Life History

• Reproductive behaviour can be influenced by sexual selection, which results from differences in reproductive rates among individuals due to differences in their mating processes
• Intrasexual competition involves individuals competing amongst themselves for mates
• Intersexual competition involves one sex consistently choosing a mate based on a particular trait
• Nonrandom mating can affect reproductive potential
• Parental investment refers to the investment of a parent in an individual offspring to increase their chances of survival and reproductive success
• Anisogamy involves differences in maternal and paternal investment in offspring
• Reproductive mating systems include monogamy, polygyny, polyandry, and promiscuity
• Sociality involves cooperation between individuals or various forms of assistance, such as defense against predators
• Eusociality involves individuals of more than one generation living together, cooperative care of young, and division of individuals into castes
• Inclusive fitness is determined by an individual's own survival and reproduction, plus the survival and reproduction of individuals with whom they share genes
• Kin selection is the evolutionary force favoring helping behavior towards genetic relatives
• Optimal group size can be influenced by various factors such as energy expenditures, competition for food, and risks of disease
• Life history includes major events related to an organism's growth, development, reproduction, and survival
• Asexual and sexual reproduction involve trade-offs such as the "cost of sex" and "cost of males"
• Reproductive effort involves the allocation of energy, time, and resources to the production and care of offspring
• r and K selection are concepts related to environmental or population-level correlates, such as disturbance, population growth rate, and stability
• Life histories of plants can be influenced by factors like competition, disturbance, and stress
• Semelparity vs iteroparity represent different reproductive strategies with trade-offs between reproduction and survival
• Life history strategies can be opportunistic, periodic, or aimed at equilibrium in dynamic environments
• Reproductive mating system

  • Monogamy: one male and one female
  • Polygyny: one male and a lot of females
  • Polyandry: one female, many males
  • Promiscuity: any males and many females all interacting with each other and mating with one anothe
• Life History Strategies

  • Opportunistic– maximises colonising ability across dynamic environments
  • Periodic – take advantage of infrequent periods when conditions are favourable
• Life Histories of Plants

  • Competition – tendency to utilise common resources
  • Disturbance – process that destroys plant biomass
  • Stress – abiotic factor limiting vegetative growth