Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Life Histories01:29

Life Histories

Constrained by limited energy and resources, organisms must compromise between offspring quantity and parental investment. This trade-off is represented by two primary reproductive strategies; K-strategists produce few offspring but provide substantial parental support, whereas r-strategists produce much progeny that receives little care. These strategies are related to an organism’s survival likelihood across its lifespan, which is represented by a survivorship curve. Three general types of...
Applications of Life Tables01:22

Applications of Life Tables

Life tables are versatile across various fields, providing a quantitative basis for analyzing mortality and survival rates. Whether used by demographers, actuaries, epidemiologists, or sociologists, life tables offer valuable insights into the dynamics of life and death, facilitating informed decisions in public health, insurance, conservation, and beyond. Their broad applicability highlights the interconnectedness of demographic data with practical outcomes in everyday life and strategic...
Speciation Rates01:07

Speciation Rates

Speciation can proceed at markedly different rates, and evolutionary biologists commonly describe these differences through the models of gradualism and punctuated equilibrium. Both patterns explain how new species arise, but they differ in the tempo and continuity of evolutionary change. In both cases, evolutionary change arises from heritable variation within populations, with natural selection often shaping traits that improve survival and reproduction under specific environmental conditions.
Genetic Drift03:33

Genetic Drift

Natural selection—probably the most well-known evolutionary mechanism—increases the prevalence of traits that enhance survival and reproduction. However, evolution does not merely propagate favorable traits, nor does it always benefit populations.Life is not fair. A deer grazing contentedly in a field can have her meal cut tragically short by a bolt of lightning. If the doomed doe is one of only three in the population, 1/3 of the population’s gene pool is lost. Random events like this can...
Energy Budgets and Reproductive Strategies00:51

Energy Budgets and Reproductive Strategies

Organisms must balance energy intake with the energy required for growth, maintenance, and reproduction. These trade-offs result in a variety of survivorship and reproductive strategies, including semelparity and iteroparity. Semelparous species reproduce only once in their lifetime, often investing most available resources into that single reproductive event. Iteroparous species, by contrast, reproduce multiple times over their lifetimes, typically allocating fewer resources to any single...
Longitudinal Research02:20

Longitudinal Research

Sometimes we want to see how people change over time, as in studies of human development and lifespan. When we test the same group of individuals repeatedly over an extended period of time, we are conducting longitudinal research. Longitudinal research is a research design in which data-gathering is administered repeatedly over an extended period of time. For example, we may survey a group of individuals about their dietary habits at age 20, retest them a decade later at age 30, and then again...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same authorSame journal

Lucky To Be Alive, Luckier to Breed: Lifetime Reproduction in Weddell Seals.

Ecology letters·2026
Same author

Transient dynamics and nonlinear fitness: A matrix approach to pulse and press perturbation.

Ecology·2026
Same author

Plant population responses to environmental variability are primarily driven by survival-reproduction trade-offs and mediated by aridity.

Nature communications·2026
Same author

Biology Needs Philosophy, But What Philosophy?

Bioscience·2026
Same author

How and why does aging occur? Updating evolutionary theory to meet a new era of data.

Evolution, medicine, and public health·2026
Same author

Protein aggregation drives cell aging in a size-specific manner in <i>Escherichia coli</i>.

mBio·2025

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 27, 2026

Using Single-Worm Data to Quantify Heterogeneity in Caenorhabditis elegans-Bacterial Interactions
09:54

Using Single-Worm Data to Quantify Heterogeneity in Caenorhabditis elegans-Bacterial Interactions

Published on: July 22, 2022

Dynamic heterogeneity in life histories.

Shripad Tuljapurkar1, Ulrich K Steiner, Steven Hecht Orzack

  • 1Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. tulja@stanford.edu

Ecology Letters
|November 20, 2008
PubMed
Summary

Stage-structured population models reveal dynamic heterogeneity, where life-history differences arise from stochastic changes in reproductive stages. This offers a neutral framework for understanding individual variation in lifetime reproductive success.

More Related Videos

Exploring Life History Choices: Using Temperature and Substrate Type as Interacting Factors for Blowfly Larval and Female Preferences
12:14

Exploring Life History Choices: Using Temperature and Substrate Type as Interacting Factors for Blowfly Larval and Female Preferences

Published on: November 17, 2023

Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity
08:16

Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity

Published on: March 13, 2014

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 27, 2026

Using Single-Worm Data to Quantify Heterogeneity in Caenorhabditis elegans-Bacterial Interactions
09:54

Using Single-Worm Data to Quantify Heterogeneity in Caenorhabditis elegans-Bacterial Interactions

Published on: July 22, 2022

Exploring Life History Choices: Using Temperature and Substrate Type as Interacting Factors for Blowfly Larval and Female Preferences
12:14

Exploring Life History Choices: Using Temperature and Substrate Type as Interacting Factors for Blowfly Larval and Female Preferences

Published on: November 17, 2023

Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity
08:16

Experimental Protocol for Manipulating Plant-induced Soil Heterogeneity

Published on: March 13, 2014

Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Population Dynamics

Background:

  • Longitudinal studies of natural populations often employ multistage models.
  • Survival and stage transitions are frequently modeled using Markov chains.
  • Stage-structured population models are a key framework in ecological research.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To demonstrate that stage-structured models generate dynamic heterogeneity.
  • To characterize dynamic heterogeneity using Markov chain properties like entropy and eigenvalues.
  • To analyze variance in lifespan and predict lifetime reproductive success distributions.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of longitudinal data from natural populations.
  • Application of multistage, stage-structured population models.
  • Characterization of Markov chains to quantify dynamic heterogeneity (entropy, subdominant eigenvalue).

Main Results:

  • Stage-structured models produce dynamic heterogeneity, driven by stochastic changes in life stages.
  • Entropy and subdominant eigenvalue quantify the extent and persistence of reproductive success variation.
  • Observed lifetime reproductive success distributions are often consistent with dynamic heterogeneity, not fixed individual differences.

Conclusions:

  • Dynamic heterogeneity, arising from life stage transitions, provides a neutral model for individual variation.
  • This framework is crucial for understanding fitness in dynamic life histories and the evolution of senescence.
  • The study highlights the importance of considering stage transitions in population ecology and evolutionary studies.