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Related Concept Videos

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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, like annual plants, have only one reproductive episode in their lifetimes and consequently have short lifespans. Iteroparous species, by contrast, have many reproductive events during their lifetimes but have relatively few offspring. These two...
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 13, 2026

Manipulation of Ploidy in Caenorhabditis elegans
07:54

Manipulation of Ploidy in Caenorhabditis elegans

Published on: March 15, 2018

Optimal semelparity.

James W Vaupel1, Trifon I Missov, C Jessica E Metcalf

  • 1Laboratory of Survival and Longevity, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.

Plos One
|February 23, 2013
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Semelparous organisms die after reproduction. This study derives formulas for optimal reproduction age, size, and offspring size, finding conditions where offspring size optimization is independent of reproduction size optimization.

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Life history theory

Background:

  • Semelparity is a life history strategy where organisms reproduce once and then die.
  • Semelparous life cycles are typically divided into juvenile and adult reproductive phases.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To derive mathematical formulas for optimal age and size at reproduction in semelparous organisms.
  • To determine the optimal size of offspring (e.g., seeds) for semelparous species.
  • To identify conditions where offspring size optimization is independent of reproductive size optimization.

Main Methods:

  • Mathematical modeling of semelparous life cycles.
  • Derivation of analytical formulas for optimal life history traits.

Main Results:

  • Formulas were derived for optimal age and size at reproduction.
  • Formulas were derived for optimal offspring size.
  • Conditions were identified where offspring size optimization is decoupled from reproductive size optimization.

Conclusions:

  • The study provides a theoretical framework for understanding life history trade-offs in semelparous organisms.
  • Optimal offspring size can be determined independently of optimal reproductive size under specific conditions.
  • These findings have implications for predicting life history evolution in species with a single reproductive event.