Evolutionary bet-hedging involves a tradeoff between the mean and variance of fitness, such
that phenotypes with reduced mean btness may be at a selective advantage under certain …

66 THOMPSON & PELLMYR infer patterns in the evolution of oviposition behavior within the
Lepidoptera from a wealth of studies, and this order has continued to be among the major …

The value of big old fat fecund female fish (BOFFFFs) in fostering stock productivity and
stability has long been underappreciated by conventional fisheries science and …

Parents affect offspring fitness by propagule size and quality, selection of oviposition site,
quality of incubation, feeding of dependent young, and their defence against predators and …

▪ Abstract Most models of optimal progeny size assume that there is a trade-off between
progeny size and number, and that progeny fitness increases with increasing investment per …

SYNOPSIS. Propagule size is perhaps the most widely recognized and studied maternal
effect in ecology, yet its evolution is not well-understood. The large body of extant optimality …

The magnitude of fitness variation caused by maternal effects and, thus, the adaptive
significance of maternal traits may depend on environmental quality, generating crossing …

Why do highly fecund organisms apparently sacrifice offspring size for increased numbers
when offspring survival generally increases with size,,? The theoretical tools for …

The latitudinal variation in clutch size found in many animal species, including Pacific
salmon, has been an enigmatic problem in ecology. We analyze egg number and egg size …

I develop a general treatment of the effects of parental resource status on optimal offspring
size. The model shows that even when there is a resource trade-off between size and …