Glossary Definition
Adaptation An adjustment to environmental cues to increase fitness.
Adaptive The ability to maintain fitness by adjusting the phenotype in the face of perturbation.
potential The adaptive mechanisms can act on different time scales: evolutionary (slow and
inflexible), permanent within life (developmental plasticity and transgenerational
effects), variable within life (adaptive plasticity).
Altriciality A reproductive strategy where offspring are born or hatched completely helpless. In
general, parents invest more in quantity than quality, providing postnatal care.
Antagonistic Pleiotropic genes with good early effects are favoured by
pleiotropy selection, even if these genes have bad effects at later
ages. So, small beneficial effects can outweigh late
deleterious effects.
Anticipatory Transgenerational effects that increase the maternal fitness by increasing the offspring's
maternal effects fitness. E.g. if the mother is exposed to natural enemies, it will produce offspring with a
more resistant phenotype. Part of this is the predictive adaptive response hypothesis.
Bet-hedging When there is variation in offspring survival, you may want to spread your energy on
multiple 'bets'. This reduces the variance in the mean outcome, but also the maximum
outcome. This leads to iteroparity (reproduce multiple times, spread your bets).
Bet-hedging Transgenerational effects that reduce the variance in maternal fitness by producing
maternal effects offspring with a range of phenotypes. By doing this, there is a lower risk in total: the
mother is prepared for anything. This may evolve in an unpredictable environment with
large fitness consequences. E.g. when you cannot feed all the young at the same time
anyway, they don't hatch simultaneously.
Capital breeder A reproductive strategy where the reproductive event is financed with stored capital to
allow them to reproduce at a later time, independent of the availability of resources
during the breeding period.
Carrying capacity Population cannot grow exponentially forever, limits
are set by the environment such as food availability,
predators, infectious diseases, stress, etc. Due to
delayed feedback, population will overshoot and
undershoot the carrying capacity and might
therefore fluctuate between r and K selection.
Cohort life table The change in composition of a particular cohort in time.
Cole's paradox If mortality rates among adults and young are the same, then even if semelparous
species only have 1 extra offspring and die afterwards, the population will be one step
ahead of iteroparous species. However, if adult mortality is less than young mortality
(because they are bigger, stronger), they will survive easier so iteroparous species have
a benefit over semelparous ones. So: in high adult mortality, semelparity, in low adult
mortality, iteroparity.
Compensatory If the offspring were developed in an environment with low food availability or quality
growth (possibly signaled through maternal effects), and they end up in a better environment,
then they might perform compensatory growth. E.g. humans that were born/developed
in the hunger winter were likely to develop obesity afterwards.
Cost of fear In the indirect presence of a predator (e.g. via predator noise), the total clutch/litter size
can be reduced, even if the predator isn't actually present. Also, the egg size can be
increased, due to increased developmental time to ensure that offspring are bigger in
Adaptation An adjustment to environmental cues to increase fitness.
Adaptive The ability to maintain fitness by adjusting the phenotype in the face of perturbation.
potential The adaptive mechanisms can act on different time scales: evolutionary (slow and
inflexible), permanent within life (developmental plasticity and transgenerational
effects), variable within life (adaptive plasticity).
Altriciality A reproductive strategy where offspring are born or hatched completely helpless. In
general, parents invest more in quantity than quality, providing postnatal care.
Antagonistic Pleiotropic genes with good early effects are favoured by
pleiotropy selection, even if these genes have bad effects at later
ages. So, small beneficial effects can outweigh late
deleterious effects.
Anticipatory Transgenerational effects that increase the maternal fitness by increasing the offspring's
maternal effects fitness. E.g. if the mother is exposed to natural enemies, it will produce offspring with a
more resistant phenotype. Part of this is the predictive adaptive response hypothesis.
Bet-hedging When there is variation in offspring survival, you may want to spread your energy on
multiple 'bets'. This reduces the variance in the mean outcome, but also the maximum
outcome. This leads to iteroparity (reproduce multiple times, spread your bets).
Bet-hedging Transgenerational effects that reduce the variance in maternal fitness by producing
maternal effects offspring with a range of phenotypes. By doing this, there is a lower risk in total: the
mother is prepared for anything. This may evolve in an unpredictable environment with
large fitness consequences. E.g. when you cannot feed all the young at the same time
anyway, they don't hatch simultaneously.
Capital breeder A reproductive strategy where the reproductive event is financed with stored capital to
allow them to reproduce at a later time, independent of the availability of resources
during the breeding period.
Carrying capacity Population cannot grow exponentially forever, limits
are set by the environment such as food availability,
predators, infectious diseases, stress, etc. Due to
delayed feedback, population will overshoot and
undershoot the carrying capacity and might
therefore fluctuate between r and K selection.
Cohort life table The change in composition of a particular cohort in time.
Cole's paradox If mortality rates among adults and young are the same, then even if semelparous
species only have 1 extra offspring and die afterwards, the population will be one step
ahead of iteroparous species. However, if adult mortality is less than young mortality
(because they are bigger, stronger), they will survive easier so iteroparous species have
a benefit over semelparous ones. So: in high adult mortality, semelparity, in low adult
mortality, iteroparity.
Compensatory If the offspring were developed in an environment with low food availability or quality
growth (possibly signaled through maternal effects), and they end up in a better environment,
then they might perform compensatory growth. E.g. humans that were born/developed
in the hunger winter were likely to develop obesity afterwards.
Cost of fear In the indirect presence of a predator (e.g. via predator noise), the total clutch/litter size
can be reduced, even if the predator isn't actually present. Also, the egg size can be
increased, due to increased developmental time to ensure that offspring are bigger in
