Journal article
Evolution in stage-structured populations
The American naturalist, Vol.177(4), pp.397-409
04/2011
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/110870
PMCID: PMC5016196
PMID: 21460563
Abstract
For many organisms, stage is a better predictor of demographic rates than age. Yet no general theoretical framework exists for understanding or predicting evolution in stage-structured populations. Here, we provide a general modeling approach that can be used to predict evolution and demography of stage-structured populations. This advances our ability to understand evolution in stage-structured populations to a level previously available only for populations structured by age. We use this framework to provide the first rigorous proof that Lande's theorem, which relates adaptive evolution to population growth, applies to stage-classified populations, assuming only normality and that evolution is slow relative to population dynamics. We extend this theorem to allow for different means or variances among stages. Our next major result is the formulation of Price's theorem, a fundamental law of evolution, for stage-structured populations. In addition, we use data from Trillium grandiflorum to demonstrate how our models can be applied to a real-world population and thereby show their practical potential to generate accurate projections of evolutionary and population dynamics. Finally, we use our framework to compare rates of evolution in age- versus stage-structured populations, which shows how our methods can yield biological insights about evolution in stage-structured populations.
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Details
- Title
- Evolution in stage-structured populations
- Creators
- Michael Barfield - Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USARobert D HoltRichard Gomulkiewicz
- Publication Details
- The American naturalist, Vol.177(4), pp.397-409
- Academic Unit
- Biological Sciences, School of
- Publisher
- United States
- Grant note
- GM-083192 / NIGMS NIH HHS R01 GM083192 / NIGMS NIH HHS
- Identifiers
- 99900547133401842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article