Cyclical Environments Drive Variation in Life-History Strategies: A General Theory of Cyclical Phenology
First published: 2019
Brief summary
Builds a general demographic/mathematical framework, independent of any single field, for how the periodicity of any cyclical environment (seasons, tides, climate) reshapes optimal life-history strategy, validated against a marine copepod population across a gradient of tidal periodicities.
Article
Cyclical Environments Drive Variation in Life-History Strategies: A General Theory of Cyclical Phenology is a peer-reviewed journal article published by Proceedings of the Royal Society B in 2019. It builds a general demographic/mathematical framework, independent of any single field, for how the periodicity of any cyclical environment (seasons, tides, climate) reshapes optimal life-history strategy, validated against a marine copepod population across a gradient of tidal periodicities.
General theory framework applicable across cycle periods/domains (seasonal, tidal, climatic). It also considers validated using the marine intertidal copepod Tigriopus californicus across a gradient of tidal periodicities. This gives the cycle claim a specific numerical and evidential setting rather than presenting periodicity only as a visual impression.
The author develops a demographic framework and ask how life-history strategies optimise fitness when the environment perturbs a structured population cyclically and how strategies should change as cyclicality changes, showing cycle periodicity alters optimality predictions of classic life-history theory. The interpretation is strongest when the same cycle definition and statistical standard can be applied consistently across the different fields being compared.
For cycles researchers, the article brings together cyclical phenology, life-history strategies, tidal cycles, seasonal environments. It is relevant to comparative cycles research because it links periodic behaviour across disciplines and encourages common methods for testing recurrence, phase and causation.
Because it is a peer-reviewed journal article, the article is a strong starting point for discussion in the Interdisciplinary or Other forum, although its conclusions should still be compared with later replications and updated datasets.
Source details and credits
- Source / publisher: Proceedings of the Royal Society B
- Source type: Peer-reviewed journal article
- URL type: WWW
- Credits: Proceedings of the Royal Society B
- URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331716573_Cyclical_environments_drive_variation_in_life-history_strategies_a_general_theory_of_cyclical_phenology