Molecular signals versus the Loi de Balancement

Life history tradeoffs are often thought to be caused by the allocation of limited resources among competing traits such as reproduction, somatic grow th and maintenance. One line of evidence supporting this comes from elimina ting reproduction, for example, by surgically removing gonads, However, rec ent evidence from the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans suggests that the app arent tradeoffs it shows might not be due to resource allocation at all but rather to the effects of a molecular signal originating in the germ line t hat represses longevity. These results should cause us to rethink the inter pretation of many classic experiments in life history evolution.