BIOENERGETICS OF LIFE-HISTORY STRATEGIES AND THE COMPARATIVE ALLOMETRY OF REPRODUCTION

Winemiller and Rose (1992, Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 49: 2196-2218) sh owed that fish life history data lie on a two-dimensional triangular s urface, embedded in the three-dimensional space established by the fol lowing biological attributes: (i) age at maturity, (ii) fecundity, and (iii) juvenile survivorship (as measured by the presence/absence of p arental care). The vertices of this triangular surface define three en dpoint strategies (equilibrium, opportunistic, and periodic) that Wine miller and Rose viewed as boundary strategies for all fish life histor ies. This paper extends these ideas by showing empirically that (i) th e allometric relationship linking peak ovary weight to adult body weig ht differs across endpoint strategies, (ii) the allometric relationshi p linking age at 50% maturity to adult body weight is the same across endpoint strategies with the exception of the opportunistic strategy, and (iii) the allometric relationships characteristic of Winemiller-Ro se endpoint strategies, plus that of a fourth strategy (composed of th e genera Salmo and Onchorynchus), combine to form constraints that bou nd data on reproductive effort from a sample of species that represent a broad range of fish life history strategies. We offer some hypothes es as to why such constraints might exist.