Article Title：Evolution of strategies to stay in the game
Abstract：
Life-history evolution is a complex process. Life-history theory covers the fundamental level of the process, the evolution of life-history traits. Life-history traits interact; those coevolving as a response to the same selection pressure form life-history tactics. Top level of the hierarchy, life-history strategy, is formed by genetically interconnected tactics. Our aim is to expand the traditional view to life-history evolution by considering what boundary conditions a successful life-history strategy has to fulfil. We claim that the most fundamental condition successful strategies have to meet is to minimize the risk of evolutionary failure. Here the risk of failure refers to failure in transferring practitioners of the strategy to the next time point, either through survival, or by reproduction. We make an attempt to classify types of risks as they lead to evolutionary failure, and discuss how risk minimization ideas may be approached empirically. We conclude that understanding how traits evolve may not cover all aspects of how strategies evolve. We emphasize that bookkeeping of the actual causes of failure might help in developing life-history theory that uses causes of selection to predict responses to selection.
Keywords: evolutionary failure; evolutionary success; fitness; game of life; life-history evolution; natural selection
DOI: 10.1023/A:1006688902786
Source：BIOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY
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