Aim of the course
Life History Theory deals with species-specific adaptive schemes of the distribution of the reproductive effort over the life of an organism. The general theoretical problem is to predict which combination of traits will evolve under specific conditions. The concepts used are also relevant to study within species variation in life history traits. The one week course aims at giving an overview of the field and will discuss methodology and recent developments.
Contents & Structure
The subject will be worked out on the basis of lectures, case histories, discussion and literature. The contact with current research projects is guaranteed as concrete examples will be treated by scientists working in the field. A lot of discussed examples refer to birds, but attention will also be paid to other groups of organisms, such as humans, fishes, insects and plants. In poster sessions work and/or plans of the participating students will be discussed with the whole group and we will use computers to illustrate some of the concepts.
