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The evolutionary pattern of early life history in water currents

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Abstract

Explanation of the characteristics of the early developmental stage of organisms is an important problem in evolutionary biology. In studies to date, evolutionary biologists have proposed some theories that successfully explain egg size variation. Mesoscale water movements may transport early life stage organisms in the aquatic biosphere. We propose a novel biological view to explain the duration of the retention period at the spawning ground and egg size variations in aquatic organisms with a planktonic stage at least during the early part of their life history. We develop a life history model of the early life stage of such aquatic organisms that takes into account their adaptations to water currents and biotic environmental gradients in the currents. We hypothesize that the distance from the spawning grounds to the nursery grounds and the biological richness of the currents affect the adaptive life history design of these aquatic organisms, including adaptive retention time at the spawning ground and egg size. Various studies of fish biology describe in passing phenomena that suggest the validity of our deductions, but explicit empirical attempts to evaluate our predictions in the field of evolutional biology are needed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University, Hakodate, 041-8611, Japan

    Kinya Nishimura

  2. Hokkaido Central Fisheries Experimental Station, Hokkaido, Yoichi, 046-8555, Japan

    Noboru Hoshino

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  1. Kinya Nishimura
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  2. Noboru Hoshino
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Correspondence to Kinya Nishimura.

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Nishimura, K., Hoshino, N. The evolutionary pattern of early life history in water currents. Evol Ecol 23, 207–221 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-007-9213-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-007-9213-5

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