Mechanisms of Life History Evolution The Genetics and Physiology of Life History Traits and Trade-Offs

Life history theory seeks to explain the evolution of the major features of life cycles by analyzing the ecological factors that shape age-specific schedules of growth, reproduction, and survival and by investigating the trade-offs that constrain the evolution of these traits. Although life history theory has made enormous progress in explaining the diversity of life history strategies among species, it traditionally ignores the underlying proximate mechanisms. Mechanisms of Life History Evolutionargues that many fundamental problems in life history evolution, including the nature of trade-offs, can only be fully resolved if we begin to integrate information on developmental, physiological, and genetic mechanisms into the classical life history framework. Each chapter is written by an established or up-and-coming leader in their respective field; they not only represent the state of the art but also offer fresh perspectives for future research. The text is divided into 7 sections that cover basic concepts (Part 1), the mechanisms that affect different parts of the life cycle (growth, development, and maturation; reproduction; and aging and somatic maintenance) (Parts 2-4), life history plasticity (Part 5), life history integration and trade-offs (Part 6), and concludes with a synthesis chapter written by a prominent leader in the field and an editorial postscript (Part 7).

Thomas Flatt has been a Group Leader at the Institute of Population Genetics at University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna since January 2009. His main research interest is in the biology of aging, life history evolution, and evolutionary physiology. He studied biology at the University of Basel, from where he received his M.Sc. in population biology in 1999, for work supervised by Prof. Stephen C. Stearns (Basel) and Prof. Richard Shine (Sydney). In 2004 he earned his Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Fribourg (under Prof. Tadeusz Kawecki). Between 2004 and 2008 he was a postdoctoral research fellow in Prof. Marc Tatar's laboratory at Brown University (Providence, USA), sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Roche Research Foundation. He is a faculty member of the Vienna Graduate School of Population Genetics (Doktoratskolleg Populationsgenetik). He is also currently serving as a deciding editor for the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.

Andreas Heyland is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Guelph, Canada. He works primarily on the evolution and development of marine invertebrates. His interest in life history theory began as an undergraduate student in the laboratory of the late Paul I. Ward at the University of Zurich. After completing his MSc at the University of Zurich he continued as a Ph.D. student at the University of Florida in Gainesville, exploring the mechanisms underlying metamorphosis. After a post-doc in Neuroscience he started his faculty position at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada where he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology.

Foreword: Harvey's Legacy, Graham Bell
Preface
Part 1: Integrating Mechanisms into Life History Evolution
1. Integrating Mechanistic and Evolutionary Analysis of Life History Variation, Christian Braendle, Andreas Heyland, and Thomas Flatt
2. Genomic Insights into Life History Evolution, Derek A. Roff
Part 2: Growth, Development, and Maturation
3. Emerging Patterns in the Regulation and Evolution of Marine Invertebrate Settlement and Metamorphosis, Andreas Heyland, Adam M. Reitzel, and Sandie Degnan
4. Evolution and the Regulation of Growth and Body Size, Alexander W. Shingleton
5. The Genetic and Endocrine Basis for the Evolution of Metamorphosis in Insects, Deniz F. Erezylimaz
6. Thyroidal Regulation of Life History Transitions in Fish, Richard G. Manzon
7. Hormone Regulation and the Evolution of Frog Metamorphic Diversity, Daniel Buchholz, Christine Moskalik, Saurabh Kulkarni, Amy Hollar, and Allison Ng
Part 3: Reproduction
8. Asexual Reproduction in Cnidaria: Comparative Developmental Processes and Candidate Mechanisms, Adam M. Reitzel, Derek Stefanik, and John R. Finnerty
9. The Genetics and Evolution of Flowering Time Variation in Plants: Identifying Genes that Control a Key Life History Transition, Joshua A. Banta and Michael D. Purugganan
10. Mechanisms of Nutrient Dependent Reproduction in Dipteran Insects, Alan O. Bergland
11. Mechanisms Underlying Reproductive Trade-offs: Costs of Reproduction, Dominic A. Edward and Tracey Chapman
12. Patterns and Processes of Human Life History Evolution, Michael P. Muehlenbein and Mark V. Flinn
Part 4: Lifespan, Aging and Somatic Maintenance
13. Parallels in Understanding the Endocrine Control of Lifespan with the Firebug Pyrrhocoris apterus and the Fruit Fly Drosophila melanogaster, Magdalena Hodkova and Marc Tatar
14. Chapter 14: The Genetics of Dietary Modulation of Lifespan, Johannes H. Bauer and Stephen L. Helfand
15. Molecular Stress Pathways and the Evolution of Life Histories in Reptiles, Tonia S. Schwartz and Anne M. Bronikowski
16. Mechanisms of Aging in Human Populations, Maris Kuningas and Rudi G.J. Westendorp
Part 5: Life History Plasticity
17. Mechanisms Underlying Feeding-Structure Plasticity in Echinoderm Larvae, Benjamin G. Miner
18. Evolution and Mechanisms of Insect Reproductive Diapause, a Plastic and Pleiotropic Life History Syndrome, Paul S. Schmidt
19. Seasonal Polyphenisms and Environmentally-Induced Plasticity in the Lepidoptera - the Coordinated Evolution of Many Traits on Multiple Levels, Paul M. Brakefield and Bas J. Zwaan
20. Honey Bee Life history Plasticity - Development, Behavior, and Aging, Brenda Rascon, Navdeep S. Mutti, Christina Tolfsen and Gro V. Amdam
Part 6: Life History Integration and Trade-Offs
21. Molecular Mechanisms of Life History Trade-Offs and the Evolution of Multicellular Complexity in Volvocalean Green Algae, Aurora M. Nedelcu and Richard E. Michod
22. Molecular Basis of Life History Regulation in C. elegans and Other Organisms, Birgit Gerisch and Adam Antebi
23. The Costs of Immunity and the Evolution of Immunological Defense Mechanisms, Kurt A. McKean and Brian P. Lazzaro
24. Intermediary Metabolism and the Biochemical-Molecular Basis of Life history Variation and Trade-offs in Two Insect Models, Anthony J. Zera and Lawrence G. Harshman
25. Epistatic Social and Endocrine Networks and the Evolution of Life History Trade-offs and Plasticity, Lesley T. Lancaster and Barry Sinervo
26. Hormonally-Regulated Trade-Offs: Evolutionary Variability and Phenotypic Plasticity in Testosterone Signaling Pathways, Michaela Hau and John C. Wingfield
Part 7: Concluding Remarks
27. Does Impressive Progress on Understanding Mechanisms Advance Life History Theory?, Stephen C. Stearns
28. What Mechanistic Insights Can or Cannot Contribute to Life History Evolution - An Exchange Between Stearns, Heyland, and Flatt, Thomas Flatt, Andreas Heyland, and Stephen C. Stearns
References
Index