An overview of life-history variation in female threespine stickleback

Abstract

[The threespine stickleback superspecies has become a model for evolutionary studies of morphology, behaviour, early-life development and host–parasite relationships. Its potential value for studying life-history evolution is also great. Fourteen years ago, a review of female stickleback life-history illustrated both the potential of the system to inform life-history evolution, and the limitations of the data at the time. In the succeeding years much more information has become available, especially from northwestern North America. Additionally, much more information is now available for the ancestral marine stickleback, a deficiency that was highlighted in the first stickleback book. One purpose of this review was to update information on female life history in the species. To this end, variation in the major life-history correlates (reproductive effort, clutch size, egg size and age/size at reproduction) is described, and a description of geographical structuring of this variation is provided. A second goal was to go beyond variation in individual traits to explore variation in trait correlations. The review ends with an exploration of allometric relationships between life-history traits and female size., The threespine stickleback superspecies has become a model for evolutionary studies of morphology, behaviour, early-life development and host–parasite relationships. Its potential value for studying life-history evolution is also great. Fourteen years ago, a review of female stickleback life-history illustrated both the potential of the system to inform life-history evolution, and the limitations of the data at the time. In the succeeding years much more information has become available, especially from northwestern North America. Additionally, much more information is now available for the ancestral marine stickleback, a deficiency that was highlighted in the first stickleback book. One purpose of this review was to update information on female life history in the species. To this end, variation in the major life-history correlates (reproductive effort, clutch size, egg size and age/size at reproduction) is described, and a description of geographical structuring of this variation is provided. A second goal was to go beyond variation in individual traits to explore variation in trait correlations. The review ends with an exploration of allometric relationships between life-history traits and female size.]