Aping our ancestors: Comparative aspects of reproductive ecology

Abstract

There are many similarities among mammalian species in how ecological factors affect their reproductive potential and individual life histories. One of the most important limiting factors is the availability of sufficient resources to partition among essential growth, maintenance, and eventual reproduction.1–3 How each mammal juggles these constraints constitutes its unique life history and determines its success as a species. Yet, as Hill and Hurtado4 recently argued, life-history analyses are rarely applied to human reproduction. In fact, despite the demonstrated significance of adequate nutrition for reproductive performance among most mammalian species that have been studied,1,3,5 many demographers, and even some biological anthropologists, have resisted the idea that humans, except under extreme famine conditions, might be subject to the same kinds of nutritional constraints that affect other mammals.6–9.