Human life history is derived compared to that of our closest living relatives, the great apes. It has been suggested that these derived traits are causally related to aspects of our ecology, social behaviour and cognitive abilities. However, resolving this requires that we know the evolutionary trajectory of our distinctive pattern of growth, development, and reproduction. Here, we (i) outline these derived features and the theories that have been proposed for their evolution; (ii) highlight the major gaps in our knowledge related to adult life history (reproduction and post-reproductive lifespan) with a review of our current knowledge, which is mainly based on information extracted from fossil teeth and bones; and (iii) provide an overview of novel analytical methods that leverage the biology of these hard tissues, to generate new information regarding the evolution of some of our peculiar life-history traits, such as short interbirth intervals (high reproductive frequency) and a prolonged female post-reproductive lifespan. Our review of tissue biology and analytical methods focuses on two tissues that are formed continuously during the entire lifespan of the individual and can therefore act as recording structures of adult life: dental cementum and lamellar bone. We conclude by providing specific guidelines for future research to help resolve the following long-standing question in human evolution: how and when did we switch from independent breeding to cooperative breeding, with its high reproductive frequency? Answering this question is crucial for understanding the evolutionary interplay between reproductive physiology and cooperation as well as for understanding how reproductive division of labour might shape societal structure.

Changes in biogenic amine levels and physiological traits of the reproductive caste during caste-specific life events in temperate paper wasps.

The roles of TGFβ and serotonin signaling in regulation of germline progenitors in adult C. elegans hermaphrodites revealed by the effects of a male pheromone.

The goal of the current study was to explore attachment theory and reproductive success across the three cultural contexts of Japan, Canada and the USA. We investigate how adult attachment styles (secure, fearful, preoccupied and dismissive) are associated with reproductive success, as measured by the number of children. Using data collected from 15,120 participants via an online survey, we found fearful and preoccupied attachment styles were positively associated with reproductive success across all three samples, indicating that these insecure attachment styles may promote behaviours linked to larger family sizes. Conversely, secure attachment negatively predicted reproductive success in Canada and the USA but showed no significant relationship in Japan. Sex differences in attachment were observed, with women scoring higher in preoccupied attachment across cultures and men scoring higher in fearful attachment. We propose attachment styles are associated with reproductive strategies, with cultural norms moderating these associations. Collectivist values in Japan may attenuate individual attachment associations with family planning, while individualistic cultures such as Canada and the USA align secure attachment with deliberate, resource-intensive reproductive strategies. This study advances the understanding of attachment theory by discussing its relevance to life history strategies and reproductive outcomes within diverse cultural settings.

Intraguild predation (IGP) regulates predator populations through direct predation and risk effects, shaping the life-history traits of intraguild prey. This study examines the impacts of IGP on life-history traits of two biocontrol agents, Neoseiulus barkeri and Scolothrips takahashii, reared on their shared prey Tetranychus urticae, using age-stage, two-sex life-table analysis and computer simulations. Life-table analysis revealed that IGP significantly reduced pre-adult survival of both predators. Neoseiulus barkeri developed faster, but exhibited reduced fecundity under IGP, which resulted in declines in its net reproductive rate (R0, from 30.76 to 10.51 offspring per individual), intrinsic rate of increase (r, from 0.2555 to 0.1872 day-1), and finite rate of increase (λ, from 1.2911 to 1.2059 day-1). Conversely, S. takahashii maintained stable development and fecundity, showing no significant differences in R0, r, λ and mean generation time (T) between IGP and control groups. The net predation rate (C0) of N. barkeri decreased from 381.00 to 172.97 prey per individual, and that of S. takahashii from 416.58 to 25.31, under IGP. Computer simulations indicated that IGP led to smaller populations and reduced predation potential for N. barkeri, whereas S. takahashii showed an increase in both. IGP differentially alters the population parameters and predation capacity of these two species. Neoseiulus barkeri experiences a decline in population growth, whereas S. takahashii benefits from IGP. These findings highlight species-specific adaptive strategies in response to IGP, providing insights for designing compatible multipredator application programs in biological control. © 2026 Society of Chemical Industry.

Life history trade-offs of Orius insidiosus (Say) (Hemiptera: Anthocoridae) under artificial lights

Life histories of the dolia of Ostia: Insights into storage, use, and reinforcement in Rome's port city

ABSTRACT This study explores how poetry operates across distinct phases of cumulative, multi-layered trauma through the life history of a Ukrainian-American poet-songwriter and military chaplain who survived religious persecution in the USSR, military conscription, coercive psychiatric hospitalization, imprisonment, migration, and personal loss, and currently serves during the Russian-Ukrainian war. Drawing on qualitative life-history research and analysis of the respondent's poetry, findings indicate that poetic expression is not continuously accessible during trauma; rather, it is suspended during acute survival states and re-emerges retrospectively as a mechanism of integration, meaning-making, and identity reconstruction. Across the life trajectory, poetry functions as a private container of selfhood under stigma, a delayed narrative integrator of traumatic experience, a medium for transforming grief and reconfiguring attitudes toward death, and a relational and spiritual resource within pastoral care. This study extends poetry therapy scholarship beyond structured interventions, highlighting poetry as a context-dependent, lifelong adaptive practice at the intersection of trauma, spirituality, and systemic violence.

Convergent symbioses: morphology, life history, and niche specialization in coral and lichen mutualisms.

Care home placements offer important opportunities for student nurses to develop relational and person-centered approaches to dementia care. Digital reminiscence platforms are increasingly used to support the well-being of people living with dementia; however, little is known about how such platforms may shape student learning within practice settings. There is limited qualitative evidence examining how digital reminiscence is experienced by students and how it influences their understanding of personhood, relationships, and care practices. The aim of the study is to explore undergraduate nursing students' experiences of engaging with individualized digital reminiscence using the InspireD reminiscence app during care home placements. Following a pilot implementation of the intervention, a qualitative exploratory study was conducted, in which 13 undergraduate nursing students participated in 4 focus groups. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Three themes were developed to capture how participants made sense of their learning and practice experiences when engaging with individual reminiscence using the InspireD reminiscence app. The first theme, "deepening empathy and understanding through reminiscence," describes how participants developed a greater appreciation of residents' life histories and personhood. The second theme, "learning through connection," reflects how relationships with residents and families shaped communication, confidence, and emotional engagement. The third theme, "growing as person-centered practitioners within the realities of care home practice," highlights how participants reflected on translating this learning into practice while navigating organizational constraints and everyday care demands. Findings suggest that the InspireD reminiscence app can support the development of person-centered learning within care home placements, although successful implementation is contingent on supportive organizational cultures. These findings contribute to wider discussions in health professions education by illustrating how digital platforms can mediate experiential learning in practice settings and support the preparation of future health professionals to use digital tools in relational and values-based ways. Future research should examine longer-term learning outcomes and implementation across diverse placement contexts.

Radix natalensis, a gastropod, serves as an intermediate host of Fasciola gigantica in tropical and subtropical regions, causing fascioliasis, a disease of public health and veterinary importance worldwide. Predicting disease burden requires understanding how climate change influences its life-history traits. This study investigated the effects of temperature on the life-history traits of R. natalensis. Snails were exposed to six temperature treatments (15.5 ℃, 19.5 ℃, 20.3 ℃ (control), 24.6 ℃, 29.8 ℃, and 35.1 ℃). For each treatment, 10 jars served as replicates, each containing two snails. Observations were conducted over two follow-up periods (2 weeks and 9 weeks). Data analysis was performed using repeated-measures ANOVA, the Kruskal -Wallis test, and the log-rank test. In the first two weeks of the study, shell height was highest among snails exposed to 24.6°C (4.14 ± 0.56mm) and least among those at 35.1°C (3.90 ± 0.50mm. A significant increase in shell height was observed to be associated with the interaction between temperature and time (RM Anova F6,72 = 4.51, p < 0.001). In contrast, the effect of temperature alone was not statistically significant (RM Anova F5,72 = 1.95, p = 0.092). For the duration of the experiment, snails maintained at 19.5℃ attained a higher mean shell height (5.43 ± 1.04mm) compared to those at 15.5°C (4.85 ± 0.89mm); however, the overall effect of temperature on shell height was not statistically significant (F3,512 = 0.07; p = 0.978). On the other hand, there were notable differences in reproductive production between temperature treatments. Egg masses were substantially higher in snails kept at 19.5°C: 22 (11) than in those kept at 15.5°C: 6 (8); (z = - 2.762; p = 0.003). Survival probability declined with increasing temperature, particularly at 29.8°C and 35.5°C. Overall, survival rates differed significantly across the temperature treatments (Log-rank test: p < 0.0001). Radix natalensis's survival and reproductive performance are temperature-dependent, whereas snail growth is influenced by the combination of incubation conditions and time. These findings imply that temperature fluctuations will play a critical role in shaping the future transmission dynamics of fascioliasis.

Many vertebrates develop in the company of their siblings, a social context that profoundly influences their life histories and phenotypes. While avian begging behaviour in parent-offspring conflict and sibling competition/cooperation have been largely studied in nestlings, the fledglings' begging remains under-researched, despite the continued dependency of young birds throughout the post-fledging dependence period (PFDP). Siblings typically maintain close proximity during the PFDP, a pattern that might be explained by the following four mutually non-exclusive hypotheses: competition over the prey delivered by parents (competition, H1), mutual affection established during the nestling period (cooperation-friendship, H2), various antipredation behaviours (cooperation-antipredation, H3) or begging negotiation about whose need is greater (cooperation-negotiation, H4). We radio-tracked 123 boreal owl (Aegolius funereus) fledglings from 34 nests over 6years in Czechia and Finland and recorded daily inter-sibling distances throughout the PFDP. Distances were longer in Czechia than in Finland during both night (82 ± 81 vs 56 ± 65m; mean ± SD) and day (75 ± 109 vs 64 ± 86m). In both areas, distances increased with an augmenting time gap in tracking, siblings' age and the number of present siblings at night but decreased during the day. These consistent patterns across different environments indicate that the life history of the target species prevails over the environmental effects. Consistent with the predictions of the cooperation-antipredation hypothesis (H3), the mean inter-sibling distances were shorter in Finland compared to Czechia during both day and night, and inter-sibling distances were shorter within larger sibling flocks during the day. The cooperation-negotiation hypothesis (H4) is supported by the finding that vocally begging siblings were closer to each other than their non-begging counterparts. Our results demonstrate, for the first time, that sibling cooperation can occur during the PFDP, when offspring are vulnerable to predators, both during diurnal roosting and at night while begging for food. We conclude that the inter-sibling distances in boreal owls during the PFDP are maintained because siblings cooperate through collective antipredation behaviour during diurnal roosting and through collective negotiation over access to the indivisible prey items delivered by their parent during nocturnal activity.

ABSTRACTBlack Skimmers (Rynchops niger) typically nest in coastal environments. However, there are populations in South America that nest along freshwater river tributaries, where they are subjected to threats from predation and flooding that differ from coastal counterparts. We monitored Black Skimmers from a population in Manu National Park, Peru, over two breeding seasons and compared their life history traits with those of Black Skimmer populations across the Americas. Mean clutch size, daily nest survival rate, hatching success, and incubation period were within reported ranges. However, incubation bouts were short (7.33 ± 1.84 h−1), provisioning rates were high (3.58 ± 1.35 prey items chick−1 h−1), and chicks fledged about 10 days earlier than typically reported in North American populations. Flooding accounted for 41%–61% of nest failures, concentrating mortality risk during early development. Across populations, initial reproductive investment appears conserved, whereas traits influencing the duration of offspring vulnerability varied. High food availability coupled with a tenuous nesting situation appears to select for individuals that exploit abundant food resources and maximize chick growth rates, such that a shortened growth period may limit exposure to stage‐specific mortality influences.

Unveiling CAZyme modularity patterns: Comparative genomics links domain architecture to arthropod diets and life histories.

Personality psychology seeks to understand individuals' dispositional traits and other components of personality including self-defining life narratives. Past studies correlating traits and narrative themes have largely focused on the Big Five. In the current study, two U.S. undergraduate samples (Sample 1, N = 219; Sample 2, N = 107) completed the Big Five Aspect Scales, which measure the Big Five domains and ten lower-order traits (two per domain; e.g., Conscientiousness: Industriousness and Orderliness). Participants' two-page open-ended descriptions of their life histories and/or personal characteristics (Sample 1) and life high point, low point, and turning point narratives (Sample 2) were coded for motivational, affective, structural, and autobiographical-reasoning themes. An exploratory mini meta-analysis across the two studies revealed several aspect-specific associations with motivational themes. For example, when controlling for shared variance between the aspects, Industriousness was positively associated with agency whereas Orderliness was negatively associated with agency. Trait associations with other narrative themes varied based on narrative methodology: the open-ended prompts and expanded coding schemes implemented in Sample 1 may have allowed participants to better express their dispositional traits through narrative. This study advances our understanding of how traits and life narratives are interconnected and the utility of the Big Five Aspect Scales in revealing nuances of this relationship.

In this article we explore how adolescent self-identifying Chewa girls in Mbare, Harare, negotiate traditional and contemporary sources of sexual knowledge through the lens of chinamwali, a female initiation rite performed to prepare girls for marriage. We examine how initiates interpret, adapt and recontextualise the rite’s teachings in an era where digital technologies, such as WhatsApp, Facebook and other internet platforms circulate competing sexual scripts. During four months of ethnographic fieldwork, we drew on qualitative methods involving fifteen purposively selected participants. These included in-depth life history interviews with ten adolescent girls who had undergone chinamwali, as well as key-informant interviews with five older self-identifying Chewa women (anamkungwi) who serve as custodians of the initiation rite. We reveal both continuity and transformation in the meaning and practice of this form of initiation. While some initiates (anamwali) rely on digital media to supplement or reinforce ritual knowledge, others express ambivalence about the rite’s contemporary relevance. We show that chinamwali is undergoing symbolic and structural reconfigurations in its duration, secrecy and normative authority. Rather than a rupture between tradition and modernity, we show that young women actively synthesise teachings from chinamwali with digital knowledge, producing hybrid identities that reflect a dynamic interplay between cultural rites and contemporary urban life in Zimbabwe.

ABSTRACT This study examines the professional and personal narratives of male fashion models in 1970s South Korea through life history interviews. Employing Mandelbaum’s framework, the analysis is organized through three analytic categories: dimensions (enduring aspects of life as models), turnings (key career transitions), and adaptations (responses to aging and industry change). In 1970s Korea, traditional masculinity centered on breadwinning and professional authority, positioning male models uneasily within prevailing gender expectations. Through in-depth interviews with two pioneer male models now in their seventies, the study reveals how recollections foreground economic hardship and provider responsibilities rather than social stigma. Dimensions reveal participants’ experiences of unstable incomes, reliance on informal networks, and wage disparities compared to female colleagues. Turnings identify two critical transitions: entry into modeling and subsequent shifts to event planning and catalog production to meet breadwinner responsibilities. Adaptations examine how participants navigated aging through divergent strategies, including mentorship, advocacy for senior models, and legacy preservation. This research contributes to understanding fashion as a lens for examining cultural modernization, gender dynamics, and memory practices in contemporary Korea, underscoring the importance of preserving marginalized voices in fashion history.

Effects of elevated ozone on life history traits, olfactory detection, and behavior in Drosophila.

The Rice’s whale (Balaenoptera ricei) is a recently described species of baleen whale found in the Gulf of Mexico. With fewer than 50 adults remaining, the Rice’s whale is the most endangered baleen whale species. Analyses of reproductive and adrenal hormones promote the understanding of reproductive cycles and stress physiology in this rare and poorly understood species. Baleen plates contain steroid hormones stored throughout the period of baleen growth and have been used for continuous, multi-year retrospective assessment of the reproductive and glucocorticoid history of individual whales. We measured progesterone, testosterone, cortisol, and corticosterone in baleen plates of seven individual Rice’s whales (four males — one of which was the holotype — and three females), including two individuals believed to have died from starvation and one known to have been killed by ship strike. Baleen powder was obtained by drilling every 1 cm (~15–30 day intervals) from the base of the plates to the distal end. Hormones were quantified with enzyme immunoassay kits, and presence of the specific hormones was further confirmed with analytical chemistry. All assays passed validation assays for Rice’s whale baleen extract. In the two individuals that likely died of starvation, all four steroid hormones show increases in the most recently grown baleen, a pattern observed in other baleen whales in cases of prolonged illness or injury before death. A female with a known recent pregnancy had a sustained elevation of progesterone spanning the majority of her plate, indicating that baleen analysis in this species can detect recent pregnancies. No evidence of annual testosterone cycles was noted in three adult males, suggesting that this subtropical species might not have strong seasonal reproduction, which is atypical for baleen whales. Thus, we conclude that baleen hormone analysis can be used to clarify life history patterns in this critically endangered species.

The pace-of-life syndrome (POLS) hypothesis posits that life-history trade-offs drive the integration of behavioral and morphological traits. Species with extreme life histories, where such trade-offs are pronounced, are prime candidates for detecting such integration. We tested this in captive males of the annual killifish Nothobranchius guentheri by assessing behavioral repeatability and estimating among-individual correlations for aggression, boldness, exploration, body size, and conspicuous coloration using Bayesian mixed models. Aggression and boldness were highly repeatable, whereas exploration was not. Body size showed a positive but non-significant correlation with aggression. Coloration traits were significantly intercorrelated and correlated with body size. Male coloration covaried positively with aggression: darker males with larger, redder opercular spots exhibited higher levels of ritualized aggression. In contrast, coloration showed no consistent association with boldness. The identified aggression-ornamentation module suggests a potential life-history trade-off: more aggressive and conspicuously colored males likely gain a competitive advantage but may pay a cost through increased risk of predation and injury. Our findings provide preliminary evidence for phenotypic integration consistent with the POLS hypothesis in a short-lived species. However, direct fitness measures are needed to confirm this relationship.