Science. 1988 Sep 16;241(4872):1449-55. doi: 10.1126/science.241.4872.1449.
There is now a good theoretical understanding of life history evolution, and detailed explicit optimality models have been constructed. These present a challenge for empirical work examining some of the assumptions, such as the extent and mechanisms of the costs of growth and reproduction. In addition, there is an obvious need for comparative tests of the models. These tests, properly applied, may be particularly informative because they can deal with multiple independent variables, including ecological variables, and can reveal broad trends against a background of constraints on optima and the rate of evolutionary approach to them. Life histories are the probabilities of survival and the rates of reproduction at each age in the life-span. Reproduction is costly, so that fertility at all ages cannot simultaneously be maximized by natural selection. Allocation of reproductive effort has evolved in response to the demographic impact of different environments but is constrained by genetic variance and evolutionary history.
现在人们对生命史进化有了很好的理论理解，并构建了详细的明确最优化模型。这些模型对检验某些假设（例如生长和繁殖的成本的程度和机制）的实证工作提出了挑战。此外，还需要对这些模型进行比较测试。正确应用这些测试可能特别有意义，因为它们可以处理多个自变量，包括生态变量，并可以揭示在最优性的限制和对它们的进化接近率的背景下的广泛趋势。生命史是生存概率和寿命中每个年龄的繁殖率。繁殖是有代价的，因此自然选择不能同时使所有年龄段的生育率最大化。生殖努力的分配是为了应对不同环境的人口统计学影响而进化的，但受到遗传方差和进化历史的限制。
