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Estimating individual contributions to population growth: evolutionary fitness in ecological time

Author

  • T Coulson
  • T G Benton
  • Per Lundberg
  • S R X Dall
  • B E Kendall
  • J M Gaillard

Summary, in English

Ecological and evolutionary change is generated by variation in individual performance. Biologists have consequently long been interested in decomposing change measured at the population level into contributions from individuals, the traits they express and the alleles they carry. We present a novel method of estimating individual contributions to population growth and changes in distributions of quantitative traits and alleles. An individual's contribution to population growth is an individual's realized annual fitness. We demonstrate how the quantities we develop can be used to address a range of empirical questions, and provide an application to a detailed dataset of Soay sheep. The approach provides results that are consistent with those obtained using lifetime estimates of individual performance, yet is substantially more powerful as it allows lifetime performance to be decomposed into annual survival and fecundity contributions.

Publishing year

2006

Language

English

Pages

547-555

Publication/Series

Royal Society of London. Proceedings B. Biological Sciences

Volume

273

Issue

1586

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Royal Society Publishing

Topic

  • Biological Sciences

Status

Published

Research group

  • Theoretical Population Ecology and Evolution Group

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1471-2954