Using Resource Dominance to Explain and Predict Evolutionary Success

Autor: Christian Damgaard, G.A.J.M. Jagers op Akkerhuis
Rok vydání: 1999
Předmět:
Zdroj: Jagers op Akkerhuis, G A J M & Damgaard, C 1999, ' Using Resource Dominance to Explain and Predict Evolutionary Success ', Oikos, vol. 87, no. 3, pp. 609-614 .
ISSN: 0030-1299
DOI: 10.2307/3546828
Popis: In this century, evolutionary biology has been successful in using fitness as a measure for evolutionary success. Although fitness has the intuitive association of something which is better, a restricted definition in the form of the number of successful offspring is often used in biology. This definition is convenient because it is, in principle, easy to count offspring. Yet, the explanatory and predictive capacity of such fitness measurements are restricted and the method is restricted in its use to reproducing entities. To better understand traditional fitness measurements, we suggest that more attention be paid to underlying factors. For this purpose we advocate to focus on resource dominance. The idea is that any unit of evolution which is good at dominating the resources needed for maintenance, growth and/or reproduction will also show a high evolutionary success. We show that a high resource dominance can be reached via different strategies. Additionally, we discuss how the capacity for resource dominance is related to the complexity and efficiency of the evolving unit.
Databáze: OpenAIRE