Swift
Life-history strategies of the Common Swift
Studies on population ecology and life-history strategies of the Common Swift Apus apus
 | PhD project of Dipl.-Biol. Arndt Wellbrock: Introduction Every organism is faced with limited resources like energy and time which have to be distributed to several different life processes (resource allocation theory). This gives rise to conflicts (trade-offs) between investment in growth, maturation or homoeostatic mechanisms of the own body on the one hand and investment in current and future reproduction on the other. Finally from an evolutionary perspective, maximization of life-time reproduction success is the aim of these conflict resolutions. The life-history theory deals with the development of different strategies of organisms to solve life-time allocation conflicts. Those strategies are referred to as life-history strategies. Especially, relatively long-living species extremely adapted to special life conditions – like the Common Swift Apus apus – provide an opportunity to gain better understanding of the causes promoting the development of different life-history strategies. | |
