Re: A simple model exhibiting Haldane's limit

"Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmenegay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:e939uh$2men$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

I will also observe that reducing generation time does not directly
increase fitness (and would definitely not do so for a species with a
fixed number of offspring, like my slime mold cell. In fact,
shortening the generation time is a mistake in a situation in which
adaptation is not keeping up with a deterioration in the environment
and populations are decreasing. Even for my slime mold, decreasing the
generation time is a good idea only for those cells that are already
so fit that they almost never die while growing to reproductive size.


Well, in that case would decreasing the generation time help when the
population is rapidly increasing? The situation I am thinking of is after
an extinction event. The remaining organisms might in this case be engaged
in a Haldane limit rate race. It has been observed that the species in a
family that survive an extinction event tend to be those with the smallest
individuals. I have attributed this to a tendency for species with small
individuals to have larger populations, and so be more likely to survive
the crash phase of an extinction event. But perhaps it is in fact due to
species with small individuals being more easily able to reduce their
generation time, and thus being able to outcompete species with large
individuals in a Haldane limit rate race to invade new niches during the
rebound phase following an extinction event.

Yours,

Bill Morse

.

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