Meeting Abstract
Tactics of resource use for reproduction are an important feature of life-history strategies. A distinction is made between ‘capital’ breeders, that finance reproduction using stored energy, and ‘income’ breeders, which pay for reproduction using concurrent energy intake. To date, much of the research on capital and income breeding has focused on the diversification among species in tactics of resource use. However, plasticity in the allocation of capital towards reproduction is common in many species. I will discuss 1) how this plasticity provides resilience to environmental change and 2) how plasticity might be linked to the endocrine and neuroendocrine systems that control the reproductive axis. I argue that better delineating these endocrine and neuroendocrine circuits may help in identifying target genes for monitoring adaptive genetic responses to environmental change. Additionally, reproductive phenology, fecundity, and energy allocation strategies are all interconnected and, to be fully understood, these life-history traits should be examined within a single framework rather than in isolation.
