Selection for Fertility and Development Time

Abstract

Volterra's equation is solved explicitly for the growth rate in the case where reproduction is described by a gamma function, and the effects of small changes in development rate and fertility are derived in this special case. It is shown that the effects of such changes can be derived from Volterra's equation without making specific assumptions about the schedule of reproduction. This analysis of Volterra's equation is applied to correlations between development rate and fertility, and a model for r selection in bacteria is developed where correlations are precisely formulated.