Regulation of life history strategies with individuals in predictable and unpredictable environments

Abstract

Animals must adjust their physiology and life histories to conform with changes in the environment. These changes can be fairly predictable, such as the changes in the season, or they can be unpredictable, such as an attack by a predator or an unusual storm. A finite state machine model was developed to understand individual responses to changing environments. The model was used to investigate life history diversities, and changes in animals associated with unpredictable environmental events. Several conclusions were drawn from the model with regards to unpredictable events: Animals in very predictable environments, very unpredictable environments, and animals in constrained environments would not show the normal adrenocortical responses to unpredictable events. The predictions were tested with experiments, and follow the general trend of the data present.