Parental investment in temporally varying environments

Summary Using a model that allows the mean and variance of investment by parents in offspring to evolve in response to change in degree of temporal environmental variation, this paper shows that both parental investment parameters should increase with increases in temporal variation. If offspring receiving greater parental investment are viable over a broader range of environmental conditions, then increased temporal environmental variation can select for increases in parental investment. The variance in parental investment also may increase with increases in temporal variation, but there is a threshold level of temporal variation that must be exceeded before variance in parental investment is adaptive. Thus phenotypic variance in parental investment is not adaptive in all temporally varying environments. Further, increased overlap among generations reduces the expected effects of temporal variation on the mean and variance in parental investment. Thus a negative correlation between length of reproductive life and both measures of investment is expected. There is support for the predictions of this model in some animal groups, but not among plants. Possible reasons for the lack of support among plants are discussed and directions for future research aimed at distinguishing adaptive and maladaptive phenotypic variance in parental investment are suggested.