Reaction Norms for Age and Size at Maturity in Response to Temperature: A Puzzle for Life Historians
Ectotherms mature later at smaller size when growth rates are lowered by reductions in food quality but they mature later at larger sizes when growth rate is lowered by reductions in temperature. We argue that this general pattern has been neglected by life history theorists and suggest that an explanation for these strikingly different responses to two environmental cues might be found by considering correlations between the growth coefficient of the Bertalanffy equation and asymptotic size in a model for the evolution of age and size at maturity.