Basically, that’s to overcome the low odds of offspring survival; they try to compensate for the high failure rate (offspring death) by means of a large number of attempts (brood size), like punching the button on a slot machine over and over and over.
Zoologists and behavioral ecologists classify a lot of animals into two groups called K-strategists and r-strategists. These are two alternative ways of maximizing the animals’ lifetime reproductive success.
K-strategists are those that invest relatively high parental care in their young, like primates. Because of this parental care, the young have a high probability of survival and it isn’t necessary to produce them in great numbers (which would undermine parental care anyway). This is most common in animals that live long enough to invest time in parental care, one brood after another. (K stands for the carrying capacity of the environment, to which evolution adapts their reproductive behavior.)
espiritualyn0
Simply, because it increases the odds that some will survive. For example, with tadpoles, snakes, baby turtles, etc., when they are born they have to disperse and try to survive. ... Turtles lay hundreds of eggs since only a percentage survive nests being ravaged by birds, raccoons, sometimes people.
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Answer:
Basically, that’s to overcome the low odds of offspring survival; they try to compensate for the high failure rate (offspring death) by means of a large number of attempts (brood size), like punching the button on a slot machine over and over and over.
Zoologists and behavioral ecologists classify a lot of animals into two groups called K-strategists and r-strategists. These are two alternative ways of maximizing the animals’ lifetime reproductive success.
K-strategists are those that invest relatively high parental care in their young, like primates. Because of this parental care, the young have a high probability of survival and it isn’t necessary to produce them in great numbers (which would undermine parental care anyway). This is most common in animals that live long enough to invest time in parental care, one brood after another. (K stands for the carrying capacity of the environment, to which evolution adapts their reproductive behavior.)