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Título: Life history evolution in a changing world: /r/- versus /K/-selection and the adaptive alignment of pace-of-life syndromes Resumen: This presentation describes a novel perspective on life history evolution that combines recent advances in /r/- versus /K/-selection theory with behavioural ecology theory on pace-of-life syndromes (POLS). These theories predict phenotypic co-variation in life history, physiological, morphological and behavioural traits as a continuum from the fast reproducing short-lived bold, aggressive and highly dispersive /r/-selected types at one end of the POLS to the slow reproducing long-lived cautious, shy, plastic and socially-responsive /K/-selected types at the other. We propose that such variation in life histories and the associated individual differences in behaviour can be explained through their eco-evolutionary dynamics with population density – a single and ubiquitous selective component that is present in all biological systems. Contrasting regimes of environmental stochasticity are expected to affect population density in time and space and create differing patterns of fluctuating /r/- versus /K/-selection, and this generates variation in fast versus slow life-histories within and between populations. We therefore predict that a major axis of phenotypic and genetic co-variation in life history, physiological, morphological and behavioural traits (i.e. the POLS) should align with the major trade-off in the multivariate fitness landscape created by these fluctuations in /r/- versus /K/-selection. Phenotypic plasticity and/or genetic (co-)variation generated along this major axis in life history trait co-variation is thus expected to facilitate rapid and adaptively coordinated changes in various aspects of life history within and between populations and/or species. In addition, negative frequency-dependent selection on the different individual types, such as on fast aggressive /r/-types of individuals when at high densities, could further exaggerate phenotypic variation along the POLS caused by fluctuations in population density. The /r/- vs /K/-selection POLS framework presented here therefore provides a series of clear and testable predictions, the results of which will further our fundamental understanding of life history evolution and thus our ability to predict natural population dynamics in the face of environmental change.

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