Longevity, body dimension and reproductive mode drive differences in aquatic versus terrestrial life history strategies

1. Aquatic and terrestrial environments display stark differences in key environmental factors and phylogenetic composition but their consequences for the evolution of species’ life history strategies remain poorly understood.

2. Here, we examine whether and how life history strategies vary between terrestrial and aquatic species. We use demographic information for 685 terrestrial and 122 aquatic animal and plant species to estimate key life history traits. We then use phylogenetically corrected least squares regression to explore potential differences in trade-offs between life history traits between both environments. We contrast life history strategies of aquatic vs. terrestrial species in a principal component analysis while accounting for body dimensions and phylogenetic relationships.

3. Our results show that the same trade-offs structure terrestrial and aquatic life histories, resulting in two dominant axes of variation that describe species’ pace-of-life and reproductive s...