Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
BIOLOGY BULLETIN, cilt.52, sa.11, ss.1-9, 2025 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
Life-history theory proposed that animals will produce fewer, larger offspring in response to envi-
ronmental stress, and that there is a litter size-number of offspring trade-off to cope with further stress.
Understanding how this reproductive strategy—the trade-off between clutch size and egg volume—is modi-
fied along elevational gradients is central to understanding life-history evolution. In this study, we evaluated
the reproductive strategies of three populations of Heremites vittatus from different elevations in Türkiye. We
found that female body size was not significantly different across the three elevational groups. However, when
we compared egg volume with elevation, we found that egg volume showed a significant increase with eleva-
tion. At higher elevations, which have more stressful and less stable conditions, this pattern may reflect an
adaptive reproductive strategy favouring larger offspring size. However, despite the increase in elevation and
egg volume, we did not find a significant difference in clutch size. Additionally, our findings showed that
reproductive activity was delayed at higher elevations, while it begins faster at lower elevations, possibly
because of better environmental conditions. Environmental factors like temperature and food availability may
cause variations in egg volume and reproductive timing between elevations.