On the Reproduction of Organisms with overlapping Generations

Abstract

In the great majority of organisms, the reproducing individual does not engender all of its progeny simultaneously. Between the beginning and the end of the reproductive period there is usually a certain interval of time, during which the production of offspring continues in a manner depending, on the one hand, upon the specific characteristics of the organism, and on the other, upon the conditions under which it lives. From this simple fact follow some interesting consequences.If the successive generations are separated by a long interval of time and conditions during this interval are of such a nature that the organism is inactive and in the condition of obligatory dormancy, known as diapause, then, in spite of the increase of the population, the generations will remain separate and distinct, and a comparison of the total populations in the successive reproductive periods will enable us to determine the rate of increase.On the other hand, if the interval between generations is short and favourable to activity and the organism does not pass through a period of obligatory dormancy at this time, then, as the species increases, the successive generations will come to overlap, and the amount of overlapping will increase progressively as time goes on.This is primarily due to the fact that when there is reproduction over a period of time-intervals, in a typical individual of the species, and conditions remain constant then the number of time-intervals during which births occur will increase from generation to generation.