"Anon."  wrote in
message news:cf0iam$1n8e$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> Perplexed in Peoria wrote:
> > "Anon." 
wrote in message news:cetl71$lqo$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> >>Basically, when calculating a total fitness, you always need to ensur
> >>you measure over a full life cycle.
> >
> >
> > But I think that I am doing exactly that.  Here are the fitness components
> > that I believe are contained in my "standard fitness":
> > a. Survival from birth to sexual maturity.
> > b. Survival thru the pair-hunting autumn.
> > c. Survival thru first winter.
> > d. Fecundity in first mating season.
> > e. Survival to second mating season.
> > f. Fecundity in second mating season.
> > g. Survival to third mating season.
> > h. Fecundity in third mating season.
> > i. etc., except that no cat survived to a fourth season.
> >
> Ah, I had missed the "every cat born" thing.  But then there should be
> some XX's in the Edserian fitness, for the cats that are born, and die 3
> days later.

You clipped:
> > For Edserian fitness, eliminate a and change
"fecundity" in d, f, and h
> > to read "fecundity in terms of offspring raised to maturity".

My understanding of Edser is that cats that don't make it to maturity
are not counted, neither as contributing to their parents fitness nor
as having a fitness of their own.  To use John's terminology, they are
temporary somatic extensions of their parents, of no more significance
NS-wise than shed epidermal cells.

However, now that I think about it, there should have been some XXs
in the Edser counts for the cats that were *siblings* of the childhood
deaths.  These cats were actually raised to maturity, even though
they were not very successful after that point.  I will take my
Peshawari friend to task regarding this!

> Oh, and Guy is absolutely right that we should be talking about lifetime
> reproductive success.

I also prefer his terminology.  But the use of "absolute fitness" for this
concept is fairly widespread, as my links on another thread indicate.
And, I don't particularly look forward to trying to convince John to
accept this change in terminology within sbe.
---
þ RIMEGate(tm)/RGXPost V1.14 at BBSWORLD * Info{at}bbsworld.com

---
 * RIMEGate(tm)V10.2áÿ* RelayNet(tm) NNTP Gateway * MoonDog BBS
 * RgateImp.MoonDog.BBS at 8/8/04 9:40:51 PM