iteroparous
- adjective
- /ˌɪtəˈrɒpərəs/
- Specialized
:
iteroparo
- The iteroparous nature of these animals enables them to adapt their breeding schedules based on environmental conditions.
Examples
-
Some species of fish are iteroparous, allowing them to breed several times throughout their lives.
-
The iteroparous, bet-hedging reproductive strategy characteristic of long-lived species provides opportunities to compensate for periodic reproductive failures through multiple breeding attempts during a lifetime. Thus, contaminant effects on offspring production or performance, if occurring only occasionally, would be expected to have little effect on population dynamics.
Academic text (2008) -
Relative to r-selected species, those employing K-selected life history strategies are long-lived, slow to mature, iteroparous (breeding multiple times), and typically make large per capita parental investments in few offspring during a given breeding event (Pianka 1970).
Academic text (2008) -
With an iteroparous reproductive strategy, this species ensures survival by having multiple opportunities to produce offspring.
Antonyms
How Often
- Specialized
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
iteroparous = parous (opaque) = itero + par + ous
Both elements are specialized Latin combining forms used in biological terminology and are unlikely to be recognizable to an average B1 learner.
Etymology
Iteroparous comes from the parts iter- meaning 'again' and parere meaning 'to bear', and you can see this like the idea in 'repeat' and 'parent'. So an iteroparous animal or plant can 'bear' young 'again' and reproduce more than once in its life.
