USF St. Petersburg campus Honors Program Theses (Undergraduate)

Ileisy Lobaina

First Advisor

Deby Cassill, Ph.D., Associate Professor, College of Arts and Sciences

Publisher

University of South Florida St. Petersburg

Document Type

Thesis

Date Available

May 2014

Publication Date

2014

Date Issued

April 2014

Abstract

The order Crocodylia includes two alligators, six caimans, thirteen crocodiles and two gharials species. In this study, the maternal investments by species in the order Crocodylia in offspring number, offspring size at hatch, and female body size were determined and compared to the predictions of the Smith-Fretwell maternal investments model and an alternative maternal investment model. The findings of this study contradict the Smith-Fretwell model and support the alternative model. The Smith-Fretwell model predicts that mothers who produce a larger number of offspring must sacrifice the quality of their offspring. Results showed that hatchlings were about the same size regardless of the number of eggs produced. On the other hand, according to the alternative maternal investment model, the predation rate on crocodilian offspring is far less than that of fish offspring but far greater than that of bird or mammal offspring. In addition, offspring mortality by starvation is less of an issue for crocodilians than it is for mammals and birds but it is a greater threat for crocodilians than it is for most species of fish.

Comments

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the University Honors Program, University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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