Abstract
The problem of the maintenance of marine littoral populations and especially that of the European oyster (O. edulis) in Great Britain as discussed by Gross and Smyth in Nature1 is one of great interest. In all species it is reasonable to assume that the properties of each particular organism give a measure of its attunement to the environment in its recent past, if not to the present. The supreme criterion and one hard fact of the sum of its relationships to life conditions is the number of young (larvæ) produced during the life of the individual. This provision of young has ensured survival of the species in the past against predators, parasites, competitors and normal and abnormal deviations in the total of chemico-physical conditions over the range of the environment. In a given locality, however, it is reasonable to infer that extinction may occur or tend to occur if the full span of life is not attained by the normal adult population. If, therefore, the normal span of life is reduced in any locality, fewer young will be produced over that period of time which has ensured survival in the species as a whole, and a combination of local unfavourable conditions—or indeed any single one of a significant nature—will reduce the chance of survival and may result in local extinction.
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References
Gross, F., and Smyth, J. C., Nature, 157, 540 (1946).
Orton, J. H., J. Mar. Biol. Assoc., 14, 626 (1927).
Orton, J. H., Nature, 123, 453 (1929).
Orton, J. H., Mem. Roy. Hist. Mus. Nat. Belg., Ser. 2, 3, 1003 (1936).
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ORTON, J. Survival of Oyster and Other Littoral Populations. Nature 158, 586 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/158586c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/158586c0
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