This week we start Chapter 12: Reproductive Strategies for Survival. Reproductive strategies include structual, functional and behavioural adaptations that increase opportunities for fertilization and/or improve survival of offspring. In the animal kingdom there are many different types of reproductive strategies:

• Type of reproduction (sexual or asexual)
• Gender system (separate male/female; hermaphrodite; parthenogenesis)
• Mode of fertilisation (internal or external)
• Mating system (monogamy; polygamy or promiscuity)
• Numbers of offspring (r-selected or K-selected)
• Place of development and source of nutrition for the embryo (oviparity or vivaparity)
• Investment of parental care into offspring (nil, single parent or both parents, extended family)