Ecological aspects of age-related dynamics of fish reproductive parameters

On the basis of materials collected over many years, ontogenetic changes in reproductive parameters of ecologically different fish species (predators, benthophages, and zooplanktophages) have been analyzed in the light of Pianka’s (1981) concept of r- and K-strategies. It has been shown that features characteristic of these strategies interchange in fish of different species and populations during the period between sexual maturation to senescence. Reproductive strategies have also proved to change within the same generation. These ontogenetic changes are connected with the mode and efficiency of fish feeding as well as with shifts in the proportion of generative metabolism in total metabolism and in the ratio of generative metabolism and somatic growth in favor of the latter.