BioConcepts

semelparitySemelparie (ger.)

• The condition of an organism that has only one reproductive cycle during its lifetime. (Oxford Dict. of Ecology 2004)
  category life history see also iteroparity

  1954

  The writer proposes to employ the term semelparity to describe the condition of multiplying only once in a lifetime, whether such multiplication involves fission, sporulation, or the production of eggs, seeds, or live young. Thus nearly all annual plants and animals, as well as many protozoa, bacteria, insects, and some perennial forms such as century plants and the Pacific salmon, are semelparous species.

  Cole, L.C. (1954). The population consequences of life history phenomena. Quart. Rev. Biol. 29, 103-137: 118.

  1982

  semelparous Pertaining to organisms that have only one brood during the lifetime; semelparity (big-bang reproduction); cf. iteroparous.

  Lincoln, R.J., Boxshall, G.A. & Clark, P.F. (1982). A Dictionary of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics: 224.