Re:

risk of death in childbirth

Charlesworth and Charnov published an age-structured theory of kin selection in 1981 (JTB Charlesworth-Charnov 88:103) and model Taylor in 1993 and (Evollutionary Frank did it a different Ecology 7:406). way in 1996 These (JTB models 180:27). all grow I added out of time the delays ideas that to the Hamilton introduced in his "Moulding of senescence" paper in 1966. But Hamilton 1966 didn't do kin selection. He did however argue that reproductive value is not the right way to formulate the problem. His model (and also those mentioned above) use the numerator of reproductive value, but the normalization is different. To put this differently, the reproductive value at age x needs to be weighted by I_x, the probability of surviving to that age. This weighting is missing from the formulation directly in terms of reproductive value.

My paper was about the evolution of menopause. George Williams had argued years before that as women age, the risk of childbirth mortality increases. Eventually, that risk outweighs the potential fitness gain from another child. My paper showed that this doesn't work--the risk of childbirth mortality is too low. I saw more promise in a hypothesis having to do with opportunity cost. To do these calculations, I needed an age-structured theory of kin selection with a time delay between the investment (forgone pregnancy) and the return on that investment (ability to care for one's previous children). So the model had economic pretensions, and I eventually used it to study the evolution of time preference. It was the time preference work that brought me into contact with Gordon G.

my funded attack on indiv fitness