Hannah R. answered • 2d
Stanford biochemistry PhD candidate for Math and Science Tutoring
Semelparous reproduction is a strategy where an organism reproduces once, then dies. An example is a female octopus, which dies after laying eggs.
A semelparous reproduction strategy will be favored when an organism is not likely to survive to reproduce more than once. If an organism only has one chance to reproduce and will not live afterward, then it can spend all its energy on reproduction and make, say, 10 babies. On the other hand, if an organism saved some of its energy to reproduce once so it could continue living and had only 5 babies, but died before it could reproduce again, then it had fewer babies than it could have had by following a semelparous strategy.
Semelparous strategies wouldn't be favored if the organisms could regularly live long enough to produce multiple rounds of offspring. In a case where the non-semelparous organism lives longer, it could have a first clutch of 5 babies, then a second clutch of 5 babies, and a third clutch of 5 babies, for a total of 15 babies (vs only 10 for the semelparous animal)
