Why 'for one to several generations,' not 'for more than two generations'? I mean, why did the author include 'one generation'?
The proportions of the demographic classes affect the fitness of the group and, ultimately, of each individual member. A group comprised wholly of infants or aging males will perish — obviously. Another, less deviant, group has a higher fitness that can be defined as a higher probability of survival, which can be translated as a longer waiting time to extinction. Either measure has meaning only over periods of time on the order of a generation in length, because a deviant population allowed to reproduce for one to several generations will go far to restore the age distribution of populations normal for the species. Unless the species is highly opportunistic, that is, unless it follows a strategy of colonizing empty habitats and holding on to them only for a relatively short time, the age distribution will tend to approach a steady state. In species with seasonal natality and mortality, which is to say nearly all animal species, the age distribution will undergo annual fluctuation. But even then the age distribution can be said to approach stability, in the sense that the fluctuation is periodic and predictable when corrected for season.
