1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Beverton & Holt’s insights into life history theory: influence, application and future use S. Jennings & N.K. Dulvy Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Lowestoft Laboratory, Lowestoft, NR33 0HT, U.K. Summary The growth, maturity and mortality data needed to parameterise fish population models are often hard to obtain, and this led Beverton and Holt to explore simpler approaches for predicting key life history parameters and for dealing with multiple interrelated parameters in population dynamic equations. Their explorations led to the identification of dimensionless ratios among life history parameters, dubbed life history invariants, and provided insight into the tradeoffs between growth, survival and reproduction. This work not only solved some parameterisation issues, but laid the foundations for a dynamic research field encompassing major theoretical developments such as optimality theory and the analysis of energy allocation. Here, we review the influence of Beverton and Holt’s studies of life histories in theoretical and applied ecology and show that their work continues to influence contemporary science. Little of their insight has been overturned by 50 years of subsequent research. Rather, subsequent research has built on their insight to develop a more complete body of theoretical knowledge that links understanding of life histories, population dynamics, community assembly and ecosystem processes. Their work continues to be relevant to a number of challenges in theoretical and applied ecology. These include the development of models to predict invariants and scaling relationships, understanding macroecological patterns, assessing population and community responses to exploitation and the development of tools to support an ecosystem approach to fisheries. 1