Final answer:
Long-term parental care investments by organisms like elephants lead to risks including the critical importance of each offspring's survival for species continuity, potential negative impact on parents' health and future reproduction, and the possibility of a rapid population increase if juvenile mortality rates decline.
Step-by-step explanation:
An organism, such as an elephant, that invests in long-term care of its offspring, does so at certain risks to its own survival and that of its species. This investment in a limited number of offspring implies that the survival of each individual becomes critically important to the continuity of the species. Should a single offspring die, it represents a significant loss to the species which can impact its overall survival. In contrast, species that have many offspring with minimal parental care, such as many marine invertebrates, spread the risk of loss across many more individuals, where the death of several offspring has less impact on the species as a whole.
Animal species that prioritize parental care often do so at the expense of their own health and future reproductive potential. For animals like elephants, the energy and resources devoted to one offspring are substantial, reducing the energy available for producing more offspring or caring for self. This high investment and low fecundity approach can increase the risk of a rapid increase in population should mortality rates of juveniles decline and reproduction rates remain the same, which can lead to resource depletion and other ecological consequences.