Feathers at nests are potential female signals in the spotless starling.

abstract：:Muscles are commonly assumed to have uniform activations across their bellies. Yet animal studies have shown that different regions across a muscle can vary in their architecture, fibre type, levels of activation and the transfer of forces to the bones and tendons. The purpose of this study was to test whether regiona...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Wakeling JM

更新日期：2009-02-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Many studies during the past 50 years have found an association between father absence and earlier menarche. In connection with these findings, several evolutionary theories assume that father absence is a causal factor accelerating reproductive development. However, a recent study analysing data from the Avon Longitu...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Lenárt P,Zlámal F,Kukla L,Jarkovský J,Bienertová-Vašků J

更新日期：2019-06-28 00:00:00

abstract：:The genetic status of wolves in the western Great Lakes region has received increased attention following the decision to remove them from protection under the US Endangered Species Act. A recent study of mitochondrial DNA has suggested that the recovered wolf population is not genetically representative of the histor...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Wheeldon T,White BN

更新日期：2009-02-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Studies often show that paternal age affects offspring fitness. However, such effects could be due either to age, or to a male's previous mating effort (which is necessarily confounded with age). We experimentally tested whether differences in the mating history of old males affect offspring performance in the mosquit...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Aich U,Jennions MD,Fox RJ

更新日期：2020-02-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Mountainous areas contain a substantial part of the world species richness, but the evolutionary origins and diversification of this biodiversity remain elusive. Diversification may result from differences in clade age (longer time to diversify), net diversification rates (faster speciation rate) or carrying capacitie...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Condamine FL

更新日期：2018-03-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Properly coordinating cooperation is relevant for resolving public good problems, such as clean energy and environmental protection. However, little is known about how individuals can coordinate themselves for a certain level of cooperation in large populations of strangers. In a typical situation, a consensus-buildin...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Sasaki T,Uchida S

更新日期：2014-01-29 00:00:00

abstract：:While competition for limited breeding positions is a common feature of group life, species vary widely in the extent to which reproduction is shared among females ('reproductive skew'). In recent years, there has been considerable debate over the mechanisms that generate variation in reproductive skew, with most evid...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Raihani NJ,Clutton-Brock TH

更新日期：2010-10-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Association and linkage mapping have become important tools in understanding the genetics of complex traits, including diseases in humans. As the success of association mapping is reduced by small effect sizes and limited power, linkage studies in laboratory-based model systems are still heavily used. But whether the ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Wilfert L,Jiggins FM

更新日期：2010-10-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Mutualisms affect the biodiversity, distribution and abundance of biological communities. However, ecological processes that drive mutualism-related shifts in population structure are often unclear and must be examined to elucidate how complex, multi-species mutualistic networks are formed and structured. In this stud...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Sun D,Cheney KL,Werminghausen J,Meekan MG,McCormick MI,Cribb TH,Grutter AS

更新日期：2015-08-01 00:00:00

abstract：:When populations are exposed to novel conditions of growth, they often become adapted to a similar extent, and at the same time, evolve some degree of impairment in their original environment. They may also come to vary widely with respect to characters which are uncorrelated with fitness, as the result of chance gene...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Bell G

更新日期：2013-05-22 00:00:00

abstract：:The loss of environmental heterogeneity threatens biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. It is therefore important to understand the relationship between environmental heterogeneity and spatial resilience as the capacity of ecological communities embedded in a landscape matrix to reorganize following disturbance. We ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Dzubakova K,Peter H,Bertuzzo E,Juez C,Franca MJ,Rinaldo A,Battin TJ

更新日期：2018-10-10 00:00:00

abstract：:Lack of information is a constraint but ignorance can sometimes assist the evolution of cooperation by constraining selfishness. We discuss examples involving both ignorance of role or pay-off and ignorance of relatedness. Ignorance can favour cooperative traits like grouping and warning coloration and reduce conflict...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Queller DC,Strassmann JE

更新日期：2013-10-16 00:00:00

abstract：:Telomeres are sensitive to damage induced by oxidative stress, and thus it is expected that dietary antioxidants may support the maintenance of telomere length in animals, particularly those with a fast rate of life (e.g. fast metabolism, activity and growth). We tested experimentally the effect of antioxidant supplem...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Kim SY,Velando A

更新日期：2015-05-01 00:00:00

abstract：:The present erratum is in regards to our article entitled ‘Ancient DNA and the tropics: a rodent's tale’. We were made aware of problems with some of the ancient sequences submitted to GenBank and conducted a systematic review of all the files used in our study. We discovered that, unfortunately, an incorrect file was...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Gutiérrez-García TA,Vázquez-Domínguez E,Arroyo-Cabrales J,Kuch M,Enk J,King C,Poinar HN

更新日期：2015-03-01 00:00:00

abstract：:General models of plant vascular architecture, based on scaling of pipe diameters to remove the length dependence of hydraulic resistance within the xylem, have attracted strong interest. However, these models have neglected to consider the leaf, an important hydraulic component; they assume all leaves to have similar...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Coomes DA,Heathcote S,Godfrey ER,Shepherd JJ,Sack L

更新日期：2008-06-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Due to the costs of antipredator behaviour, prey have the ability to finely modulate their response according to the risk they have experienced, and adjust it over different scales of ecological time. Information on which to base their responses can be obtained from direct experience, but also indirectly from nearby c...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Lucon-Xiccato T,Chivers DP,Mitchell MD,Ferrari MC

更新日期：2016-08-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Although the adaptive value of flight may seem obvious, it is the most difficult behaviour of birds to monitor. Here, we describe a technique to quantify the frequency and the duration of flights over several months by implanting a data logger that records heart rate (fH), hydrostatic pressure (diving depth) and the b...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Pelletier D,Guillemette M,Grandbois JM,Butler PJ

更新日期：2007-08-22 00:00:00

abstract：:There is growing interest in the capacity of mangrove ecosystems to sequester and store 'blue carbon'. Here, we provide a synthesis of 66 dated sediment cores with previously calculated carbon accumulation rates in mangrove ecosystems to assess the effects of environmental and anthropogenic pressures. Conserved sedime...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Pérez A,Libardoni BG,Sanders CJ

更新日期：2018-10-31 00:00:00

abstract：:A recent study showed that a critically endangered migratory predator species, the Balearic shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus, rapidly expanded northwards in northeast Atlantic waters after the mid-1990s. As a significant positive correlation was found between the long-term changes in the abundance of this seabird and ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Luczak C,Beaugrand G,Jaffré M,Lenoir S

更新日期：2011-10-23 00:00:00

abstract：:A large number of episodes of forest mortality associated with drought and heat stress have been detected worldwide in recent decades, suggesting that some of the world's forested ecosystems may be already responding to climate change. Here, we summarize a special session titled 'Drought-induced forest decline: causes...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Martínez-Vilalta J,Lloret F,Breshears DD

更新日期：2012-10-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Seamounts may influence the distribution of marine mammals through a combination of increased ocean mixing, enhanced local productivity and greater prey availability. To study the effects of seamounts on the presence and acoustic behaviour of cetaceans, we deployed a high-frequency acoustic recording package on the su...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Johnston DW,McDonald M,Polovina J,Domokos R,Wiggins S,Hildebrand J

更新日期：2008-04-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Male insects rarely collaborate with each other, but pollinator fig wasps (Hymenoptera: Agaonidae) are said to be an exception. Immature fig wasps feed on galled ovules located inside figs, the inflorescences of Ficus species (Moraceae). After mating, adult pollinator males chew communal exit-holes that allow mated fe...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Suleman N,Raja S,Compton SG

更新日期：2012-06-23 00:00:00

abstract：:An audience can have a profound effect on the dynamics of communicative interactions. As a result, non-human primates often adjust their social decision-making strategies depending on the audience composition at a given time. Here we sought to test how the unique vocal behaviour of multiple audience members affected d...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Toarmino CR,Wong L,Miller CT

更新日期：2017-01-01 00:00:00

abstract：:The comb jelly Mertensia ovum, widely distributed in Arctic regions, has recently been discovered in the northern Baltic Sea. We show that M. ovum also exists in the central Baltic but that the population consists solely of small-sized larvae (less than 1.6 mm). Despite the absence of adults, eggs were abundant. Exper...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Jaspers C,Haraldsson M,Bolte S,Reusch TB,Thygesen UH,Kiørboe T

更新日期：2012-10-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Effects of the social environment on age at sexual maturation are assumed to require direct interactions, such as suppression of subordinates through aggression from dominants. Using green swordtails (Xiphophorus helleri), we demonstrate for the first time that females and males adjust their age at maturation in respo...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Walling CA,Royle NJ,Metcalfe NB,Lindström J

更新日期：2007-04-22 00:00:00

abstract：:Avian predators learn to avoid defended insects on the basis of their conspicuous warning coloration. In many aposematic species, the level of chemical defence varies, with some individuals being more defended than others. Sequestration and production of defence chemicals is often costly and therefore less defended in...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Skelhorn J,Rowe C

更新日期：2006-09-22 00:00:00

abstract：:Dated phylogenies of fossil taxa allow palaeobiologists to estimate the timing of major divergences and placement of extinct lineages, and to test macroevolutionary hypotheses. Recently developed Bayesian 'tip-dating' methods simultaneously infer and date the branching relationships among fossil taxa, and infer putati...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Bapst DW,Wright AM,Matzke NJ,Lloyd GT

更新日期：2016-07-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Reciprocal selection pressures in host-parasite systems drive coevolutionary arms races that lead to advanced adaptations in both opponents. In the interactions between social parasites and their hosts, aggression is one of the major behavioural traits under selection. In a field manipulation, we aimed to disentangle ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Pamminger T,Modlmeier AP,Suette S,Pennings PS,Foitzik S

更新日期：2012-10-23 00:00:00

abstract：:In group-living vertebrates, reliable social allies play a decisive role in dealing with stressors. For example, support by social allies is known to dampen glucocorticoid responses. It remains unknown, however, how social embedding affects the sympatho-adrenergic axis as indicated by heart rate (HR) in non-human anim...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Wascher CA,Weiß BM,Arnold W,Kotrschal K

更新日期：2012-06-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Pectinodontid limpets are important members of deep-sea hot vents and cold seeps as can be seen by their conspicuous presence in both extant and extinct systems. They have traditionally been classified into different genera and species based on shell and radula characteristics; the reliability of these characters has ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Chen C,Watanabe HK,Nagai Y,Toyofuku T,Xu T,Sun J,Qiu JW,Sasaki T

更新日期：2019-10-31 00:00:00