A single origin of extreme matrotrophy in African mabuyine skinks.

abstract：:The Himalayas are assumed to be undergoing rapid climate change, with serious environmental, social and economic consequences for more than two billion people. However, data on the extent of climate change or its impact on the region are meagre. Based on local knowledge, we report perceived changes in climate and cons...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Chaudhary P,Bawa KS

更新日期：2011-10-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) is associated with social dominance in human and non-human primates, which may reflect the effects of testosterone on facial morphology and behaviour. Given that testosterone facilitates status-seeking motivation, the association between fWHR and behaviour should be contingent on th...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Martin JS,Staes N,Weiss A,Stevens JMG,Jaeggi AV

更新日期：2019-08-30 00:00:00

abstract：:The role of niche specialization and narrowing in the evolution and extinction of the ichthyosaurs has been widely discussed in the literature. However, previous studies have concentrated on a qualitative discussion of these variables only. Here, we use the recently developed approach of quantitative ecospace modellin...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Dick DG,Maxwell EE

更新日期：2015-07-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Correct decision making is crucial for animals to maximize foraging success and minimize predation risk. Group-living animals can make such decisions by using their own personal information or by pooling information with other group members (i.e. social information). Here, we investigate how individuals might best bal...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： King AJ,Cowlishaw G

更新日期：2007-04-22 00:00:00

abstract：:Although over 50 twin and adoption studies have been performed on the genetic architecture of antisocial behaviour, far fewer studies have investigated prosocial behaviour, and none have done so on a non-western population. The present study examined mothers' ratings of prosocial behaviour in 514 pairs of 2- to 9-year...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Hur YM,Rushton JP

更新日期：2007-12-22 00:00:00

abstract：:In this study of body temperatures (T(b)) in free ranging dromedary camels, we found that bulls in rut start the days cooler. Daily minima during rut averaged 0.6 degrees C lower than at other times (95% CI 0.27-0.94 degrees C) and daily maxima averaged 0.45 degrees C higher (95% CI -0.01 to -0.91 degrees C), increasi...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Grigg G,Beard L,Dörges B,Heucke J,Coventry J,Coppock A,Blomberg S

更新日期：2009-12-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Despite widespread interest in the interplay between evolutionary and developmental processes, we still know relatively little about the evolutionary history of larval development. Many clades exhibit multiple shifts from planktotrophic (feeding) to non-planktotrophic (non-feeding) larval development. An important que...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Cunningham JA,Jeffery Abt CH

更新日期：2009-10-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Inclusive fitness theory predicts that organisms will tend to help close kin more than less related individuals. In a variety of birds and mammals, relatives are recognized by comparing their phenotype to an internal representation or template, which might be learned through either repeated exposure to family members ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Bressan P,Zucchi G

更新日期：2009-06-23 00:00:00

abstract：:The muscles that effect lung ventilation are key to understanding the evolutionary constraints on animal form and function. Here, through electromyography, we demonstrate a newly discovered respiratory function for the iliocostalis muscle in the American alligator ( Alligator mississippiensis). The iliocostalis is act...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Codd JR,Rose KAR,Tickle PG,Sellers WI,Brocklehurst RJ,Elsey RM,Crossley DA 2nd

更新日期：2019-07-26 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：:On the steep surfaces that are common in arboreal environments, many types of animals without claws or adhesive structures must use muscular force to generate sufficient normal force to prevent slipping and climb successfully. Unlike many limbed arboreal animals that have discrete gripping regions on the feet, the elo...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Byrnes G,Jayne BC

更新日期：2014-08-01 00:00:00

abstract：:The songs of oscine passerine birds vary on many spatial scales, reflecting the actions of diverse evolutionary pressures. Here we examine the songs of Cisticola erythrops, which effectively signal species identity across a geographical area spanning 6500 km in sub-Saharan Africa. Selection for species identification ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Benedict L,Bowie RC

更新日期：2009-08-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Since the modern evolutionary synthesis was first proposed early in the twentieth century, attention has focused on assessing the relative contribution of mutation versus natural selection on protein evolution. Here we test a model that yields general quantitative predictions on rates of protein evolution by combining...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Gillooly JF,McCoy MW,Allen AP

更新日期：2007-12-22 00:00:00

abstract：:Overlap in the form of sexual signals such as pheromones raises the possibility of reproductive interference by invasive species on similar, yet naive native species. Here, we test the potential for reproductive interference through heterospecific mate attraction and subsequent predation of males by females of a sexua...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Fea MP,Stanley MC,Holwell GI

更新日期：2013-11-27 00:00:00

abstract：:The use of fluctuating asymmetry (FA) for biomonitoring environmental stress is limited by the lack of work on how FA in particular traits responds to specific stresses. Here, by manipulating the number of individuals in an enclosed fallow deer (Dama dama) population, we describe, for the first time, clear density dep...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Serrano E,Angibault JM,Cargnelutti B,Hewison AJ

更新日期：2008-10-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Ecological resilience has become a focal concept in ecosystem management. Palaeoecological records (i.e. the sub-fossil remains preserved in sediments) are useful archives to address ecological resilience since they can be used to reconstruct long-term temporal variations in ecosystem properties. The special feature p...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Seddon AWR

更新日期：2021-01-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Climate change is already affecting species worldwide, yet existing methods of risk assessment have not considered interactions between demography and climate and their simultaneous effect on habitat distribution and population viability. To address this issue, an international workshop was held at the University of A...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Brook BW,Akçakaya HR,Keith DA,Mace GM,Pearson RG,Araújo MB

更新日期：2009-12-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Cooperative alliances among kin may not only lead to indirect fitness benefits for group-living species, but can also provide direct benefits through access to mates or higher social rank. However, the immigrant sex in most species loses any potential benefits of living with kin unless immigrants disperse together or ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Pollack L,Rubenstein DR

更新日期：2015-07-01 00:00:00

abstract：:The hormone corticosterone (CORT) is an important component of a bird's response to environmental stress, but it can also have negative effects. Therefore, birds on migration are hypothesized to have repressed stress responses (migration-modulation hypothesis). In contrast to earlier studies on long-distance migrants,...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Nilsson AL,Sandell MI

更新日期：2009-08-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Migratory decisions in birds are closely tied to environmental cues and fat stores, but it remains unknown if the same variables trigger bat migration. To learn more about the rare phenomenon of bat migration, we studied departure decisions of female common noctules (Nyctalus noctula) in southern Germany. We did not f...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Dechmann DKN,Wikelski M,Ellis-Soto D,Safi K,O'Mara MT

更新日期：2017-09-01 00:00:00

abstract：:An often underappreciated function of signals is to notify receivers of the presence and position of senders. The colours that ornament the mouthparts of nestling birds, for example, have been hypothesized to evolve via selective pressure generated by parents' inability to efficiently detect and feed nestlings without...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Dugas MB

更新日期：2015-11-01 00:00:00

abstract：:To cope with the post-fire challenges of decreased availability of food and shelter, brown antechinus (Antechinus stuartii), a small marsupial mammal, increase the use of energy-conserving torpor and reduce activity. However, it is not known how long it takes for animals to resume pre-fire torpor and activity patterns...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Stawski C,Hume T,Körtner G,Currie SE,Nowack J,Geiser F

更新日期：2017-05-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Species response to environmental change may vary from adaptation to the new conditions, to dispersal towards territories with better ecological settings (known as habitat tracking), and to extinction. A phylogenetically explicit analysis of habitat tracking in Caenozoic large mammals shows that species moving over lo...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Raia P,Passaro F,Fulgione D,Carotenuto F

更新日期：2012-02-23 00:00:00

abstract：:One response to the coral reef crisis has been human intervention to enhance selection on the fittest corals through cultivation. This requires genotypes to be identified for intervention, with a primary basis for this choice being growth: corals that quickly grow on contemporary reefs might be future winners. To test...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Edmunds PJ,Putnam HM

更新日期：2020-07-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Many amphibian lineages show terrestrialization of their reproductive strategy and breeding is partially or completely independent of water. A number of causal factors have been proposed for the evolution of terrestrialized breeding. While predation has received repeated attention as a potential factor, the influence ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Müller H,Liedtke HC,Menegon M,Beck J,Ballesteros-Mejia L,Nagel P,Loader SP

更新日期：2013-03-27 00:00:00

abstract：:The evolution of visual warning signals is well known in animals but has received scant attention in plants. The coevolutionary hypothesis is the most influential hypothesis on warning signals in plants proposing that red and yellow leaf colours in autumn signal defensive strength to herbivores. So far, evidence in su...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Schaefer HM,Rolshausen G

更新日期：2007-02-22 00:00:00

abstract：:Recurrent cycles of climatic change during the Quaternary period have dramatically affected the population genetic structure of many species. We reconstruct the recent demographic history of the coyote (Canis latrans) through the use of Bayesian techniques to examine the effects of Late Quaternary climatic perturbatio...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Koblmüller S,Wayne RK,Leonard JA

更新日期：2012-08-23 00:00:00

abstract：:The fluid-containing traps of Nepenthes carnivorous pitcher plants (Nepenthaceae) are often inhabited by organisms known as inquilines. Dipteran larvae are key components of such communities and are thought to facilitate pitcher nitrogen sequestration by converting prey protein into inorganic nitrogen, although this h...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Lam WN,Chong KY,Anand GS,Tan HT

更新日期：2017-03-01 00:00:00

abstract：:We characterized fungal communities in dry and moist tundra and investigated the effect of long-term experimental summer warming on three aspects of functional groups of arctic fungi: richness, community composition and species abundance. Warming had profound effects on community composition, abundance, and, to a less...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Geml J,Semenova TA,Morgado LN,Welker JM

更新日期：2016-11-01 00:00:00

abstract：:The phenotypic effect of mutations can depend on their genetic background, a phenomenon known as epistasis. Many experimental studies have found that epistasis is pervasive, and some indicate that it may follow a general pattern dependent on the fitness effect of the interacting mutations. These studies have, however,...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Wang Y,Arenas CD,Stoebel DM,Cooper TF

更新日期：2013-02-23 00:00:00