So far in this course we have dealt entirely with the evolution of characters that are controlled by simple Mendelian inheritance at a single locus. There are notes on the course website about gametic disequilibrium and how allele frequencies change at two loci simultaneously, but we didn’t discuss them. In every example we’ve considered we’ve imagined that we could understand something about evolution by examining the evolution of a single gene. That’s the domain of classical population genetics. For the next few weeks we’re going to be exploring a field that’s actually older than classical population genetics, although the approach we’ll be taking to it involves the use of population genetic machinery. If you know a little about the history of evolutionary biology, you may know that after the rediscovery of Mendel’s work in 1900 there was a heated debate between the “biometricians” (e.g., Galton and Pearson) and the “Mendelians” (e.g., de Vries, Correns, Bateson, and Morgan). Biometricians asserted that the really important variation in evolution didn’t follow Mendelian rules. Height, weight, skin color, and similar traits seemed to

Human biochemical genetics

An essential textbook for any student or researcher in biology needing to design experiments, sample programs or analyse the resulting data The text begins with a revision of estimation and hypothesis testing methods, covering both classical and Bayesian philosophies, before advancing to the analysis of linear and generalized linear models Topics covered include linear and logistic regression, simple and complex ANOVA models (for factorial, nested, block, split-plot and repeated measures and covariance designs), and log-linear models Multivariate techniques, including classification and ordination, are then introduced Special emphasis is placed on checking assumptions, exploratory data analysis and presentation of results The main analyses are illustrated with many examples from published papers and there is an extensive reference list to both the statistical and biological literature The book is supported by a website that provides all data sets, questions for each chapter and links to software

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Experimental Design and Data Analysis for Biologists

There is now ample evidence of the ecological impacts of recent climate change, from polar terrestrial to tropical marine environments. The responses of both flora and fauna span an array of ecosystems and organizational hierarchies, from the species to the community levels. Despite continued uncertainty as to community and ecosystem trajectories under global change, our review exposes a coherent pattern of ecological change across systems. Although we are only at an early stage in the projected trends of global warming, ecological responses to recent climate change are already clearly visible.

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Ecological responses to recent climate change.

Predation has long been implicated as a major selective force in the evolution of several morphological and behavioral characteristics of animals. The importance of predation during evolutionary ti...

Behavioral decisions made under the risk of predation: a review and prospectus

▪ Abstract The focus of most ideas on diversity maintenance is species coexistence, which may be stable or unstable. Stable coexistence can be quantified by the long-term rates at which community members recover from low density. Quantification shows that coexistence mechanisms function in two major ways: They may be (a) equalizing because they tend to minimize average fitness differences between species, or (b) stabilizing because they tend to increase negative intraspecific interactions relative to negative interspecific interactions. Stabilizing mechanisms are essential for species coexistence and include traditional mechanisms such as resource partitioning and frequency-dependent predation, as well as mechanisms that depend on fluctuations in population densities and environmental factors in space and time. Equalizing mechanisms contribute to stable coexistence because they reduce large average fitness inequalities which might negate the effects of stabilizing mechanisms. Models of unstable coexitence...

/pdf/mechanisms-of-maintenance-of-species-diversity-340h1nopps.pdf

Mechanisms of Maintenance of Species Diversity

In multitrophic systems, the diversity of consumers can affect the abundances and temporal stability of the species they consume via ‘top‐down’ effects However, little is known about how variation in consumer functional diversity affects the temporal stability of aggregate producer communities We use data from a long‐term experiment to determine how variation in rodent granivore functional richness affected the temporal stability of the annual plant communities whose seeds they consume Experimental plots excluded either all granivorous rodents, just large‐bodied kangaroo rat granivores, or no rodents Over the 11‐year period studied, reductions in rodent granivory resulted in higher annual plant community abundance and higher abundance of exotic Erodium cicutarium, but lower annual plant species richness and diversity However, there was no effect of the consumer experimental treatments on annual plant community temporal stability Synthesis The loss of consumers from an ecosystem need not necessarily destabilize the producer community, even when loss of consumers results in reduced producer richness and diversity

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1365-2745.13064

An experimental investigation of top–down effects of consumer diversity on producer temporal stability

Preface 1. The science of aminmal behavior 2. Behavioral genetics 3. Learning and cognition 4. Communication 5. Foraging behavior 6. Antipredator behavior 7. Dispersal and migration 8. Habitat selection, territoriality, and aggression 9. Mating behavior 10. Parental care 11. Social behavior Glossary Credits Index

Animal Behavior : Concepts, Methods, and Applications

Identifying individual male reproductive consistency in Drosophila melanogaster: The importance of controlling female behaviour.

Les psychologues, les economistes et les publicitaires savent depuis longtemps que les decisions humaines sont fortement influencees par le comportement des autres. Des arguments s'accumulent actuellement suggerant qu'il en est de meme chez les animaux. Les individus peuvent utiliser l'information produite par inadvertance par le comportement d'autres individus ayant les memes besoins ecologiques. En particulier, l'« information publique », c'est-a-dire l'information qui peut etre extraite de la performance des autres, est une source riche d'informations fiables sur la qualite des divers choix auxquels sont confrontes les animaux tout au long de leur vie. L'utilisation de l'information publique est aujourd'hui clairement demontree chez un grand nombre de groupes taxonomiques et peut ameliorer l'aptitude phenotypique, c'est-a-dire la capacite a avoir des descendants. Ainsi, l'utilisation de l'information publique est un phenomene tres repandu. Elle a ete demontree dans les divers types de decisions influencant l'aptitude phenotypique, et dans les divers groupes taxonomiques, allant des plantes a tous les vertebres. L'utilisation de l'information publique implique que les animaux se copient entre eux et peut donc conduire a l'evolution culturelle qu'il est possible de considerer comme une consequence directe de l'apprentissage a partir des congeneres, et en particulier des anciens. L'omnipresence de l'utilisation de l'information publique conduit donc a penser que la transmission culturelle est un processus beaucoup plus ancien et repandu qu'on ne le pensait auparavant. En particulier, elle ne se limite pas aux seuls humains. Il sera necessaire d'en analyser les consequences en termes de processus evolutif.

Thomas J. Valone

Papers

An experimental investigation of top–down effects of consumer diversity on producer temporal stability

Animal Behavior : Concepts, Methods, and Applications

Identifying individual male reproductive consistency in Drosophila melanogaster: The importance of controlling female behaviour.

Imitation et anthropologie : L'imitation dans le monde animal : information publique et évolution culturelle

Governance of renewable resources: insights from game theory