Journal ArticleDOI
The ecological causes of evolution.
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By refocusing attention on the structure and consequences of ecological variation, a better characterisation of selective agents would improve understanding of natural selection and evolution, including adaptive radiation, coevolution, the niche, the evolutionary ecology of the ranges of species and their response to environmental change.Abstract:
Natural selection is the process that results in adaptive evolution, but it is not the cause of evolution. The cause of natural selection and, therefore, of adaptive evolution, is any environmental factor (agent of selection) that results in differential fitness among phenotypes. Surprisingly little is known about selective agents, how they interact or their relative importance across taxa. Here, I outline three approaches for their investigation: functional analysis, correlational analysis and experimental manipulation. By refocusing attention on the structure and consequences of ecological variation, a better characterisation of selective agents would improve understanding of natural selection and evolution, including adaptive radiation, coevolution, the niche, the evolutionary ecology of the ranges of species and their response to environmental change.read more
Citations
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Climate change, adaptation, and phenotypic plasticity: the problem and the evidence.
Juha Merilä,Andrew P. Hendry +1 more
TL;DR: Evidence for genetic adaptation to climate change has been found in some systems, but is still relatively scarce and it is clear that more studies are needed – and these must employ better inferential methods – before general conclusions can be drawn.
Journal ArticleDOI
Reality as the leading cause of stress: rethinking the impact of chronic stress in nature
TL;DR: It is proposed that chronic stress evolves in a species only if it is adaptive, with the key factors being lifespan and life history.
Journal ArticleDOI
Density triggers maternal hormones that increase adaptive offspring growth in a wild mammal.
Ben Dantzer,Amy E. M. Newman,Rudy Boonstra,Rupert Palme,Stan Boutin,Murray M. Humphries,Andrew G. McAdam,Andrew G. McAdam +7 more
TL;DR: It is shown that exposing mothers to high-density cues, accomplished via playbacks of territorial vocalizations, led to increased offspring growth rates in the absence of additional food resources, and females with naturally or experimentally increased glucocorticoids produced offspring that grew faster than controls.
Journal ArticleDOI
Reciprocal transplants demonstrate strong adaptive differentiation of the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana in its native range
Jon Ågren,Douglas W. Schemske +1 more
TL;DR: Strong adaptive differentiation between natural populations of A. thaliana is provided and differences in tolerance to freezing contributed to fitness variation at the northern site, and the functional and genetic basis of this adaptive differentiation is explored.
Journal ArticleDOI
Natural soil microbes alter flowering phenology and the intensity of selection on flowering time in a wild Arabidopsis relative.
Maggie R. Wagner,Derek S. Lundberg,Devin Coleman-Derr,Susannah G. Tringe,Jeffery L. Dangl,Thomas Mitchell-Olds +5 more
TL;DR: A method to dissect the microbiome into single axes of variation that can help identify candidate organisms whose abundance in soil correlates with flowering time is described, broadly applicable to search for microbial community members that alter biological characteristics of interest.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
The measurement of selection on correlated characters
Russell Lande,Stevan J. Arnold +1 more
TL;DR: Measures of directional and stabilizing selection on each of a set of phenotypically correlated characters are derived, retrospective, based on observed changes in the multivariate distribution of characters within a generation, not on the evolutionary response to selection.
Book
The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
TL;DR: Barnes & Noble Classics as mentioned in this paper is a collection of books based on the "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin, which is part of the "Barnes and Noble Classics" series.
Book
The ecology of adaptive radiation
TL;DR: This chapter discusses the origins of ecological diversity and the ecological basis of speciation, as well as the progress of adaptive radiation and its role in ecology.
MonographDOI
On the origin of the species by means of natural selection
TL;DR: One of the few revolutionary works of science that is engrossingly readable, "The Origin of Species" not only launched the science of modern biology but also has influenced virtually all subsequent literary, philosophical, and religious thinking.
Book
Natural selection in the wild
TL;DR: It is argued that the common assumption that selection is usually weak in natural populations is no longer tenable, but that natural selection is only one component of the process of evolution; natural selection can explain the change of frequencies of variants, but not their origins.