Derek Roff

Derek Roff
  • Professor (Full) at University of California, Riverside

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284
Publications
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34,903
Citations
Current institution
University of California, Riverside
Current position
  • Professor (Full)

Publications

Publications (284)
Article
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An official journal of the Genetics Society, Heredity publishes high-quality articles describing original research and theoretical insights in all areas of genetics. Research papers are complimented by News & Commentary articles and reviews, keeping researchers and students abreast of hot topics in the field.
Article
Estimation of mating preferences is a prerequisite for understanding how sexual selection through mate choice shapes both mating systems and sexual dimorphisms. Most studies of mating preferences assay mate choice using either a no choice or a binary choice design. Binary choice trials typically employ either an artificial signal or some fixed diff...
Article
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In some mammals, female characteristics have been shown to depend, in part, on the intrauterine position during development of female fetuses relative to male fetuses. Females developing in close proximity to males show behavioral, physiological and life history characteristics that are masculinized. With the exception of one inconclusive study, no...
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Natural selection acts on multiple traits simultaneously. How mechanisms underlying such traits enable or constrain their response to simultaneous selection is poorly understood. We show how antagonism and synergism among three traits at the developmental level enable or constrain evolutionary change in response to simultaneous selection on two foc...
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Many cryptic species have been discovered in various taxonomic groups based on molecular phylogenetic analyses and mating experiments. Some sympatric cryptic species share equivalent resources, which contradicts the competitive exclusion principle. Two major theories have been proposed to explain the apparent lack of competitive exclusion, i.e. nic...
Article
In addition to nutritional conditions experienced by individuals themselves, those experienced by their parents can affect their immune function. Here, we studied the intra- and trans-generational effects of larval diet on susceptibility to an entomopathogenic fungus, Beauveria bassiana, in the greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella. In the first pa...
Article
Research on the evolution of mate choice has followed three avenues of investigation: (1) theoretical models of the evolution of preference and the preferred trait; (2) proposed models of mate choice; and (3) experiments and observations on mate choice, both in the laboratory and with free-ranging animals. However, there has been relatively little...
Article
The evolution of mate choice is a function of the heritability of preference. Estimation in the laboratory is typically made by presenting a female with a limited number of males. We show that such an approach produces a downwardly biased estimate, which we term the heritability of choice. When preference is treated as a threshold trait then less b...
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Populations often contain discrete classes or morphs (e.g., sexual dimorphisms, wing dimorphisms, trophic dimorphisms) characterized by distinct patterns of trait expression. In quantitative genetic analyses, the different morphs can be considered as different environments within which traits are expressed. Genetic variances and covariances can the...
Article
The maintenance of variation in sexually selected traits is a puzzle that has received increasing attention in the past several decades. Traits that are related to fitness, such as life-history or sexually selected traits, are expected to have low additive genetic variance (and hence, heritability) due to the rapid fixation of advantageous alleles....
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This chapter discusses the breeding and statistical methods used to measure the quantitative genetic parameters underlying phenotypic plasticity in a laboratory situation, where the pedigree structure is under the control of the experimenter. It outlines two alternative conceptual frameworks within which Genotype x Environment (G × E) can be analyz...
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This article extends and adds more realism to Lande's analytical model for evolution under mate choice by using individual-based simulations in which females sample a finite number of males and the genetic architecture of the preference and preferred trait evolves. The simulations show that the equilibrium heritabilities of the preference and prefe...
Article
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Many sexual differences are known in human and animals. It is well known that females are superior in longevity, while males in athletic performances. Even though some sexual differences are attributed to the evolutionary tradeoff between survival and reproduction, the aforementioned sex differences are difficult to explain by this tradeoff. Here w...
Data
Appendix S2. Population size and drift.
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Table S1. Details on the parameter combinations used.
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Appendix S1. Mutation rate.
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Appendix S4. Effect of initial parameter values.
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Appendix S6. Line of equilibria and conditions for runaway selection.
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Appendix S3. Natural selection on males.
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Appendix S5. Parameter combinations.
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Summary The distribution of additive versus non-additive genetic variation in natural populations represents a central topic of research in evolutionary/organismal biology. For evolutionary physiologists, functional or whole-animal performance traits (“physiological traits”) are frequently studied assuming they are heritable and variable in populat...
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The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List provides a globally-recognized evaluation of the conservation status of species, with the aim of catalysing appropriate conservation action. However, in some parts of the world, species data may be lacking or insufficient to predict risk status. If species with shared ecological or...
Article
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Relationships between flowers and pollinators are generally considered cases of mutualism since both agents gain benefits. Fine-tuned adaptations are usually found in the form of strict one-to-one coevolution between species. Many insect pollinators are, however, considered generalists, visiting numerous kinds of flowers, and many flower species (a...
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In order for the male courtship traits to honestly signal quality they need to be condition-dependent. Moreover, if these traits capture genetic variation in condition they should resemble life-history traits in being subject to strong directional selection and, consequently, suffer strong inbreeding depression. In this study we investigated the ef...
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Abstract The evolution of endothermy is one of the most puzzling events in vertebrate evolution, for which several hypotheses have been proposed. The most accepted model is the aerobic model, which assumes the existence of a genetic correlation between resting metabolic rate (RMR) and maximum aerobic capacity (whose standard measure is maximum meta...
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Question: In studies on genetic divergence, does the divergence value co-vary with the recommended actions given in the paper's conclusion? Data incorporated: Articles from the journals Biological Conservation and Conservation Genetics published between 2007 and 2011 were reviewed for studies assessing genetic divergence that gave conservation reco...
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Melanism is an important component of insect cuticle and serves numerous functions that enhance fitness. Despite its importance, there is little information on its genetic basis or its phenotypic and genetic correlation with fitness-related traits. Here, we examine the heritability of melanism in the wing dimorphic sand cricket and determine its ph...
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Insect cuticle melanism is linked to a number of life-history traits, and a positive relationship is hypothesized between melanism and the strength of immune defense. In this study, the phenotypic and genetic relationships between cuticular melanization, innate immune defense, individual development time and body size were studied in the mealworm b...
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A larval army caste is found in some parasitic wasps with polyembryonic or clonal proliferation, where many clone larvae emerge from a single egg. In contrast to non-parasitic eusocial Hymenoptera, sterile soldier larvae that protect their clonal reproductives are found in both females and males. Recently, the proportion of soldier larvae has been...
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The relationship between traits that compete for resources is influenced by variance in the acquisition and allocation of resources. The difficulty of accurately measuring these underlying physiological processes has hampered studies of resource-based trade-offs. Here, we explore the ability of principal components analysis (PCA) to extract axes co...
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A great deal is known about the evolutionary significance of body size and development time. They are determined by the nonlinear interaction of three physiological traits: two hormonal events and growth rate (GR). In this study we investigate how the genetic architecture of the underlying three physiological traits affects the simultaneous respons...
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Theory predicts that correlational selection on two traits will cause the major axis of the bivariate G matrix to orient itself in the same direction as the correlational selection gradient. Two testable predictions follow from this: for a given pair of traits, (1) the sign of correlational selection gradient should be the same as that of the genet...
Article
Using quantitative genetic theory, we develop predictions for the evolution of trade-offs in response to directional and correlational selection. We predict that directional selection favoring an increase in one trait in a trade-off will result in change in the intercept but not the slope of the trade-off function, with the mean value of the select...
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Because of its importance in directing evolutionary trajectories, there has been considerable interest in comparing variation among genetic variance-covariance (G) matrices. Numerous statistical approaches have been suggested but no general analysis of the relationship among these methods has previously been published. In this study, we used data f...
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The evolutionary trajectories of trade-offs are ultimately governed by the evolution of the underlying physiological processes of the acquisition and subsequent allocation of resources. In this study, we focused directly on acquisition and allocation as traits and estimated their genetic architecture in the trade-off between flight capability and r...
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Costs of plasticity are generally measured by the absolute difference between trait values in two or more environments, and both trait value and plasticity costs are correlated with fitness using multiple regression [[1][1]]. A recent paper [[2][2]] discussed the consequences of a correlation
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This study combines path analysis with quantitative genetics to analyse a key life history trade-off in the cricket, Gryllus firmus. We develop a path model connecting five traits associated with the trade-off between flight capability and reproduction and test this model using phenotypic data and estimates of breeding values (best linear unbiased...
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SUMMARYAlthough numerous studies on vertebrates suggest that inbreeding reduces their resistance against parasites and pathogens, studies in insects have found contradictory evidence. In this study we tested the effect of 1 generation of brother-sister mating (inbreeding) on potential and realized immune responses and other life-history traits in T...
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The evolution of conditional, alternative strategies is a major factor in adaptation. In animals, the frequency of alternative morphs, characterized by different morphologies and mating tactics, can be both condition-dependent and subject to rapid evolutionary change.
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The reasons for the continued use of the von Bertalanffy equation are examined. It is suggested that these reasons are insufficient to overcome the drawbacks of this function and alternative procedures are recommended.Key words: von Bertalanffy, growth, yield per recruit
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The use of electrophoretic data in fisheries research is generally based upon the assumption that isozyme variability reflects genetic variability. This assumption is often based mainly upon nonsignificant χ2 values obtained when observed distributions of phenotypes are compared to those predicted by given genetic models with alleles segregating in...
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Gulland's method for fitting the Schaefer model is examined using data from 19 groundfish stocks. The relationship between catch per unit effort and averaged effort may arise from statistical artifacts due to the method itself or from the way the fisheries develop. The prevalence of these artifacts in the actual data suggest that this method cannot...
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Murphy's hypothesis that variation in reproductive life span is an adaptive response to variation in the predictability of reproductive success is examined. Murphy's contention that this hypothesis explains the variation in reproductive life span within the clupeids is reexamined incorporating further data on the Peruvian anchovy (Engraulis ringens...
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Virtual population analysis or cohort analysis is hindered by the difficulties of estimating the partial recruitment factors. A method currently used for estimating the latter is the ratio of the frequency of a particular age in the commercial catch to that in a research sample. This method is examined and shown to be only an approximation that may...
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This paper examines the factors determining the age and size at maturity of temperate species of flatfish. In some species maturity is governed by size, not age. I propose that the most likely determinant of this size is size-dependent predation. Many species fast during the winter months and rely upon reserves stored in the body tissues to provide...
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Previous methods of estimating population size and natural mortality rate in harp seals (Phoca groenlandica) are reviewed. Excepting the method of Beddington and Williams (Marine Mammal Comm., Washington, DC., Rep. MMC 79-03, 1980) all previous methods rely heavily upon the survival index method of estimating pup production. We describe the mathema...
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The models of Schnute and Deriso are compared with a simple autoregressive model (SA model). Comparisons are made using both stepwise and omnibus prediction. In the latter case predictions are made for at least 3 or 10 yr ahead. The SA model is shown to be consistently better at predicting both catch and catch-per-unit effort than either of the oth...
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We examined changes in the age structure of the northwest Atlantic harp seal (Phoca groenlandica) population from 1967 to 1983. Through this period there has been a statistically significant population increase in the proportion of seals aged 2–6 yr. Precise estimation of the rate of increase is hindered by a tendency for immature seals to be overr...
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Because of anthropogenic factors many populations have been at least temporarily reduced to a very small population size. Such reductions could potentially decrease genetic variation and increase the probability of extinction. Analysis of molecular markers has shown a decrease in genetic variation but in many cases this has not reduced the ability...
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Because of their decreased overall fitness and genetic variability inbred individuals are expected to show reduced survival and lifespan under most environmental conditions as compared with outbred individuals. Whereas evidence for the deleterious effects of inbreeding on lifespan has been previously provided, only a few studies have investigated e...
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Respiration and energy metabolism are key processes in animals, which are severely constrained by the design of physical structures, such as respiratory structures. Insects have very particular respiratory systems, based on gas diffusion across tracheae. Since the efficiency of the tracheal respiratory system is highly dependent on body shape, the...
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Current interest in behavioural syndromes, or 'animal personalities', reinforces a need for behavioural ecologists to adopt a multivariate view of phenotypes. Fortunately, many of the methodological and theoretical issues currently being dealt with by behavioural ecologists within the context of behavioural syndromes have previously been investigat...
Article
The impact of nutritional deficiencies early in life in determining life-history variation in organisms is well recognized. The negative effects of inbreeding on fitness are also well known. Contrary to studies on vertebrates, studies on invertebrates are not consistent with the observation that inbreeding compromises resistance to parasites and pa...
Article
Many models of life history evolution assume trade-offs between major life history traits; however, these trade-offs are often not found. The Y model predicts that variation in acquisition can mask underlying allocation trade-offs and is a major hypothesis explaining why negative relationships are not always found between traits that are predicted...
Article
The role of developmental and genetic integration for evolution is contentious. One hypothesis states that integration acts as a constraint on evolution, whereas an alternative is that developmental and genetic systems evolve to match the functional modularity of organisms. This study examined a morphological structure, the cricket wing, where deve...
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In nature, resource availability varies spatially and temporally both within and across generations, leading to variation in the amount of energy available to individuals. The optimal allocation strategy can change, depending on the amount of resources available to allocate to life-history functions. If so, selection should favor the evolution of a...
Article
We consider a number of hypotheses explaining the social use of song repertoires by territory-holding of male American warblers (Parulinae). Males vary by species in having from one to several songs that are used in station singing. In the latter case the songs are clustered into subsets or modes. The songs (= modes) vary in use by season and terri...
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Body size and development time of Manduca sexta are both determined by the same set of three developmental-physiological factors. These define a parameter space within which it is possible to analyse and explain how phenotypic change is associated with changes in the underlying factors. Body size and development time are determined by the identical...
Article
Local adaptation to variable environments can generate clinal variation in morphological traits. Alternatively, similar patterns of clinal variation may be generated simply as a result of genetic drift/migration balance. Teasing apart these different processes is a continuing focus in evolutionary ecology. We compare genetic differentiation at mole...
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The incidence of hybridization between coastal cutthroat (Oncorhynchus clarki clarki) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) varies widely among populations. The breakdown of reproductive isolation is of concern to managers, and raises the question: how have the two species retained their genetic and morphological divergence? Using a combination o...
Chapter
This chapter provides an overview of the ways to model experimental evolution. There are three approaches to modeling the evolution of quantitative traits: (1) population-based models, (2) Mendelian-based models, and (3) variance-components models. The chapter focuses on variance-components models and discusses how to implement them for both single...
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Predation plays a central role in evolutionary processes, but little is known about how predators affect the expression of heritable variation, restricting our ability to predict evolutionary effects of predation. We reared families of three-spined stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus from two populations—one with a history of fish predation (predato...
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The analysis of evolutionary models requires an appropriate definition for fitness. In this paper, I review such definitions in relation to the five major dimensions by which models may be described, namely (i) finite versus infinite (or very large) population size, (ii) type of environment (constant, fixed length, temporally stochastic, temporally...
Article
Efficient signalling requires coordination of signal form and receiver design. To maintain signal function, parallel changes in signaller and receiver traits are required. Genetic correlation and co-evolution among signal and response traits have been proposed to preserve signal function (i.e. coordination) during the evolution of mate recognition...
Article
In this paper, we test the hypothesis that male sand crickets, Gryllus firmus, experience a trade-off between flight capability and reproductive potential expressed as reduced testis weight in flight-capable morphs. We used a half-sib design with 130 sires, three dams per sire and an average of 5.66 males per dam family, for a total of 2206 F1 offs...
Article
1Energetic trade-offs are those compromises that appear when the energy budget of an individual's life history closely matches or exceeds the net available energy in the environment in a given moment. In these situations, two or more functions can compete and organisms face physiological decisions in order to survive and reproduce.2In insects, one...
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Three estimates of heritability are available from the half-sib pedigree design: the sire, dam and genotypic estimates. Because of its significantly smaller standard error, the genotypic estimate is preferred provided that there are no non-additive effects that inflate the estimate. I present two methods to test for such effects: these are a t-test...
Article
Xenodexia ctenolepis (Hubbs, 1950) is a uniquely asymmetrical species in the fish family Poeciliidae that is endemic to a remote region of Guatemala. In the present study, we describe its life history based on the dissection of 65 adult females from three different collections. We show that it is a livebearer, has superfetation, or the ability to c...
Article
Predicting evolutionary change is the central goal of evolutionary biology because it is the primary means by which we can test evolutionary hypotheses. In this article, we analyze the pattern of evolutionary change in a laboratory population of the wing-dimorphic sand cricket Gryllus firmus resulting from relaxation of selection favoring the migra...
Article
Quantitative genetics is at or is fast approaching its centennial. In this perspective I consider five current issues pertinent to the application of quantitative genetics to evolutionary theory. First, I discuss the utility of a quantitative genetic perspective in describing genetic variation at two very different levels of resolution, (1) in natu...
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Full-text available
Empirical studies in vertebrates support the hypothesis that inbreeding reduces resistance against parasites and pathogens. However, studies in insects have not found any evidence that inbreeding compromises immune defence. Here we tested whether one generation of brother-sister mating or extreme outbreeding (mating between two populations) have an...
Article
Abstract There is considerable interest in comparing genetic variance-covariances matrices (G matrix). However, present methods are difficult to implement and cannot readily be extended to incorporate effects of other variables such as habitat, sex, or location. In this paper I present a method based on MANOVA that can be done using only standard s...
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Trade-offs are a core component of many evolutionary models, particularly those dealing with the evolution of life histories. In the present paper, we identify four topics of key importance for studies of the evolutionary biology of trade-offs. First, we consider the underlying concept of 'constraint'. We conclude that this term is typically used t...
Article
Females of many species select their mates on the basis of the size or intensity of sexual ornaments, and it has been suggested that these provide reliable signals of a male’s ability to resist parasites and pathogens. European earwigs, Forficula auricularia, are sexually dimorphic in forceps shape and length. Male forceps are used as weapons in ma...
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Life-history theory seeks to understand the factors that produce variation in life histories that are found both among and within species. At the organismal level there is a well developed mathematical framework, and an important focus of the current research is determining the biological underpinnings of this framework, with particular attention t...
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Because areas suitable for growth and reproduction are often ephemeral, a primary selective force in the evolution of migratory behavior in insects is the need to colonize new habitats. However, both migration itself and flight capability reduce present reproductive success. Thus the long-term fitness benefit of migration, the colonization of new h...
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Compared with morphological and life history traits, quantitative genetic variation of metabolic and related traits in animals has been poorly studied. We used flow-through VCO(2) respirometry and simultaneous activity measurement on nymphs of the sand cricket (Gryllus firmus) from inbred lines to estimate broad-sense heritability of four metabolic...
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A central assumption of life history theory is that the evolution of the component traits is determined in part by trade-offs between these traits. Whereas the existence of such trade-offs has been well demonstrated, the relative importance of these remains unclear. In this paper we use optimality theory to test the hypothesis that the trade-off be...
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Sexual dimorphism (SD) is a defining feature of gonochorous animals and dioecious plants, but the evolution of SD from an initially monomorphic genome presents a conundrum. Theory predicts that the evolution of SD will be facilitated if genes with sex-specific fitness effects occur on sex chromosomes. We review this theory and show that it generate...
Article
Dominance and epistatic effects are predicted to be larger in life-history than in morphological traits. We test these predictions using published results from line cross analyses. We find that dominance is found in more than 95% of traits, regardless of the type of trait, but that the magnitude of the effect in relation to the additive effect is m...
Article
Dominance and epistatic effects are predicted to be larger in life-history than in morphological traits. We test these predictions using published results from line cross analyses. We find that dominance is found in more than 95% of traits, regardless of the type of trait, but that the magnitude of the effect in relation to the additive effect is m...
Article
Immune defence is hypothesized to be a trait that bears significant fitness costs as well as benefits in that mounting a defence depreciates the value of other life-history traits. Thus the cost of mounting an immune response could affect the evolution of both the immune system and correlated life history traits. In this study we examined, by means...
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We found in an earlier study that mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis and G. holbrooki) ceased reproduction in the late summer, long before the end of warm weather, stored fat, then utilized reserves to survive the winter and initiate reproduction the following spring. We hypothesized that this pattern of fat utilization was a life history adaptation th...
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Body size is controlled by mechanisms that terminate growth when the individual reaches a species-specific size. In insects, it is a pulse of ecdysone at the end of larval life that causes the larva to stop feeding and growing and initiate metamorphosis. Body size is a quantitative trait, so it is important that the problem of control of body size...
Article
This 2006 guide to the contemporary toolbox of methods for data analysis will serve graduate students and researchers across the biological sciences. Modern computational tools, such as Maximum Likelihood, Monte Carlo and Bayesian methods, mean that data analysis no longer depends on elaborate assumptions designed to make analytical approaches trac...
Article
Life histories are variable at many different levels, among species, among populations of a species, and within populations of a species. This chapter focuses upon the last category of variation. Variation is the norm for virtually all traits, particularly life-history traits. In part the variation is a consequence of genetic mechanisms-mutation-se...
Article
In birds with altricial young an important stage in the life history is the age at fledging. In this paper we use an approach proven successful in the prediction of the optimal age at maturity in fish and reptiles to predict the optimal age of fledging in passerines. Integrating the effects of growth on future fecundity and survival leads to the pr...
Article
Energy metabolism in animals has been largely studied in relation to exogenous sources of variation. However, because they give insight into the relationship between whole metabolism and lower organizational levels such as organs and tissues, examination of endogenous determinants of metabolism other than body mass is itself very important. We stud...

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