Merel C. Breedveld

Merel C. Breedveld
University of Padua | UNIPD · Department of Biology

PhD

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17
Publications
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182
Citations

Publications

Publications (17)
Article
Full-text available
Critical Thermal Limits (CTLs) gauge the physiological impact of temperature on survival or critical biological function, aiding predictions of species range shifts and climatic resilience. Two recent Drosophila species studies, using similar approaches to determine temperatures that induce sterility (Thermal Fertility Limits; TFLs), reveal that TF...
Article
Full-text available
Heatwaves are occurring at an increasing frequency and intensity under ongoing climate change. As many reproductive traits—including mating behaviour and gamete traits—are sensitive even to small temperature changes, the impact of heatwaves on reproduction and sexual selection processes is likely to be vast. Also, evaluating whether the sexes respo...
Article
Full-text available
Infanticide, the killing of unrelated young, is widespread and frequently driven by sexual conflict. Especially in mammals with exclusive maternal care, infanticide by males is common and females suffer fitness costs. Recognizing infanticide risk and adjusting offspring protection accordingly should therefore be adaptive in female mammals. Using a...
Article
The original version of this Article contained an error in the spelling of the author Y. Surget-Groba, which was incorrectly given as J. Surget-Groba. This has now been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.
Article
Mechanisms leading to sympatric speciation are diverse and may build up reproductive isolation. Reproductive isolation among differentiated clades may exist due to genetic incompatibilities, sexual selection, differences in parity mode, reduced post-zygotic survival or reproductive success of hybrids. Here we test whether differences in parity mode...
Article
Full-text available
Gene flow is an important factor determining the evolution of a species, since it directly affects population structure and species’ adaptation. Here, we investigated population structure, population history, and migration among populations covering the entire distribution of the geographically isolated South-West European common lizard (Zootoca vi...
Article
Gene flow is an important factor determining the evolution of a species, since it directly affects population structure and species’ adaptation. Here we investigated population structure, population history, and migration among populations covering the entire distribution of the geographically isolated South-West European common lizard (Zootoca viv...
Article
Aim During glaciations, the distribution of temperate species inhabiting the Northern Hemisphere generally contracts into southern refugia; and in boreo‐alpine species of the Northern Hemisphere, expansion from Northern refugia is the general rule. Little is known about the drivers explaining vast distributions of species inhabiting multiple biogeo...
Article
Full-text available
Climatic change is expected to affect individual life histories and population dynamics, potentially increasing vulnerability to extinction. The importance of genetic diversity has been highlighted for adaptation and population persistence. However, whether responses of life-history traits to a given environmental condition depend on the genetic ch...
Article
Full-text available
Females of many iteroparous species face trade-offs between producing one or multiple broods per reproductive season, and over fertilizing broods with sperm from the same or different mates. Both trade-offs might be affected by the availability of males (i.e. absence/presence of males) and the timing and duration of male encounters. Here, we experi...
Article
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Ecological and evolutionary processes in natural populations are largely influenced by the population's stage-structure. Commonly, different classes have different competitive abilities, e.g., due to differences in body size, suggesting that inter-class competition may be important and largely asymmetric. However, experimental evidence that inter-c...
Article
Full-text available
Protandry, i.e., the earlier arrival to breeding areas of males than females, has attracted a lot of scientific attention. However, evidence for the evolutionary hypotheses of protandry is surprisingly scarce. Here, we experimentally manipulate the time of emergence from hibernation of males, relative to females, in the common lizard, Zootoca vivip...
Article
The benefits obtained from mating are usually condition-dependent, favouring the evolution of flexible investment during copulation; for example, in terms of invested time, energy or sperm. Flexible investment strategies are predicted to depend on the likelihood of acquiring alternative mates and therefore they should depend on the timing of mate e...
Article
Modeling species' habitat requirements are crucial to assess impacts of global change, for conservation efforts and to test mechanisms driving species presence. While the influence of abiotic factors has been widely examined, the importance of biotic factors and biotic interactions, and the potential implications of local processes are not well und...
Conference Paper
Life-history theory predicts that the mating decisions displayed by an organism should vary strategically with respect to the intrinsic and extrinsic conditions it is exposed to, i.e., condition dependent strategies. This may allow an individual to enhance its reproductive success, a crucial component of fitness. Strategies may depend on the time o...
Article
Full-text available
Reproductive success is determined by the presence and timing of encounter of mates. The latter depends on species-specific reproductive characteristics (e.g. initiation/duration of the mating window), season, and reproductive strategies (e.g. intensity of choosiness) that may potentially mitigate constraints imposed by mating windows. Despite thei...

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