Roi Dor

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at The Open University of Israel

The success of introduced species often relies on flexible traits, including immune system traits. While theories predict non-natives will have weak defences due to decreased parasite pressure, effective parasite surveillance remains crucial, as infection risk is rarely zero and the evolutionary novelty of infection is elevated in non-native areas....

Describing animal space use is essential for understanding their ecological needs and for planning effective conservation schemes. Notably, certain biomes and life histories are understudied due to methodological challenges in tracking animals in their natural habitats. Specifically, both arid environments and nocturnal species are not sufficiently...

Despite posing a serious threat to global biodiversity, national and international management efforts have not been able to limit the spread of most invasive species. In highly dispersive species, local invasions may be followed by regional range expansion that crosses international borders. In such cases, independent management efforts of the inva...

Invasive species present an opportunity to test the association between selective forces and adaptive morphological traits because these species can experience rapid changes when introduced to new environments. One such invader is the common myna (Acridotheres tristis), a broadly ranging avian species that has been introduced on most continents and...

Certain behavioural traits, including innovation and reduced neophobia, may facilitate successful invasions by allowing first arrivals to overcome the challenges of a novel environment. However, the extent to which these traits occur in invasive populations in comparison with native populations, and whether these traits' prevalence remains consiste...

Acanthiophilus and Tephritomyia are medium-sized genera in the family Tephritidae. Both exclusively infest plants of the tribe Cardueae and share several morphological characters. Although both were recently revised based on morphological characters, the phylogenetic relationships between these genera and between them and allied genera in the ‘Teph...

Many ground-nesting bird species are suffering from habitat loss and population decline. Data on population ecology and demography in colonies of threatened species are thus essential for designing effective conservation protocols. Here, we used extensive ringing and observation data to estimate directly, for the first time, the survival rate of ju...

Estimating the potential distribution of invasive species has been primarily achieved by employing species distribution models (SDM). Recently introduced joint species distribution models (JSDM) that include species interactions are expected to improve model output. Here we compare the predictive ability of SDM and JSDM by modelling the distributio...

the plant genus Suaeda (Chenopodiaceae) is host to approximately 30 species of gall midges mainly in Central asia and the mediterranean Basin. However, the actual number of cecidomyiid species on these plants is probably higher given that the faunas of africa and arabia are virtually unstudied and those of Central asia and the mediterranean Basin m...

Food sharing is often evolutionarily puzzling, because the provider’s benefits are not always clear. Sharing among kin may increase indirect fitness [1], but when non-kin are involved, different mechanisms were suggested to act. Occasionally, ‘‘tolerated theft’’ [2, 3] is observed, merely because defending a resource is not cost effective. Sharing...

Determining the distribution and potential ranges of detrimental invasive species has become an essential task in light of their impacts on the environment. However, this effort has been challenging, especially for global invaders. Our goal was to test whether potential ranges of global invaders can be predicted, and examine the factors that shape...

Faunal lists are important tools in ecology, biogeography, and conservation planning. Such lists can identify gaps in our knowledge of the distribution and taxonomy of regional faunas, and highlight issues needing further study. We present an up to date list of all land vertebrates occurring in Israel. We identify 786 species, of which 551 are bird...

Populations found at the edge of a species range often have decreased genetic diversity, which together with high gene flow may reduce the ability of a species to adapt to local environmental conditions. The Dead Sea Sparrow Passer moabiticus occupies a disjointed range, where the Israeli populations are considered peripheral and fragmented. The sp...

The Platyceps rhodorachis species complex encompasses a widespread group of morphologically similar colubrid snakes. The number and identities of species from this complex in Israel have recently been debated. Studies from the previous decade concluded that there are two species in Israel and its vicinity (compared with one previously recognized),...

Social foraging theory suggests that group-living animals gain from persistent social bonds, which lead to increased tolerance in competitive foraging and information sharing. Bats are among the most social mammals, often living in colonies of tens to thousands of individuals for dozens of years, yet little is known about their social foraging dyna...

Studying patterns of phenotypic variation among populations can shed light on the drivers of evolutionary processes. The house sparrow (Passer domesticus) is one of the world's most ubiquitous bird species, as well as a successful invader. We investigated phenotypic variation in house sparrow populations across a climatic gradient and in relation t...

Vocal learning, the substrate of human language acquisition, has rarely been described in other mammals. Often, group-specific vocal dialects in wild populations provide the main evidence for vocal learning. While social learning is often the most plausible explanation for these intergroup differences, it is usually impossible to exclude other driv...

The playbacks direct the dialect formation (F0 distribution for each pup). The distribution of fundamental frequency (F0) usage by each of the pups in the three groups: High-F0 (A-D), control (E-H), and Low-F0 (I-L). Each pup is plotted with a different line pattern. The four recording sessions are presented, at the ages of (A,E,I) 12–18, (B,F,J) 3...

Dialect formation in the High-F0 group also explained by the energy entropy. The distribution of energy entropy (Shannon entropy of the amplitude) in the High-F0 and control groups (top panels): control (black), High-F0 (red). The four recording sessions are presented as four columns: (A) 12–18 weeks, (B) 31–35 weeks, (C) 40–43 weeks, and (D) 48–51...

The numerical data used in the figures. (XLSX)

Acoustic features of R. aegyptiacus agonistic vocal repertoire. (A) Energy entropy and peak-frequency; (B) Fundamental frequency (F0) and spectral centroid; (C) Spectral entropy and Wiener entropy; (D) Duration and energy entropy. (PDF)

Proportion of High, Low, and intermediate F0 usage. The proportion of High-F0 calls (A-D), intermediate F0 calls (E-H), and Low-F0 calls (I-L) in the vocalizations of the High-F0 group (red), Low-F0 group (blue), and control group (black). The dashed lines in (A,E,I) show the relevant proportion of calls in the playbacks of the High-F0 group (red),...

Similarity between males and females in F0 usage, and no correlation between body-weight and F0 usage. For each recording session, p-values (with statistic) are depicted for Mann-Whitney-U test for differences between the sexes in high-F0 content, mean F0 production, and low-F0 content. For each recording session, p-values (with statistic) are depi...

Recording schedule. * Recording rotations with only 3 pups at a time, each rotation with a different individual composition. (PDF)

Examples of four permutations of group labels. Each row is parallel to Fig 2, but the group identities of the pups were permuted. Four random permutations are shown (A-D, E-H, I-L, and M-P). The presented 4 permutations are just the first 4 that were sampled (we did not choose specific permutations), illustrating how difficult it is to get separati...

Linear mixed models for the usage of Low-F0 and High-F0 calls. Two models are presented (one for Low-F0 and one for High-F0 calls). The models included the age of the pups (four time points, i.e. recording sessions), the sex of the pups, and the group (i.e. Control, Low-F0 group, or High-F0 group). The second table of each test contains post-hoc pa...

Linear discriminant analysis of the playbacks. The standardized coefficients (i.e. feature’s contribution to the discrimination in each discriminant function) and the correlation of each feature with the two linear discriminant (LD) functions. Top three are in bold. As expected by the selection of the playbacks the fundamental frequency (F0) has th...

Number of calls analyzed for each pup in each recording session. (PDF)

Heptageniidae is a species-rich mayfly family (Ephemeroptera), whose taxonomy and phylogeny have been based almost exclusively on traditional morphological studies. Inconsistent use of diagnostic characters and the general lack of molecular studies have led to vague generic concepts, and the phylogenetic relationships among taxa in the family remai...

Wormlion larvae are sit-and-wait predators that construct cone-shaped pits in sandy patches to capture prey. Wormlions select microhabitats that feature favorable conditions for pit construction, in a similar way to other trap-building predators, like spiders and antlions. We investigated whether wormlions exhibit an experience-based behavioral pla...

The selection of a suitable habitat may maximize the survival and reproduction chances of individuals. We examined the habitat choice of wormlions, small sand-dwelling insects that construct pit-traps to capture prey. Unlike the well-studied antlions, which employ a similar hunting strategy, wormlion behavior has not been thoroughly studied. We fir...

Aim Islands organisms usually have fewer predator and competitor species than mainland ones. This is thought to result in high population densities on islands. We hypothesize that insular lizards have denser populations than mainland species and that density, in general, is negatively correlated with competitor and predator richness. Location Glob...

1. Starvation tolerance is an important trait for animals, as most will encounter starvation within their lifetime. Sit‐and‐wait predators are better adapted to starvation owing to their naturally low encounter rate with prey. 2. Starvation tolerance was studied under three levels of disturbance of wormlion larvae, a strict sit‐and‐wait predator th...

The level of expression of sexually selected traits is generally determined by genes, environment and their interaction. In species that use multiple sexual signals which may be costly to produce, investing in the expression of one sexual signal may limit the expression of the other, favoring the evolution of a strategy for resource allocation amon...

Latitudinal variation in avian life histories can be summarized as a slow–fast continuum, termed the ‘pace of life’, that encompasses patterns in life span, reproduction, and rates of development among tropical and temperate species. Much of the variation in avian pace of life is tied to differences in rates of long-term metabolic energy expenditur...

Wormlion larvae (Diptera: Vermileonidae) construct conical pits in fine loose soils and ambush arthropod prey. Their hunting strategy resembles that of pit-building antlions (Neuroptera: Myrmeleontidae), offering a classical example of convergent evolution, as they belong to different orders of insects. However, compared with other trap-building pr...

Habitat fragmentation is a major driver of environmental change affecting wildlife populations across multiple levels of biological diversity. Much of the recent research in landscape genetics has focused on quantifying the influence of fragmentation on genetic variation among populations, but questions remain as to how habitat loss and configurati...

Life on Earth is conspicuously more diverse in the tropics. Although this intriguing geographical pattern has been linked to many biotic and abiotic factors, their relative importance and potential interactions are still poorly understood. The way in which latitudinal changes in ecological conditions influence evolutionary processes is particularly...

Abstract Sexual trait divergence has been shown to play a role in the evolution of reproductive isolation. While variation in multiple sexual signals is common among closely related species, little is known about the role of these different axes of phenotype variation with respect to the evolution of behavioral reproductive isolation. Here we study...

Properties of the circadian and annual timing systems are expected to vary systematically with latitude on the basis of different annual light and temperature patterns at higher latitudes, creating specific selection pressures. We review literature with respect to latitudinal clines in circadian phenotypes as well as in polymorphisms of circadian c...

Background/Question/Methods Janzen (1967) proposed that broader temperature tolerances could facilitate dispersal across mountain passes and lead to latitudinal differences in the potential for speciation. This elegant hypothesis has since been extended to account for the effects of other environmental barriers to dispersal and suggested as a pos...

The New World swallow genus Tachycineta comprises nine species that collectively have a wide geographic distribution and remarkable variation both within- and among-species in ecologically important traits. Existing phylogenetic hypotheses for Tachycineta are based on mitochondrial DNA sequences, thus they provide estimates of a single gene tree. I...

A long term study of warblers in the Himalayas reveals a surprising contrast in the effects of warm springs as opposed to warm summers on a signaling trait, emphasizing the need to consider year-round influences of the environment on morphological variation.

Many animals use photoperiod cues to synchronize reproduction with environmental conditions and thereby improve their reproductive success. The circadian clock, which creates endogenous behavioral and physiological rhythms typically entrained to photoperiod, is well characterized at the molecular level. Recent work provided evidence for an associat...

The Tachycineta genus of swallows is comprised of nine species that range from Alaska to southern Chile. We sequenced the entire mitochondrial genome of each member of Tachycineta and generated a completely resolved phylogenetic hypothesis for the corresponding mitochondrial gene tree. Our analyses confirm the presence of two sub-clades within Tach...

Recent studies of several species have reported a latitudinal cline in the circadian clock gene, Clock, which influences rhythms in both physiology and behavior. Latitudinal variation in this gene may hence reflect local adaptation to seasonal variation. In some bird populations, there is also an among-individual association between Clock poly-Q ge...

Speciation processes are largely determined by the relative strength of divergent selection versus the magnitude of gene flow. The barn swallow (Hirundo rustica) has a broad geographic distribution that encompasses substantial geographic variation in morphology and behavior. The European (H. r. rustica) and East-Mediterranean (H. r. transitiva) sub...

The differential functions of distinct morphological traits as sexual signals among closely related populations are associated with a potential role of sexual selection in population divergence and speciation. The cosmopolitan barn swallow Hirundo rustica complex consists of 6 subspecies, which differ substantially in tail streamer length and ventr...

Mock et al.'s critical review of the ''honest begging'' literature is certainly welcome and constructive. We agree that there are some problems with Signal of Need (SoN) including its inter-actions with Signal of Quality (SoQ) (Lotem 1998), and the fact that it makes opposing predictions for different fitness functions (Cotton et al. 1999) and ''as...

Introduced species offer unique opportunities to study evolution in new environments, and some provide opportunities for understanding the mechanisms underlying macroecological patterns. We sought to determine how introduction history impacted genetic diversity and differentiation of the house sparrow (Passer domesticus), one of the most broadly di...

Parental effort has a direct impact on individual fitness. Theoretical models exploring how parental effort evolves to cope with offspring demand and sexual conflicts may differ in the assumptions they make in respect to the genetic heritability of parental behaviours. Only a few attempts, however, have been made to estimate the heritability of par...

The cosmopolitan Barn Swallow complex (Hirundo rustica and related Hirundo species) provides a model system for studies of mate choice, sexual selection, and related topics in behavioral ecology, but the phylogenetic and phylogeographic relationships within this group are not yet completely resolved. We reconstructed the phylogeny of all 14 species...

Evolutionary theory of parent-offspring conflict assumes that offspring food solicitation behavior, known as begging, and parental response to begging are subjected to selection and coevolution. This assumption implies that begging intensity should be heritable, at least to some degree. Although some studies have suggested that begging is heritable...

Nestling begging in the absence of parents may reflect “false alarms” due to cognitive constraints or signaling activity toward nest mates (sibling negotiation). According to signal detection theory, cognitive constraints should result in both false alarms (begging in the absence of parents or to inappropriate stimuli) and misses (failure to beg du...

When a colony becomes queenless and without the possibility of requeening, honeybee workers initiate reproduction and lay male eggs about a week later. Assays in which two bees were confined in a small arena revealed that they establish a reproductive dominance hierarchy, i.e., one worker demonstrates greater ovarian development than her paired bee...