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Viral gain‐of‐function mutations frequently evolve during laboratory experiments. Whether the specific mutations that evolve in the lab also evolve in nature and whether they have the same impact on evolution in the real world is unknown. We studied a model virus, bacteriophage λ, that repeatedly evolves to exploit a new host receptor under typical laboratory conditions. Here, we demonstrate that...
Adaptive coloration is under conflicting selection pressures: choosing potential mates and warning signaling against visually guided predators. Different elements of the color signal may therefore be tuned by evolution for different functions. We investigated how mimicry in four pairs of Heliconius comimics is potentially seen both from the perspective of butterflies and birds. Visual sensitivities...
Environmental conditions during birds’ nonbreeding season can affect the manifestation of secondary sexual traits and therefore sexual selection. In pied flycatchers, the size of the wing patch is a secondary sexual trait that signals mate value and is influenced by the previous winter's conditions. Female preference changes accordingly with the conditions of the previous nonbreeding season.
Interactions between genotypes and environments are central to evolutionary genetics, but such interactions are typically described, rather than predicted from theory. Recent Bayesian models of development generate specific predictions about genotypic differences in developmental plasticity (changes in the value of a given trait as a result of a given experience) based on genotypic differences in...
Natural hybrid zones can be used to dissect the mechanisms driving key evolutionary processes by allowing us to identify genomic regions important for establishing reproductive isolation and that allow for transfer of adaptive variation. We leverage whole‐genome data in a system where two bird species, the saltmarsh (Ammospiza caudacuta) and Nelson's (A. nelsoni) sparrow, hybridize despite their relatively...
Inbreeding depression is dependent on the ploidy of populations and can inhibit the evolution of selfing. While polyploids should generally harbor less inbreeding depression than diploids at equilibrium, it has been unclear whether this pattern holds in non‐equilibrium conditions following bottlenecks. We use stochastic individual‐based simulations to determine the effects of population bottlenecks...
Patterns of niche divergence and geographical range overlap of closely related species provide insights into the evolutionary dynamics of ecological niches. When ranges overlap, shared selective pressures may preserve niche similarity along coarse‐scale macrohabitat axes (e.g., bioclimates). Alternatively, competitive interactions may drive greater divergence along local‐scale microhabitat axes (e...
Environmental shifts may induce sudden reversals in the relative quality or sexual attractiveness of mates (ecological crossovers) leading to non‐directional sexual selection. Studies on such ecological crossovers induced by environmental shifts during the nonbreeding season are particularly rare. We studied the interactive effects between nonbreeding conditions and a male white wing patch on the...
Plant defenses against herbivores are predicted to evolve to be greater in warmer climates, such as lower latitudes where herbivore pressure is also thought to be higher. Instead, recent findings are often inconsistent with this expectation, suggesting alternative hypotheses are needed. We tested for latitudinal gradients in plant defense evolution at the macroevolutionary scale by characterizing...
Specific mate recognition relies on the chemical senses in most animals, and especially in nocturnal insects. Two signal types mediate premating olfactory communication in terrestrial habitats: sex pheromones, which blend into an atmosphere of plant odorants. We show that host plant volatiles affect the perception of sex pheromone in males of the African cotton leafworm Spodoptera littoralis and that...
Quantifying sex‐specific additive genetic variance (VA) in fitness, and the cross‐sex genetic correlation (rA), is prerequisite to predicting evolutionary dynamics and the magnitude of sexual conflict. Further, quantifying VA and rA in underlying fitness components, and genetic consequences of immigration and resulting gene flow, is required to identify mechanisms that maintain VA in fitness. However,...
Quantitative genetic analyses require extensive measurements of phenotypic traits, a task that is often not trivial, especially in wild populations. On top of instrumental measurement error, some traits may undergo transient (i.e., nonpersistent) fluctuations that are biologically irrelevant for selection processes. These two sources of variability, which we denote here as measurement error in a broad...
For hermaphroditic angiosperms with multiple flowers, the sex roles can be exclusively combined in bisexual flowers (monocliny), strictly separated among different flowers (monoecy), or arrayed in mixtures of bisexual flowers with female flowers (gynomonoecy) or male flowers (andromonoecy). The hypothesized benefits favoring the evolution of these contrasting hermaphroditic sexual systems are typically...
In a previous paper, we used simulations and empirical data to show that BAMM (Bayesian Analysis of Macroevolutionary Mixtures) can give misleading estimates of rates and rate shifts. In simulations, BAMM underestimated rate shifts across every tree analyzed, and assigned incorrect rates to most clades in most trees. In empirical analyses, BAMM behaved as expected from simulations, and assigned different...
Pleiotropic effects of mutations underlie diverse biological phenomena such as ageing and specialization. In particular, antagonistic pleiotropy (“AP”: when a mutation has opposite fitness effects in different environments) generates tradeoffs, which may constrain adaptation. Models of adaptation typically assume that AP is common ‐ especially among large‐effect mutations ‐ and that pleiotropic effect...
The ecological success of widespread species is attributed to an ability to generalize across diverse habitats, a so‐called “jack of all trades” scenario. However, this assumption ignores the potential for local specialization, an alternative scenario whereby spatial variation in natural selection generates habitat‐specific fitness surfaces. Despite a growing recognition of spatial variation in selection...
Studies in insular environments have often documented a positive association of extinction risk and evolutionary uniqueness (i.e., how distant a species is from its closest living relative). However, the cause of this association is unclear. One explanation is that species threatened with extinction are evolutionarily unique because they are old, implying that extinction risk increases with time since...
Incubation is an important component of parental care in birds, and species differ widely in their incubation rhythm. In this comparative study, we focused on factors responsible for those differences. As hypothesized by A. Skutch, increased parental activity at the nest increases the probability of nest depredation. High risk of nest predation should therefore lead to the evolution of lower frequency...
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