Search results for "selection"
showing 10 items of 1940 documents
Mate recognition as a reproductive barrier in sexual and parthenogenetic Eucypris virens (Crustacea, Ostracoda)
2013
Mate selection is one of the motors of evolution and of particular importance in the case of organisms in which sexual and parthenogenetic populations coexist. Sexual populations of the ostracod species complex Eucypris virens are often mixed with parthenogenetic ones. A powerful mate selection mechanism must exist to avoid time, energy and sperm loss, for the maintenance and success of sexual reproduction in these mixed populations. There are four types of E. virens individuals: males (diploid), sexual females (diploid) and asexual females (parthenogenetic and either di- or triploid). From one parthenogenetic population and two populations with males of E. virens, we sampled early stage ju…
Different demography of friends and strangers: an experiment on the impact of kinship and familiarity in Clethrionomys glareolus.
1989
We examined demographic effects of familiarity and relatedness in the bank vole Clethrionomys glareolus (Schreber) in four 0.5-ha enclosures in Central Finland. In two enclosures were mature voles which had overwintered together and some of their mature off-spring (hereafter referred to as “Friends”), and in the other two individuals of the same species captured from different localities near the study area (“Strangers”). The experiment lasted from June to September. The populations of Friends reached densities twice as high as those of Strangers with a significantly higher rate of recruitment and survival of the young. This may have been due to mutual familiarity decreasing antagonism towa…
Color-assortative mating in a color-polymorphic lacertid lizard
2013
Color polymorphisms are common in lizards, which provide an excellent model system to study their evolution and adaptive function. The lacertid genus Podarcis is particularly interesting because it comprises several polymorphic species. Previous studies with lacertid lizards have tried to explain the maintenance of color polymorphisms by correlational selection between color morphs and several phenotypic traits. Particular attention has been paid to their putative role as signals reflecting alternative reproductive strategies under frequency-dependent selection, but the relationship between mating patterns and color polymorphism has not been previously considered. In this study, we use long…
Frequency-dependent flight activity in the colour polymorphic wood tiger moth
2015
Abstract Predators efficiently learn to avoid one type of warning signal rather than several, making colour polymorphisms unexpected. Aposematic wood tiger moth males Parasemia plantaginis have either white or yellow hindwing coloration across Europe. Previous studies indicate that yellow males are better defended from predators, while white males have a positively frequency-dependent mating advantage. However, the potential frequency-dependent behavioural differences in flight between the morphs, as well as the role of male-male interactions in inducing flying activity, have not been previously considered. We ran an outdoor cage experiment where proportions of both male morphs were manipul…
Context-dependent foraging habitat selection in a farmland raptor along an agricultural intensification gradient
2021
Abstract Gradients of agricultural intensification in agroecosystems may determine uneven resource availability for predators relying on these man-made habitats. In turn, these variations in resource availability may affect predators’ habitat selection patterns, resulting in context-dependent habitat selection. We assessed the effects of gradients of landscape composition and configuration on habitat selection of a colonial farmland bird of prey, the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni), relying on 76 GPS-tracked nestling-rearing individuals from 10 populations scattered along an agricultural intensification gradient. Analyses were conducted considering two ecological levels of aggregation (the …
A New Method to Reconstruct Quantitative Food Webs and Nutrient Flows from Isotope Tracer Addition Experiments
2020
Understanding how nutrients flow through food webs is central in ecosystem ecology. Tracer addition experiments are powerful tools to reconstruct nutrient flows by adding an isotopically enriched element into an ecosystem and tracking its fate through time. Historically, the design and analysis of tracer studies have varied widely, ranging from descriptive studies to modeling approaches of varying complexity. Increasingly, isotope tracer data are being used to compare ecosystems and analyze experimental manipulations. Currently, a formal statistical framework for analyzing such experiments is lacking, making it impossible to calculate the estimation errors associated with the model fit, the…
Mapping a-priori defined plant associations using remotely sensed vegetation characteristics
2014
Abstract Incorporation of a priori defined plant associations into remote sensing products is a major challenge that has only recently been confronted by the remote sensing community. We present an approach to map the spatial distribution of such associations by using plant indicator values (IVs) for salinity, moisture and nutrients as an intermediate between spectral reflectance and association occurrences. For a 12 km 2 study site in the Netherlands, the relations between observed IVs at local vegetation plots and visible and near-infrared (VNIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR) airborne reflectance data were modelled using Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) (R 2 0.73, 0.64 and 0.76 for sali…
Germinal center B cells govern their own fate via antibody feedback
2013
High-affinity antibodies reenter germinal centers (GCs) and limit antigen access, thus causing sustained directional evolution in GCs toward higher-affinity antibody production.
Data from: Maintenance costs of male dominance and sexually antagonistic selection in the wild
2019
1. Variation in dominance status determines male mating and reproductive success, but natural selection for male dominance can be detrimental or antagonistic for female performance, and ultimately their fitness. Attaining and maintaining a high dominance status in a population of competing individuals is physiologically costly for males. But how male dominance status is mediated by maintenance energetics is currently not well understood, nor are the correlational effects of male energetics on his sisters recognized. 2. We conducted laboratory and field experiments on rodent populations to test whether selective breeding for male dominance status (dominant vs. subordinate breeding lines) ant…
Maintenance costs of male dominance and sexually antagonistic selection in the wild
2018
Variation in dominance status determines male mating and reproductive success, but natural selection for male dominance can be detrimental or antagonistic for female performance, and ultimately their fitness. Attaining and maintaining a high dominance status in a population of competing individuals is physiologically costly for males. But how male dominance status is mediated by maintenance energetics is currently not well understood, nor are the corresponding effects of male energetics on his sisters recognized. We conducted laboratory and field experiments on rodent populations to test whether selective breeding for male dominance status (dominant vs. subordinate breeding lines) antagonis…