In a paper published in Paleobiology in 1977, Geerat Vermeij examined the Mesozoic reorganisation of shallow water marine communities using gastropod skeletal geometry and other kinds of data. Based on the evidence, Vermeij argued that predation and grazing had grown stronger and become more...
Evolution
Revisiting Rainey & Travisano 1998
In a paper published in Nature in 1998, Paul Rainey and Michael Travisano showed that identical populations of the bacterium Pseudomonas fluroescens diversify morphologically when provided with ecological opportunity, but show no divergence when opportunity is restricted. Further, the morphs...
Revisiting Kessler & Baldwin 2001
In a study published in Science in 2001, Andre Kessler and Ian Baldwin quantified and characterised the volatiles emitted by Nicotiana attenuata when attacked by herbivores and mimicked their release to see if they reduced herbivory by attracting egg predators inhibiting herbivore oviposition....
Revisiting Nosil et al. 2002
In a paper published in Nature in 2002, Patrik Nosil, Bernard Crespi and Cristina Sandoval showed, using a combination of morphological measurements and mate choice experiments, that parallel evolution of sexual isolation in the walking-stick insect, Timema cristinae, was promoted by divergent...
Revisiting Peterson et al. 1999
In a paper published in Science in 1999, A. Townsend Peterson, Jorge Soberón and Víctor Sánchez-Cordero presented strong evidence for niche conservatism in 37 sister taxon pairs of mammals, birds and butterflies on either side of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico. These results suggested that...
Revisiting Gavrilets 2000
In the late 1990s, mounting experimental evidence for rapid evolution of traits related to fertilisation seemed paradoxical given that matching of male and female traits is required for successful reproduction In a paper published in Nature in 2000, Sergey Gavrilets showed, through a simple mode,...
Revisiting Davies & Brooke 1988
In a paper published in Animal Behaviour in 1988, Nick Davies and Michael Brooke unraveled, using a mix of natural history observation and clever experiments, the nature of the interaction between the brood-parasitic common cuckoo and its host the reed warbler. Their experiments showed that many...
Revisiting Felsenstein 1985
In a paper published in The American Naturalist in 1985, Joseph Felsenstein proposed a new method – phylogenetically independent contrasts – that allowed the incorporation of phylogenetic information into comparative analyses. Using Felsenstein’s method, biologists could overcome the statistical...
Revisiting Gurevitch et al. 1992
In a paper published in The American Naturalist in 1992, Jessica Gurevitch, Laura Morrow, Alison Wallace and Joseph Walsh presented the results of what was, arguably, the first meta-analysis in ecology, of field competition experiments published in six leading ecology journals over a 10-year...
Revisiting Jiggins et al. 2001
In a paper published in Nature in 2001, Chris Jiggins, Russell Naisbit, Rebecca Coe and James Mallet showed that divergence in mimicry of colour pattern was responsible for the origin of two Heliconia butterfly species. Using experiments, Jiggins and colleagues showed that differences in mimicry...