In a paper published in Science in 1982, William Hamilton and Marlene Zuk showed positive associations between the level of chronic blood infections and display characteristics across North American Passerines. Based on these results they proposed a "good genes" model of sexual selection...
Evolution
Revisiting Lande and Arnold 1983
In 1983, following up on a little-known paper published by Karl Pearson eighty years earlier, Russell Lande and Stevan Arnold, developed statistical methods to measure selection based only on changes in population phenotypic traits within a generation. Thirty-six years after the paper was...
Revisiting Vellend 2010
In a paper published in The Quarterly Review of Biology in 2010, Mark Vellend proposed a new conceptual framework for Community Ecology, drawing inspiration from Population Genetics. Vellend proposed that, like in the case of genetic variation in populations, biological communities too can be...
Revisiting Brosnan and de Waal 2003
In a paper published in Nature in 2003, Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal provided what was, arguably, the first evidence for inequity avoidance in a non-human animal. Brosnan and de Waal found that brown capuchin monkeys, refused to participate in trials if they observed conspecifics receiving a...
Revisiting Agrawal et al. 1999
In a paper published in Nature in 1999, Anurag Agrawal, Christian Laforsch and Ralph Tollrian showed that non-lethal exposure of Daphnia and wild radish to their predators, in addition to inducing defences, led to production of offspring that were better defended than those from unattacked...
Revisiting Harrison et al. 1988
In a paper published in The American Naturalist in 1988, Susan Harrison, Dennis Murphy and Paul Ehrlich demonstrate the existence of a metapopulation of the Bay checkerspot butterfly, a rare species whose larvae feed on plants that grow on patches of serpentine soil. Using a combination of field...
Revisiting Moran 1996
In a paper published in PNAS in 1996, Nancy Moran showed that endosymbiotic bacterial lineages showed faster rates of evolution of 16S rDNA and increased rate of fixation of deleterious mutations, compared to free-living lineages. These results, Moran concluded, were evidence for the Muller's...
Revisiting Frank 1995
In a paper published in Nature in 1995, Steven Frank proposed a simple model to show how "mutual policing" can suppress competition and ensure "fairness" in reproduction, in the evolution of cooperative groups. Twenty-two tears after the paper was published. I asked Steven Frank about his...
Revisiting Bascompte et al. 2003
In a paper published in PNAS in 2003, Jordi Bascompte, Pedro Jordano, Carlos Melián and Jens Olesen investigated the structural organisation of 52 mutualistic networks and found them to be highly nested, resulting in communities centred around a smaller core of interactions. Bascompte and...
Revisiting Shine 1980
In a paper published in Oecologia in 1980, Richard Shine presented the results of his field and laboratory studies on the "costs" of reproduction in six montane Australian lizards. While there had been many theoretical models of trade-offs between current and future reproduction, Shine's study was...