In 1947, John Tyler Bonner published a paper in the Journal of Experimental Zoology presenting results of his experiments that suggested that a form of "chemotaxis" was the mechanism underlying aggregation of cells in slime molds . Sixty-nine years after the paper was published, I asked John...
Evolution
Revisiting Davies 1978
In the summer of 1976, having just completed his PhD from Oxford and with some time to spare before his next job, Nick Davies decided to do a short study of speckled wood butterflies in Wytham Woods, where he was living at the time. Davies observed that male speckled woods seemed to defend...
Revisiting Seehausen et al. 1997
In 1997, Ole Seehausen, Jacques van Alphen and Frans Witte published a paper in Science providing evidence for a novel route through which eutrophication can reduce species diversity. Species of cichlid fish in Lake Victoria are capable of interbreeding, but mate choice based on coloration and...
Revisiting Hrdy 1974
In a paper published in Folia Primatologica in 1974, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy reported the findings of her field study on Hanuman Langurs in India that suggested that infant-killing by male langurs was a reproductive strategy. Forty-two years after the paper was published, I asked Sarah Hrdy about the...
Revisiting Grant and Grant 2006
In a 2006 paper in Science, Peter and Rosemary Grant provided evidence that demonstrated a character displacement event in a Galapagos finch species. This was, probably, the first such documentation of character displacement in the wild. Ten years after the paper was published, I spoke to Peter...
Revisiting Andersson 1982
In a paper published in Nature in 1982, Malte Andersson showed, experimentally, that female long-tailed widowbirds choose mates based on the lengths of their tails. Andersson’s study was, arguably, the first experimental support for Darwin’s Sexual Selection theory. Thirty-four years after the...
Revisiting Petrie et al. 1991
In a paper published in Animal Behaviour in 1991, Marion Petrie, Tim Halliday and Carolyn Sanders showed, through an observational study, that: 1. mating success of male peacock was related to the number of spots on their tails; 2. the relation between mating success and number of tail spots was a...
Revisiting Reznick et al. 1990
In a 1990 paper in Nature, David Reznick, Heather Bryga and John Endler, showed, through an 11-year experiment on a natural population of guppies in Trinidad, that predators can cause significant life-history evolution. Twenty-six years after the paper was published, I spoke to David Reznick about...
Revisiting Berthold et al. 1992
In a paper in Nature in 1992, Peter Berthold, Andreas Helbig, Gabriele Mohr and Ulrich Querner provided experimental evidence to show that central European blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla) had evolved a new winter migration route, and established a new winter home over 1000 km away from their old...
Revisiting Endler 1980
In a paper published in Evolution in 1980, John Endler provided experimental evidence to show that guppy color patterns represented a “shifting balance” between the effects of sexual and natural selection. Thirty-six years after the paper was published, I spoke to John Endler about his motivation...