A major challenge in current biology is to understand the genetic basis of variation for
quantitative traits. We review the principles of quantitative trait locus map** and …

Pleiotropy refers to the phenomenon of one gene or one mutation affecting multiple
phenotypic traits. While the concept of pleiotropy is as old as Mendelian genetics, functional …

Homology—a similar trait shared by different species and derived from common ancestry,
such as a seal's fin and a bird's wing—is one of the most fundamental yet challenging …

Morphological integration refers to the modular structuring of inter-trait relationships in an
organism, which could bias the direction and rate of morphological change, either …

The term 'obstetrical dilemma'was coined by Washburn in 1960 to describe the trade‐off
between selection for a larger birth canal, permitting successful passage of a big‐brained …

We investigated maternal obesity in inbred SM/J mice by assigning females to a high-fat diet
or a low-fat diet at weaning, mating them to low-fat-fed males, cross-fostering the offspring to …

Sex differences in body fat distribution, glucose homeostasis, insulin signaling, ectopic fat
accumulation, and lipid metabolism during normal growth and in response to hormonal or …

As perceived by Darwin, evolutionary adaptation by the processes of mutation and selection
is difficult to understand for complex features that are the product of numerous traits acting in …

We studied sex differences in over 50 cardio-metabolic traits in a panel of 100 diverse
inbred strains of mice. The results clearly showed that the effects of sex on both clinical …

The concept of morphological integration describes the pattern and the amount of
correlation between morphological traits. Integration is relevant in evolutionary biology as it …