Phenotypic plasticity and microevolution are the two primary means by which organisms
respond adaptively to local conditions. While these mechanisms are not mutually exclusive …

Tactics of resource use for reproduction are an important feature of life-history strategies. A
distinction is made between 'capital'breeders, which finance reproduction using stored …

In an era of rapid climate change, there is a pressing need to understand how organisms will
cope with faster and less predictable variation in environmental conditions. Here we develop …

In fluctuating environments, mothers may enhance the fitness of their offspring by adjusting
offspring phenotypes to match the environment they will experience at independence. In free …

An increasing number of studies in a wide range of natural systems have investigated how
pulses of resource availability influence ecological processes at individual, population, and …

Background Our understanding of gut microbiota has been limited primarily to findings from
human and laboratory animals, but what shapes the gut microbiota in nature remains largely …

Temporal variation in natural selection is predicted to strongly impact the evolution and
demography of natural populations, with consequences for the rate of adaptation, evolution …

The timing of life events (phenology) can be influenced by climate. Studies from around the
world tell us that climate cues and species' responses can vary greatly. If variation in climate …

The rate of adaptive evolution, the contribution of selection to genetic changes that increase
mean fitness, is determined by the additive genetic variance in individual relative fitness. To …

Personality affects many aspects of an individual's behaviour, life history and fitness, and
has been shown to be moderately heritable in wild populations. Correlations between …