Hybridization, or interbreeding between different taxa, was traditionally considered to be
rare and to have a largely detrimental impact on biodiversity, sometimes leading to the …

The repeated adaptation of oceanic threespine sticklebacks to fresh water has made it a
premier organism to study parallel evolution. These small fish have multiple distinct …

Speciation is the process by which barriers to gene flow evolve between populations.
Although we now know that speciation is largely driven by natural selection, knowledge of …

Recent adaptive radiations are models for investigating mechanisms contributing to the
evolution of biodiversity. An unresolved question is the relative importance of new mutations …

Parasites impose fitness costs on their hosts. Biologists often assume that natural selection
favors infection-resistant hosts. Yet, when the immune response itself is costly, theory …

Predicting the outcomes of adaptation is a major goal of evolutionary biology. When
temporal changes in the environment mirror spatial gradients, it opens up the potential for …

Climate change is causing habitat salinity to transform at unprecedented rates across the
globe. While much of the research on climate change has focused on rapid shifts in …

Chromosomal fusions are hypothesized to facilitate adaptation to divergent environments,
both by bringing together previously unlinked adaptive alleles and by creating regions of low …

Cis-regulatory changes are thought to play a major role in adaptation. Threespine
sticklebacks have repeatedly colonized freshwater habitats in the Northern Hemisphere …

Population genetic theory predicts that small effective population sizes (N e) and restricted
gene flow limit the potential for local adaptation. In particular, the probability of evolving …