Scientific activities take place within the structured sets of ideas and assumptions that define
a field and its practices. The conceptual framework of evolutionary biology emerged with the …

Empirical evidence for declines in fitness components (survival and reproductive
performance) with age has recently accumulated in wild populations, highlighting that the …

While many feminist and queer movements are designed to challenge sexism, they often
simultaneously police gender and sexuality—sometimes just as fiercely as the straight, male …

Fifty years ago, Ernst Mayr published a hugely influential paper on the nature of causation in
biology, in which he distinguished between proximate and ultimate causes. Mayr equated …

Niche construction theory (NCT) explicitly recognizes environmental modification by
organisms (“niche construction”) and their legacy over time (“ecological inheritance”) to be …

Ornaments, weapons and aggressive behaviours may evolve in female animals by mate
choice and intrasexual competition for mating opportunities—the standard forms of sexual …

Sexual selection plays several intricate and complex roles in the related processes of local
adaptation and speciation. In some cases sexual selection can promote these processes …

Life history theory seeks to explain the evolution of the major features of life cycles by
analyzing the ecological factors that shape age-specific schedules of growth, reproduction …

Biology presents many wonders, but one of the most remarkable is how a complex
multicellular organism grows from a single cell. Until recently, the processes involved …

Niche construction refers to the activities of organisms that bring about changes in their
environments, many of which are evolutionarily and ecologically consequential. Advocates …