Animal ecologists commonly assume that the reduced fitness that often afflicts inbred
offspring will inevitably cause selection for inbreeding avoidance. Although early empirical …

Renowned evolutionary biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant have produced landmark
studies of the Galápagos finches first made famous by Charles Darwin. In How and Why …

Our understanding of fundamental organismal biology has been disproportionately
influenced by studies of a relatively small number of 'model'species extensively studied in …

Hybridization is widespread in nature and, in some instances, can result in the formation of a
new hybrid species. We investigate the genetic foundation of this poorly understood process …

For small and isolated populations, the increased chance of mating between related
individuals can result in a substantial reduction in individual and population fitness. Despite …

Telomeres, the nucleotide sequences that protect the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes,
shorten with each cell division and telomere loss may be influenced by environmental …

Inbreeding may increase the extinction risk of small populations. Yet, studies using modern
genomic tools to investigate inbreeding depression in nature have been limited to single …

Understanding the genetic architecture of quantitative traits can provide insights into the
mechanisms driving phenotypic evolution. Bill morphology is an ecologically important and …

Effective population size (Ne) is a key parameter to understand evolutionary processes and
the viability of endangered populations as it determines the rate of genetic drift and …

Population genetic structure and intrapopulation levels of genetic variation have important
implications for population dynamics and evolutionary processes. Habitat fragmentation is …