Evolutionary ecology, antibiosis, and all that rot

Evolutionary ecology, antibiosis, and all that rot.

P ity members of the Animal Kingdom. They must compete for prey that hide, defend themselves, or run away. This competition only intensifies when such prey die uneaten. The carcasses and leaves strewn across the landscape are now available to microbial competitors that are everywhere, grow rapidly, and know how to poison. So how can an animal scavenger make a living? In a study in this issue of...

Dark Chocolate and Metabolic Syndrome; Do Polyphenols All that Matter?

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

 Become a ruthless, critical editor  create multiple drafts based on thoughtful editing.  Start with an outline/list – which you should think about critically after you think you have it all down. Then revise that list to improve the logical flow, and add or remove some points.  Use your first draft to write all/any ideas you have.  The second draft should be a small part of the first draf...

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Symposium

Humans are unique both in their cognitive abilities and in the extent of cooperation in large groups of unrelated individuals. How our species evolved high intelligence in spite of various costs of having a large brain is perplexing. Equally puzzling is how our ancestors managed to overcome the collective action problem and evolve strong innate preferences for cooperative behaviour. Here, I the...

Evolutionary Ecology: Old Ideas Percolate into Ecology

A novel model derived from percolation theory suggests that phase polyphenism may have initially evolved in locusts as a behavioural strategy to reduce the connectivity between patches of vulnerable prey, so reducing predation risk.