■ Abstract Niche conservatism is the tendency of species to retain ancestral ecological characteristics. In the recent literature, a debate has emerged as to whether niches are conserved. We suggest that simply testing whether niches are conserved is not by itself particularly helpful or interesting and that a more useful focus is on the patterns that niche conservatism may (or may not) create....

The main premise of this article is that various cognitive functions involved in signal analysis, memory, and decision making, all modulated by the animal's internal milieu, can generate selection for the forms of signals used in social interactions. Thus, just as an animal's view of its world, its Umwelt, determines how it interacts with its ecological niche, it can influence the evolution of ...

Niche construction theory (NCT) explicitly recognizes environmental modication by organisms ("niche construction") and their legacy overtime ("ecological inheritance") to be evolutionary processes in their own right. Here we illustrate how niche construction theory provides usedl conceptual tools and theoretical insights for integrating ecosystem ecology and evolutionary theory. We begin by bri...

Understanding distributions of wildlife species is a key step towards identifying biodiversity hotspots and designing effective conservation strategies. In this paper, the spatial pattern of diversity of birds in Golestan Province, Iran was estimated. Ecological niche modeling was used to determine distributions of 144 bird species across the province using a maximum entropy algorithm. Richness...

The genotypic structure of parasite populations is an important determinant of ecological and evolutionary dynamics of host-parasite interactions with consequences for pest management and disease control. Genotypic structure is especially interesting where multiple hosts co-exist and share parasites. We here analyze the natural genotypic distribution of Crithidia bombi, a trypanosomatid parasit...

An area of endemism (AOE) is a complex expression of the ecological and evolutionary history of a species. Here we aim to address the principal drivers of avian diversification in shaping patterns of endemism in China by integrating genetic, ecological, and distributional data on the Red-headed Tree Babbler (Stachyridopsis ruficeps), which is distributed across the eastern Himalayas and south C...

Richard Lewontin is often cited as an inspiration and founder of what is now known as Niche Construction Theory. The first goal of this paper is to argue that they present distinct arguments from niche construction against Adaptationism. While Niche Construction Theory argues that natural selection is not the only adaptive evolutionary force, Lewontin rejects the externalist characterization of...

Climate change in the coming centuries will be characterized by interannual, decadal, and multidecadal fluctuations superimposed on anthropogenic trends. Predicting ecological and biogeographic responses to these changes constitutes an immense challenge for ecologists. Perspectives from climatic and ecological history indicate that responses will be laden with contingencies, resulting from epis...

Aim Theoretical work suggests that species’ ecological niches should remain relatively constant over long-term ecological time periods, but empirical tests are few. We present longitudinal studies of 23 extant mammal species, modelling ecological niches and predicting geographical distributions reciprocally between the Last Glacial Maximum and present to test this evolutionary conservatism. Loc...