Patients with breast cancer often develop malignant regrowth of residual drug-resistant dormant tumor cells years after primary treatment, a process defined as cancer relapse. Deciphering the causal basis of tumor dormancy therefore has obvious therapeutic significance. Because cancer cell behavior is strongly influenced by stromal cells, particularly the mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) t...

Filial cannibalism occurs in many animal species ranging from insects to mammals, and is especially well described in teleost fishes. Numerous causes may lead to this behaviour, e.g. certainty of paternity. However, the cues males use to assess their paternity often remain unknown. One possible way to differentiate between own and foreign offspring is by using egg cues. Nevertheless, in egg-lay...

Male praying mantises are forced into the ultimate trade-off of mating versus complete loss of future reproduction if they fall prey to a female. The balance of this trade-off will depend both on (1) the level of predatory risk imposed by females and (2) the frequency of mating opportunities for males. We report the results of a set of experiments that examine the effects of these two variables...

repeatability, (the consistency with which a given trait is expressed) of aggressiveness against prey (attack latency) in gravid females of the predatory mite neoseiulus californicus (mcgregor) was examined. in two experiments, prey - conspecific individuals, the onion thrips thrips tabaci (lindeman), and the two-spotted spider mite tetranychus urticae koch- were repeatedly offered in various n...

In size-structured predator–prey systems, capture success depends on the sizes of both predator and prey. We study the population-dynamic consequences of sizedependent predation using a model of a size-structured, cannibalistic fish population with one shared, alternative resource. We assume that a prey can be captured by a predator if the ratio of prey length to predator length is within a spe...

Male redback spiders (Latrodectus hasselti) maximize paternity if they copulate twice with their cannibalistic mate. Facilitating cannibalistic attack during their first copulation yields paternity benefits. However, females have paired sperm-storage organs inseminated during two separate copulations, so males that succumb to partial cannibalism during the first copulation lose at least 50% of ...

Protandric species switch sex during their lifetime. According to theory, the time (body size) at which sex change occurs is determined by the reproductive success of individuals affected by social interactions as well as by post-copulatory factors. Experimental evidence is biased to few social systems making the exploration of general patterns difficult. We used the protandric marine gastropod...

Resource polymorphism is a well-known phenomenon in many taxa, assumed to be a consequence of strong competition for resources and to be facilitated by stable environments and the presence of several profitable resources on which to specialize. In fish, resource polymorphism, in the form of planktivore-benthivore pairs, is found in a number of species. We gathered literature data on life-histor...

Cannibalism among size classes may reduce starvation and improve survival of larval tuna in oligotrophic ocean areas, but it may also be a substantial mortality component depending on the availability of alternative prey. Here, we combine laboratory and field data on tuna larvae with a model of larval foraging and bioenergetics to explore the role of cannibalism in cohort development at differe...

Sexual cannibalism is a particularly extreme example of conflict between the sexes, depriving the male of future reproduction. Theory predicts that sexual conflict should induce counter-adaptations in the victim. Observations of male spiders mating with moulting and hence largely immobile females suggest that this behaviour functions to circumvent female control and cannibalism. However, we lac...