Divergence in signalling systems might play a central role in speciation. To assess the importance of possible causes of signal divergence, we examine two types of vocalizations within a geographically variable species complex, the greenish warblers (Phylloscopus trochiloides Sundevall). Calls, which are used by both sexes throughout the year, and songs, which are sung primarily by breeding mal...

As once boldly stated, 'bad taxonomy can kill', highlighting the critical importance of accurate taxonomy for the conservation of endangered taxa. The concept continues to evolve almost 15 years later largely because most legal protections aimed at preserving biological diversity are based on formal taxonomic designations. In this paper we report unrecognized genetic divisions within the giant ...

As an alternative, Speakman has put forward a non-adaptive scenario — the drifty gene hypothesis. According to this idea, genetic drift — the change of gene frequencies due to random, non-selective processes— could explain the current incidence of obesity seen in modern, industrialized populations. Speakman has hypothesized that the threat of predation on early humans may have provided a strong...

We investigate the nature of genetic drift acting at the leading edge of range expansions, building on recent results in [Hallatschek et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 104(50): 19926 19930 (2007)]. A well mixed population of two fluorescently labeled microbial species is grown in a circular geometry. As the population expands, a coarsening process driven by genetic drift gives rise to sectoring p...

It is well established that sexual conflict can drive an endless coevolutionary chase between the sexes potentially leading to genetic divergence of isolated populations and allopatric speciation. We present a simple mathematical model that shows that sexual conflict over mating rate can result in two other general regimes. First, rather than "running away" from males, females can diversify gen...

There is increasing evidence that species can evolve rapidly in response to environmental change. However, although land use is one of the key drivers of current environmental change, studies of its evolutionary consequences are still fairly scarce, in particular studies that examine land-use effects across large numbers of populations, and discriminate between different aspects of land use. He...

We construct an individual-based metapopulation model of population genetics featuring migration, mutation, selection, and genetic drift. In the case of a single "island," the model reduces to the Moran model. Using the diffusion approximation and time-scale separation arguments, an effective one-variable description of the model is developed. The effective description bears similarities to the...

The importance of founder events in promoting evolutionary changes on islands has been a subject of long-running controversy. Resolution of this debate has been hindered by a lack of empirical evidence from naturally founded island populations. Here we undertake a genetic analysis of a series of historically documented, natural colonization events by the silvereye species-complex (Zosterops lat...

Community structure has been widely identified as a feature of many real-world networks. It has been shown that the antigenic diversity of a pathogen population can be significantly affected by the contact network of its hosts; however, the effects of community structure have not yet been explored. Here, we examine the congruence between patterns of antigenic diversity in pathogen populations i...

The extensive phenotypic polymorphism in the European whitefish has triggered evolutionary research in order to disentangle mechanisms underlying diversification. To illuminate the ecological distinctiveness in polymorphic whitefish, and evaluate taxonomic designations, we studied nine Norwegian lakes in three watercourses, which each harboured pairs of divergent whitefish morphs. We compared t...