1. Analyses based on utilization distributions (UDs) have been ubiquitous in animal space use studies, largely because they are computationally straightforward and relatively easy to employ. Conventional applications of resource utilization functions (RUFs) suggest that estimates of UDs can be used as response variables in a regression involving spatial covariates of interest. 2. It has been cl...

Since the 1877 publication of Charles Darwin's The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species, interest in understanding the fundamental biological processes of sexual and gender dimorphism in dioecious plant species has continued. Dioecy is found in 157 flowering plant families and 7.5% of flowering plant genera, about 6% of the 240,000 angio-sperm species (Renner and Ricklefs 19...

Contamination has a dramatic impact on the health of ecosystem and habitat suitability for the inhabited flora and fauna. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandates an ecological risk assessment (ERA) that evaluates the potential adverse impact of any anthropogenic activities on the ecosystem (US Environmental Protection Agency, 1997. Ecological Risk Assessment Guidance for Superfund: P...

There is increasing evidence that evolution occurs at a time scale relevant to population dynamics and natural resource management (e.g., Hendry et al. 2000; Conover and Munch 2002). Further, ecological processes (e.g., intra-specific competition, interacting species dynamics) can influence genetic selection and phenotypic expression within a population. As individual phenotypic expression (e.g...

Models provide useful insights into conservation and resource management issues and solutions. Their use to date has highlighted conditions under which no-take marine protected areas (MPAs) may help us to achieve the goals of ecosystem-based management by reducing pressures, and where they might fail to achieve desired goals. For example, static reserve designs are unlikely to achieve desired o...

Question: Population ecology and population genetics are treated separately in most textbooks. However, Darwin’s term the ‘struggle for existence’ included both natural selection and ecological competition. Using the simplest possible mathematical models, this paper searches for historical reasons for the lack of unity in ecological and evolutionary thought. Assumptions and methods: Logistic de...

The importance of examining multiple hierarchical levels when modeling resource use for wildlife has been acknowledged for decades. Multi-level resource selection functions have recently been promoted as a method to synthesize resource use across nested organizational levels into a single predictive surface. Analyzing multiple scales of selection within each hierarchical level further strengthe...

In many species, individuals specialize on different resources, thereby reducing competition. Such ecological specialization can promote the evolution of alternative ecomorphs-distinct phenotypes adapted for particular resources. Elucidating whether and how this process is influenced by sexual selection is crucial for understanding how ecological specialization promotes the evolution of novel t...

Although temporal variability in the physical environment plays a major role in population fluctuations, little is known about how it drives the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of species interactions. We studied experimentally how extrinsic resource pulses affect evolutionary and ecological dynamics between the prey bacterium Serratia marcescens and the predatory protozoan Tetrahymena the...

This paper investigates the use of partial functions, fitness sharing and committee learning in genetic programming. The primary intended application of the work is in learning spatial relationships for ecological modelling. The approaches are evaluated using a well-studied ecological modelling problem, the greater glider population density problem. Combinations of the three treatments (partial...