A central principle in trait-based ecology is that trait variation has an adaptive value. However, uncertainty over which plant traits influence individual performance across environmental gradients may limit our ability to use infer ecological processes at larger scales. To better understand are linked under different precipitation regimes, we measured above- and belowground traits, growth, re...

Theoretical and empirical research on the evolution of reproductive isolation have both indicated that the effects of sexual selection on speciation with gene flow are quite complex. As part of this special issue on the contributions of women to basic and applied evolutionary biology, I discuss my work on this question in the context of a broader assessment of the patterns of sexual selection t...

The ecological hypothesis of speciation is that reproductive isolation evolves ultimately as a consequence of divergent natural selection on traits between environments. Ecological speciation is general and might occur in allopatry or sympatry, involve many agents of natural selection, and result from a combination of adaptive processes. The main difficulty of the ecological hypothesis has been...

In many species, females mate with multiple partners, meaning that sexual selection on male traits operates across a spectrum that encompasses the competition for mates (that is, before mating) and fertilizations (after mating). Despite being inextricably linked, pre- and postcopulatory sexual selection are typically studied independently, and we know almost nothing about how sexual selection o...

Speciation is a multifaceted process that involves numerous aspects of the biological sciences and occurs for multiple reasons. Ecology plays a major role, including both abiotic and biotic factors. Whether populations experience similar or divergent ecological environments, they often adapt to local conditions through divergence in biomechanical traits. We investigate the role of biomechanics ...

A pattern of greater divergence in mating traits between sister-species pairs with overlapping ranges than between allopatric species pairs is expected if reinforcement commonly contributes to speciation. Few large-scale comparative analyses have addressed this prediction, especially for genital form. Here, we show that penial morphology follows the predicted pattern in 40 robustly identified s...

PREMISE OF THE STUDY Trait differences can promote distinct survival and fecundity responses to environmental fluctuations. In a Sonoran Desert winter annual plant community, we have identified a tradeoff between relative growth rate (RGR) and water-use efficiency (WUE) that predicts interannual variation in reproductive success. Here we test the hypothesis that traits underlying RGR and WUE di...

The vulnerability to trawling on a species level is determined by species' individual combination of biological traits that related the ecosystem functions. Trait-based indices physical resistance RI and reproductive potential RPI were developed combined into an overall index level, RRI or Resistance Reproductive Potential Index. are used explore how potentia change over gradient. allows for di...

It is clear that in order for a trait to have survived, it must have had some degree of functionality. This suggests that shifting environmental pressures, particularly social ones, encouraged a range of variation on a number of traits (Buss, 1991). Furthermore, traits that were at one time adaptive, may be maladaptive in the present environment. We shall now examine the three and five factor m...

Traits that mediate intraspecific social interactions may overlap in closely related sympatric species, resulting in costly between-species interactions. Such interactions have principally interested investigators studying the evolution of reproductive isolation via reproductive character displacement (RCD) or reinforcement, yet in addition to reproductive interference, interspecific trait over...