The physiological causes of intraspecific differences in fitness components such as growth
rate are currently a source of debate. It has been suggested that differences in energy …

Population catastrophes are widespread, unpredictable phenomena occurring in natural
populations that have important, yet frequently underappreciated, consequences for …

Mitochondrial metabolism varies significantly between individuals of the same species and
can influence animal performance, such as growth. However, growth rate is usually …

All organisms grow. Numerous growth functions have been applied to a wide taxonomic
range of organisms, yet some of these models have poor fits to empirical data and lack of …

Adult mortality is often the most sensitive vital rate affecting at‐risk wildlife populations.
Therefore, road ecology studies often focus on adult mortality despite the possibility for …

Relationships between the complexity of the cranial sutures and the inferred ecology of
dicynodont synapsids are explored. Simple complexity indices based on degree of sutural …

Population viability analyses are useful tools to predict abundance and extinction risk for
imperiled species. In southeastern North America, the federally threatened gopher tortoise …

Background The progressive deregulation of the immune system with age, termed
immunosenescence, has been well studied in mammalian systems, but studies of immune …

Males and females have divergent reproductive interests arising from their unequal
investments in offspring. This sexual conflict drives an antagonistic arms race that influences …

Early developmental conditions contribute to individual heterogeneity of both phenotypic
traits and fitness components, ultimately affecting population dynamics. Although the …