Ephemeral resource patches (ERPs)–short lived resources including dung, carrion,
temporary pools, rotting vegetation, decaying wood, and fungi–are found throughout every …

Background Differences in morphology, ecology, and behavior through ontogeny can result
in opposing selective pressures at different life stages. Most animals, however, transition …

Why is metamorphosis so pervasive? Does it facilitate the independent (micro) evolution of
quantitative traits in distinct life stages, similarly to how it enables some limbs and organs to …

The diversification of many lineages throughout natural history has frequently been
associated with evolutionary changes in life cycle complexity. However, our understanding …

When gene flow accompanies speciation, recombination can decouple divergently selected
loci and loci conferring reproductive isolation. This barrier to sympatric divergence …

Organisms with complex life cycles demonstrate a remarkable ability to change their
phenotypes across development, presumably as an evolutionary adaptation to …

The ability for adaptation to track environmental change depends on how efficiently
selection can act on heritable genetic variation. Complex life cycles may promote or …

Rapidly evolving taxa are excellent models for understanding the mechanisms that give rise
to biodiversity. However, developing an accurate historical framework for comparative …

A central goal in evolutionary biology is to determine the predictability of adaptive genetic
changes. Despite many documented cases of convergent evolution at individual loci, little is …

Evolutionary stasis characterizes many phenotypes, even ones that seem suboptimal.
Among tapeworms, Schistocephalus solidus and its relatives have some of the shortest …