Activating the immune system has associated fitness costs, both immediate costs in the form
of reduced current reproduction and long-term costs in the form of reduced life span and …

While urban expansion increasingly encroaches on natural habitats, many wildlife species
capitalize on anthropogenic food resources, which have the potential to both positively and …

Gull chicks beg for food from their parents. Peacocks spread their tails to attract potential
mates. Meerkats alert family members of the approach of predators. But are these--and other …

In understanding how visual signals function, quantifying the components of those patterns
is vital. With the ever-increasing power and availability of digital photography, many studies …

Mechanisms maintaining honesty of sexual signals are far from resolved, limiting our
understanding of sexual selection and potential important parts of physiology. Carotenoid …

Carotenoids are essential light-harvesting pigments in natural photosynthesis. They absorb
in the blue–green region of the solar spectrum and transfer the absorbed energy to (bacterio …

Some of the most spectacular exaggerated sexual ornaments are carotenoid dependent. It
has been suggested that such ornaments have evolved because carotenoid pigments are …

Animals must allocate finite resources amongst competing demands. A suite of such trade-
offs is thought to occur in the deployment of carotenoids, being widely responsible for sexual …

Measures of oxidative stress in animals may be useful biomarkers of environmental
stressors, such as anthropogenic pollution. In birds, studies of oxidative stress have focused …

The allocation of resources to reproduction and survival is a central question of studies of life
history evolution. Usually, increased allocation to current reproduction is paid in terms of …