Sea level rise and the evolution of aggression on islands.

Why aggressive traits evolve in some species but not in others is poorly understood. We modeled the population dynamics of the extinct Mauritius dodo and Rodrigues solitaire to examine divergent pathways in the evolution of aggression. Whereas the dodo conformed to island syndrome predictions of tameness, its sister-taxon the solitaire evolved strong sexual dimorphism and aggressive traits.

Warming effects on lizard gut microbiome depend on habitat connectivity.

Climate warming and landscape fragmentation are both factors well known to threaten biodiversity and to generate species responses and adaptation. However, the impact of warming and fragmentation interplay on organismal responses remains largely under-explored, especially when it comes to gut symbionts, which may play a key role in essential host functions and traits by extending its functional and genetic repertoire. Here, we experimentally examined the combined effects of climate warming and habitat connectivity on the gut bacterial communities of the common lizard () over three years.

Connectivity among thermal habitats buffers the effects of warm climate on life-history traits and population dynamics.

Contemporary climate change affects population dynamics, but its influence varies with landscape structure. It is still unclear whether landscape fragmentation buffers or amplifies the effects of climate on population size and the age and body size of individuals composing these populations. This study aims to investigate the impacts of warm climates on lizard life-history traits and population dynamics in habitats that vary in their connectivity.

Integrative Phylogenetics: Tools for Palaeontologists to Explore the Tree of Life.

The modern era of analytical and quantitative palaeobiology has only just begun, integrating methods such as morphological and molecular phylogenetics and divergence time estimation, as well as phenotypic and molecular rates of evolution. Calibrating the tree of life to geological time is at the nexus of many disparate disciplines, from palaeontology to molecular systematics and from geochronology to comparative genomics. Creating an evolutionary time scale of the major events that shaped biodiversity is key to all of these fields and draws from each of them.

Clade diversification dynamics and the biotic and abiotic controls of speciation and extinction rates.

How ecological interactions, genetic processes, and environmental variability jointly shape the evolution of species diversity remains a challenging problem in biology. We developed an individual-based model of clade diversification to predict macroevolutionary dynamics when resource competition, genetic differentiation, and landscape fluctuations interact. Diversification begins with a phase of geographic adaptive radiation.

Pollen dispersal slows geographical range shift and accelerates ecological niche shift under climate change.

Species may survive climate change by migrating to track favorable climates and/or adapting to different climates. Several quantitative genetics models predict that species escaping extinction will change their geographical distribution while keeping the same ecological niche. We introduce pollen dispersal in these models, which affects gene flow but not directly colonization.

How Ecology and Landscape Dynamics Shape Phylogenetic Trees.

Whether biotic or abiotic factors are the dominant drivers of clade diversification is a long-standing question in evolutionary biology. The ubiquitous patterns of phylogenetic imbalance and branching slowdown have been taken as supporting the role of ecological niche filling and spatial heterogeneity in ecological features, and thus of biotic processes, in diversification. However, a proper theoretical assessment of the relative roles of biotic and abiotic factors in macroevolution requires models that integrate both types of factors, and such models have been lacking.

Dispersal evolution and resource matching in a spatially and temporally variable environment.

Metapopulations may consist of patches of different quality, and are often disturbed by extrinsic processes causing variation of patch quality. The persistence of such metapopulations then depends on the species' dispersal strategy. In a temporally constant environment, the evolution of dispersal rates follows the resource matching rule, i.

Islands as model systems in ecology and evolution: prospects fifty years after MacArthur-Wilson.

The study of islands as model systems has played an important role in the development of evolutionary and ecological theory. The 50th anniversary of MacArthur and Wilson's (December 1963) article, 'An equilibrium theory of insular zoogeography', was a recent milestone for this theme. Since 1963, island systems have provided new insights into the formation of ecological communities.

Adaptive radiation driven by the interplay of eco-evolutionary and landscape dynamics.

We investigate an individual-based model of adaptive radiation based on the biogeographical changes of the Great African Lakes where cichlid fishes radiated. In our model, the landscape consists of a mosaic of three habitat types which may or may not be separated by geographic barriers. We study the effect of the alternation between allopatry and sympatry called landscape dynamics.

How does pollen versus seed dispersal affect niche evolution?

In heterogeneous landscapes, the genetic and demographic consequences of dispersal influence the evolution of niche width. Unless pollen is limiting, pollen dispersal does not contribute directly to population growth. However, by disrupting local adaptation, it indirectly affects population dynamics.

The probability of evolutionary rescue: towards a quantitative comparison between theory and evolution experiments.

Evolutionary rescue occurs when a population genetically adapts to a new stressful environment that would otherwise cause its extinction. Forecasting the probability of persistence under stress, including emergence of drug resistance as a special case of interest, requires experimentally validated quantitative predictions. Here, we propose general analytical predictions, based on diffusion approximations, for the probability of evolutionary rescue.

Under which conditions is character displacement a likely outcome of secondary contact?

Sympatric character displacement is one possible mechanism that prevents competitive exclusion. This mechanism is thought to be behind the radiation of Darwin's finches, where character displacement is assumed to have followed secondary contact of ecologically similar species. We use a model to evaluate under which ecological and environmental conditions this mechanism is likely.

Allele fixation in a dynamic metapopulation: founder effects vs refuge effects.

The fixation of mutant alleles has been studied with models assuming various spatial population structures. In these models, the structure of the metapopulation that we call the "landscape" (number, size and connectivity of subpopulations) is often static. However, natural populations are subject to repetitive population size variations, fragmentation and secondary contacts at different spatiotemporal scales due to geological, climatic and ecological processes.

Male mating constraints affect mutual mate choice: prudent male courting and sperm-limited females.

Costs of sperm production may lead to prudence in male sperm allocation and also to male mate choice. Here, we develop a life history-based mutual mate choice model that takes into account the lost-opportunity costs for males from time out in sperm recovery and lets mate competition be determined by the prevailing mate choice strategies. We assume that high mating rate may potentially lead to sperm depletion in males, and that as a result, female reproduction may be limited by the availability of sperm.