Abstract Marine environments are subject to increasing disturbance events, and coral reef ecosystems particularly vulnerable. During periods of environmental change, organisms respond initially through rapid behavioural modifications. Whilst mean population level modifications behaviour well documented, how these shifts vary between individuals, the relative trade-offs that induced, unknown. We...

Many environmental factors, biotic and abiotic interact to influence organismal development. Given the importance of Aedes aegypti as a vector of human pathogens including dengue and yellow fever, understanding the impact of environmental factors such as temperature, resource availability, and intraspecific competition during development is critical for population control purposes. Despite know...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Resource allocation to flowers, fruits and seeds can vary greatly within an inflorescence. For example, distal fruits are often smaller and produce fewer and smaller fruits and seeds than more basal fruits. To assess the causes and functional significance of intra-inflorescence variation, pollen and resources were manipulated to test whether such patterns could be altered wi...

When resources are limited or patchy, a species may develop some degree of resource partitioning to reduce intra-specific competition. Development of intra-specific resource partitioning is more pronounced in species with clear phenotypic variation among individuals (e.g. age or sex). Southern elephant seals Mirounga leonina have pronounced sexual dimorphism and range widely in size and foragin...

Resource partitioning due to interspecific differences in phenotype is a key component of ecological and evolutionary theory, but the relationship between morphology and resource use is poorly understood for most species. In addition, ecologists often assume that morphological differences cause distinct resource preferences between species. Using mechanistic models that combine bill morphology ...

Life histories vary widely among taxa, but within phylogenetic groups there may be a fundamental framework around which trait variation is organized, perhaps as a consequence of lineage-specific developmental constraints. In organisms with indeterminate growth, there is an ongoing problem of optimally allocating resources between growth and reproduction, and that allocation decision may manifes...