Life-history theory predicts evolutionary changes in reproductive traits and intrinsic mortality rates in response to differences in extrinsic mortality rates. Trade-offs between life- history traits play a pivotal role in these predictions, and such trade-offs are mediated, at least in part, by physiological allocations. To gain insight into these trade-offs, we have been performing a long-ter...

How an animal performs in its natural environment ultimately plays a key role in its reproductive success. While a number of studies have investigated how selection acts on performance-related traits, far fewer studies have examined the mechanisms responsible for variation in performance. Among mechanisms, variable morphology has received the most attention. Although physiological traits have r...

Architectural creations occur throughout the animal kingdom, with invertebrates and vertebrates building structures such as homes to maximize their Darwinian fitness. Animal architects face many trade-offs in building optimally designed structures. But what about animals that do not build, and those that only remodel the original creations of others: do such secondary architects face similar tr...

Trait exaggeration through sexual selection will tale place alongside other changes in phenotype. Exaggerated morphology might be compensated by parallel changes in traits that support, enhance or facilitate exaggeration: 'secondary sexual trait compensation' (SSTC). Alternatively, exaggeration might be realized at the expense of other traits through morphological trade-offs. For the most part,...

Dramatic changes in ecosystem services have motivated recent work characterizing their interactions, including identifying trade-offs and synergies. Although time is arguably implicit in these ideas of trade-offs and synergies (e.g., temporal dynamics or changes in ecosystem services), such interactions are routinely inferred based on the spatial relationships among ecosystem services alone (e....

Relationships between aging, disease risks, and longevity are not yet well understood. For example, joint increases in cancer risk and total survival observed in many human populations and some experimental aging studies may be linked to a trade-off between cancer and aging as well as to the trade-off(s) between cancer and other diseases, and their relative impact is not clear. While the former...

Citation: Quick C, D’Angelo C and Wiedenmann J (2018) Trade-Offs Associated with Photoprotective Green Fluorescent Protein Expression as Potential Drivers of Balancing Selection for Color Polymorphism in Reef Corals. Front. Mar. Sci. 5:11. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00011 Trade-Offs Associated with Photoprotective Green Fluorescent Protein Expression as Potential Drivers of Balancing Selection for...

Lane et al. propose an integrative model for the reconsolidation of traces in their timely and impressive article. This commentary draws attention to trade-offs between accuracy and self-narrative integrity in the model. The trade-offs concern the sense of agency in memory and its role in both implicit and explicit memory reconsolidation, rather than balances concerning degrees of emotional aro...

Trade-offs are central to many topics in biology, from the evolution of life histories to ecological mechanisms of species coexistence. Trade-offs observed among species may reflect pervasive constraints on phenotypes that are achievable given biophysical and resource limitations. If so, then among-species trade-offs should be consistent with trade-offs within species. Alternatively, trait vari...

On the basis of physiological and ecological costs of defense allocation, most plant defense theories predict the occurrence of trade-offs between resource investment in different types of antiherbivore defenses. To test this prediction, we conducted a meta-analysis of 31 studies published in 1976-2002 that provided data on covariation of different defensive traits in plant genotypes. We found ...