Populations of Allium vineale commonly include individuals with very different allocation patterns to three modes of reproduction: sexual flowers, aerially produced asexual bulbils, and belowground asexual offsets. If selection is currently acting to maintain these different allocation patterns there must be a genetic basis for variation in allocation to these three reproductive modes. In addit...

Many adult traits in Drosophila melanogaster show phenotypic plasticity, and the effects of diet on traits such as lifespan and reproduction are well explored. Although plasticity in response to food is still present in older flies, it is unknown how sustained environmental variation affects life-history traits. Here, we explore how such life-long fluctuations of food supply affect weight and s...

Genetic factors contribute to risk of many common diseases affecting reproduction and fertility. In recent years, methods for genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have revolutionized gene discovery for common traits and diseases. Results of GWAS are documented in the Catalog of Published Genome-Wide Association Studies at the National Human Genome Research Institute and report over 70 publica...

Crowding chemicals influence a wide variety of life history traits in zooplankton communities. In the rotifer Brachionus, sexual reproduction (mixis) is induced by a chemical signal produced by the rotifers that accumulates during population growth. The specificity of the reaction to the mixis induction signal could play a central role in maintaining reproductive barriers between closely relate...

Women's preferences for men's masculinized faces and voices were assessed after women (n = 331) were primed with images of male-on-male aggression, male-on-female aggression, pathogens, and neutral scenes. Male-on-male aggression and pathogen primes were associated with increased preference for masculine traits, but the same effect emerged in the neutral condition. We show the increased prefere...

Reproductive traits of tropical tree species vary predictably in relation to successional stage, but this variation may be due to the species' phylogenetic histories rather than selective pressures imposed by regeneration requirements. Reproductive phenology, tree size at the onset of reproduction, and fecundity of 11 sympatric, closely related Macaranga species were studied to investigate with...