Conspecifics of many animal species physically compete to gain reproductive resources and thus fitness. Despite the importance of competitive ability across the animal kingdom, specific traits that influence or underpin competitive ability are poorly characterized. Here, we investigate whether there are genetic influences on competitive ability within male house mice. Additionally, we examined ...

During evolution, the ability to overeat and store the extra energy as glycogen and lipids in specialized tissues must have conferred a reproductive advantage by releasing animals from the need to eat constantly, enabling them to engage in behaviors that improved reproductive success. Mechanisms that inhibited ingestive behavior might have been most adaptive when they caused individuals to stop...

a genetic marker is a gene or dna sequence with known localization on a chromosome. it can be de-scribed as a variation that can be measured or detected by a suitable method, and can be used subsequently to detect the presence of a specific genotype. such variations occurring at chromosomal or dna level can serve as genetic markers. the progress in development of molecular markers suggests thei...

At the end of the first larval stage, the C elegans larva chooses between two developmental pathways, an L2 committed to reproductive development and an L2d, which has the option of undergoing reproductive development or entering the dauer diapause. I develop a quantitative model of this choice using mathematical tools developed for pricing financial options. The model predicts that the optimal...

Background: Embryonic development is one of the most critical stages in animal life. This step is strongly influenced by environmental and internal factors. The widespread uses of agricultural pesticide and their teratogenic effect on fetuses is one of the biggest health challenges facing the human. We examined the effects of Imidacloprid (IMI) and Precocene1 (PRE1) on reproductive ability in W...