The prevalence of intraguild predation (IGP) in productive environments has long puzzled ecologists. Theory predicts the exclusion of intraguild prey from such environments, but data consistently defy this expectation. This suggests that coexistence mechanisms at high resource productivity may differ from those at lower productivity. Here I present a mathematical model that investigates multipl...

When there is conspicuous underexploitation of a limited resource, it is worth asking, what mechanisms allow presumably valuable resources to be left unused? Evolutionary biologists have generated a wide variety of hypotheses to explain this, ranging from interdemic group selection to selfishly prudent individual restraint. We consider a situation in which, despite high intraspecific competitio...

Infections by multiple parasites are common in nature and may impact the evolution of host-parasite interactions. We investigated the existence of multiple infections involving the DNA virus LbFV and the Drosophila parasitoid Leptopilina boulardi. This vertically transmitted virus forces infected females to lay their eggs in already parasitized Drosophila larvae (a behavior called superparasiti...

1. Parasitoids are predicted to spend longer in patches with more hosts, but previous work on Cotesia rubecula (Marshall) has not upheld this prediction. Tests of theoretical predictions may be affected by the definition of patch leaving behavior, which is often ambiguous. 2. In this study whole plants were considered as patches and assumed that wasps move within patches by means of walking or ...

Parasites can cause changes in the phenotypes of their hosts that may benefit the parasite, the host, or both. To understand the evolutionary dynamics of host–parasite interactions it is necessary to first examine the effect of parasitic infestation on the host phenotype and whether the host or parasite benefits from these changes. The fly Ormia ochracea parasitizes the variable field cricket, ...

Genomic imprinting corresponds to the differential expression of a gene according to its paternal or maternal origin. The kinship theory of genomic imprinting proposes that maternally or paternally inherited genes may be in conflict over their effects on kin differently related along the paternal or maternal line. Most examples supporting the kinship theory of imprinting deal with competition b...