Published in Proceedings. Biological sciences
Cranial weapons of all shapes and sizes are common throughout the animal kingdom and are frequently accompanied by the evolution of additional traits that enhance the use of those weapons. Bovids (cattle, sheep, goats, antelope) and cervids (deer) within the mammal clade Ruminantia are particularly well known for their distinct and varied cranial a...
Published in Proceedings. Biological sciences
Brain metabolic rate (MR) is linked mainly to the cost of synaptic activity, so may be a better correlate of cognitive ability than brain size alone. Among primates, the sizes of arterial foramina in recent and fossil skulls can be used to evaluate brain blood flow rate, which is proportional to brain MR. We use this approach to calculate flow rate...
Published in Proceedings. Biological sciences
Diversification rates vary greatly among taxa. Understanding how species-specific traits influence speciation rates will help elucidate mechanisms driving biodiversity over broad spatio-temporal scales. Ecological specialization and range size are two hypothesized drivers of speciation rates, yet each mechanism predicts both increases and decreases...
Published in Proceedings. Biological sciences
Not all genetic loci follow Mendel's rules, and the evolutionary consequences of this are not yet fully known. Genomic conflict involving multiple loci is a likely outcome, as restoration of Mendelian inheritance patterns will be selected for, and sexual conflict may also arise when sexes are differentially affected. Here, we investigate effects of...
Published in Proceedings. Biological sciences
Acute rises in glucocorticoid hormones allow individuals to adaptively respond to environmental challenges but may also have negative consequences, including oxidative stress. While the effects of chronic glucocorticoid exposure on oxidative stress have been well characterized, those of acute stress or glucocorticoid exposure have mostly been overl...
Published in Proceedings. Biological sciences
Ambiguous images are widely recognized as a valuable tool for probing human perception. Perceptual biases that arise when people make judgements about ambiguous images reveal their expectations about the environment. While perceptual biases in early visual processing have been well established, their existence in higher-level vision has been explor...
Published in Proceedings. Biological sciences
Biocontrol agents can help reduce pest populations as part of an integrated pest management scheme, with minimal environmental consequences. However, biocontrol agents are often non-native species and require significant infrastructure; overuse of single agents results in pest resistance. Native biocontrol agents are urgently required for more sust...
Published in Proceedings. Biological sciences
Melanism is widely observed among animals, and is adaptive in various contexts for its thermoregulatory, camouflaging, mate-attraction or photoprotective properties. Many organisms exposed to ultraviolet radiation show increased fitness resulting from melanin pigmentation; this has been assumed to result in part from reduced UV-induced damage to DN...
Published in Proceedings. Biological sciences
Interactions between Aedes (Stegomyia) species and non-human primate (NHP) and human hosts govern the transmission of the pathogens, dengue, zika, yellow fever and chikungunya viruses. Little is known about Aedes mosquito olfactory interactions with these hosts in the domestic and sylvatic cycles where these viruses circulate. Here, we explore how ...
Published in Proceedings. Biological sciences
Invasive rodents impact biodiversity, human health and food security worldwide. The biodiversity impacts are particularly significant on islands, which are the primary sites of vertebrate extinctions and where we are reaching the limits of current control technologies. Gene drives may represent an effective approach to this challenge, but knowledge...
