Skip to main content

Evolutionary ecology and behaviour

This section considers studies in the areas of evolutionary behaviour and ecology including sexual conflict and selection.

Page 2 of 6

  1. The hybridizing field crickets, Gryllus firmus and Gryllus pennsylvanicus have several barriers that prevent gene flow between species. The behavioral pre-zygotic mating barrier, where males court conspecifics mo...

    Authors: Brianna Heggeseth, Danielle Sim, Laura Partida and Luana S. Maroja
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:21
  2. The disposable soma theory of ageing assumes that organisms optimally trade-off limited resources between reproduction and longevity to maximize fitness. Early reproduction should especially trade-off against ...

    Authors: Charly Jehan, Manon Chogne, Thierry Rigaud and Yannick Moret
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:18
  3. A key question in plant dispersal via animal vectors is where and why fruit colors vary between species and how color relates to other fruit traits. To better understand the factors shaping the evolution of fr...

    Authors: Miranda A. Sinnott-Armstrong, Chong Lee, Wendy L. Clement and Michael J. Donoghue
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:7
  4. Natural selection on fitness-related traits can be temporally heterogeneous among populations. As climate changes, understanding population-level responses is of scientific and practical importance. We examine...

    Authors: Yang Liu and Yousry A. El-Kassaby
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:231

    The Correction to this article has been published in BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:155

  5. The presence of a novel pollutant can induce rapid evolution if there is additive genetic variance for the tolerance to the stressor. Continuous selection over some generations can then reduce the toxicity of ...

    Authors: Lucas Marques da Cunha, Diane Maitre and Claus Wedekind
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:227
  6. Disentangling the selective factors shaping adaptive trait variation is an important but challenging task. Many studies—especially in Drosophila—have documented trait variation along latitudinal or altitudinal cl...

    Authors: Jeremy S. Davis and Leonie C. Moyle
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:204
  7. Raising unrelated offspring is typically wasteful of parental resources and so individuals are expected to reduce or maintain low levels of parental effort when their parentage is low. This can involve faculta...

    Authors: Holger Zimmermann, Karoline Fritzsche, Jonathan M. Henshaw, Cyprian Katongo, Taylor Banda, Lawrence Makasa, Kristina M. Sefc and Aneesh P. H. Bose
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:200
  8. The existence of extended post-reproductive lifespan is an evolutionary puzzle, and its taxonomic prevalence is debated. One way of measuring post-reproductive life is with post-reproductive representation, th...

    Authors: Simon N. Chapman, John Jackson, Win Htut, Virpi Lummaa and Mirkka Lahdenperä
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:193
  9. The genus Ilex (Aquifoliaceae) has a near-cosmopolitan distribution in mesic habitats from tropical to temperate lowlands and in alpine forests. It has a high rate of hybridization and plastid capture, and compri...

    Authors: Xin Yao, Yun-hong Tan, Jun-bo Yang, Yan Wang, Richard T. Corlett and Jean-François Manen
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:192
  10. Studying reproductive trait allometries can help to understand optimal male investment strategies under sexual selection. In promiscuous mating systems, studies across several taxa suggest that testes allometr...

    Authors: Lennart Winkler, Leon M. Kirch, Klaus Reinhold and Steven A. Ramm
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:185
  11. Diversity at the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) is critical to health and fitness, such that MHC genotype may predict an individual’s quality or compatibility as a competitor, ally, or mate. Moreover, ...

    Authors: Kathleen E. Grogan, Rachel L. Harris, Marylène Boulet and Christine M. Drea
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:171
  12. Female promiscuity is highly variable among birds, and particularly among songbirds. Comparative work has identified several patterns of covariation with social, sexual, ecological and life history traits. How...

    Authors: Jan T. Lifjeld, Jostein Gohli, Tomáš Albrecht, Eduardo Garcia-del-Rey, Lars Erik Johannessen, Oddmund Kleven, Petter Z. Marki, Taiwo C. Omotoriogun, Melissah Rowe and Arild Johnsen
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:169
  13. In the wake of climate change many environments will be exposed to increased and more variable temperatures. Knowledge about how species and populations respond to altered temperature regimes is therefore impo...

    Authors: Johanna Sunde, Per Larsson and Anders Forsman
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:148
  14. Understanding the mechanisms by which diversity is maintained in pathogen populations is critical for epidemiological predictions. Life-history trade-offs have been proposed as a hypothesis for explaining long...

    Authors: Elina Numminen, Elise Vaumourin, Steven R. Parratt, Lucie Poulin and Anna-Liisa Laine
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:142
  15. A decade ago, the mixed reproductive strategy Asexual Queen Succession (AQS) was first described in termites. In AQS species, the workers, soldiers and dispersing reproductives are produced through sexual repr...

    Authors: Simon Hellemans, Klára Dolejšová, Jan Křivánek, Denis Fournier, Robert Hanus and Yves Roisin
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:131
  16. Studying variation in life-history traits and correlated behaviours, such as boldness and foraging (i.e., pace-of-life syndrome), allows us to better understand how these traits evolve in a changing environmen...

    Authors: Beatriz Diaz Pauli, Sarah Garric, Charlotte Evangelista, L. Asbjørn Vøllestad and Eric Edeline
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:127
  17. Several genetic lineages of obligate parthenogenetic Daphnia pulex, a common zooplankton species, have invaded Japan from North America. Among these, a lineage named JPN1 is thought to have started colonization a...

    Authors: Xiaofei Tian, Hajime Ohtsuki and Jotaro Urabe
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:122
  18. Host genotype - parasite genotype co-evolutionary dynamics are influenced by local biotic and abiotic environmental conditions. This results in spatially heterogeneous selection among host populations. How suc...

    Authors: Agnes Piecyk, Olivia Roth and Martin Kalbe
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:80

    The Correction to this article has been published in BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:101

  19. Medullary bone (MB) is an estrogen-dependent, sex-specific tissue produced by female birds during lay and inferred to be present in extinct avemetatarsalians (bird-line archosaurs). Although preliminary studie...

    Authors: Aurore Canoville, Mary H. Schweitzer and Lindsay E. Zanno
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:71
  20. Sex-determining systems may profoundly influence the ecology, behaviour and demography of animals, yet these relationships are poorly understood. Here we investigate whether species with temperature-dependent ...

    Authors: Veronika Bókony, Gregory Milne, Ivett Pipoly, Tamás Székely and András Liker
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:57
  21. DNA barcoding utilises a standardised region of the cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene to identify specimens to the species level. It has proven to be an effective tool for identification of avian samples. The uni...

    Authors: Jacqueline Tizard, Selina Patel, John Waugh, Erika Tavares, Tjard Bergmann, Brian Gill, Janette Norman, Les Christidis, Paul Scofield, Oliver Haddrath, Allan Baker, David Lambert and Craig Millar
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:52
  22. Phenotypic plasticity is a pervasive property of all organisms and considered to be of key importance for dealing with environmental variation. Plastic responses to temperature, which is one of the most import...

    Authors: Kristin Franke, Isabell Karl, Tonatiuh Pena Centeno, Barbara Feldmeyer, Christian Lassek, Vicencio Oostra, Katharina Riedel, Mario Stanke, Christopher W. Wheat and Klaus Fischer
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:32
  23. Horizontal gene transfer and gene duplication are two major mechanisms contributing to the evolutionary adaptation of organisms. Previously, polygalacturonase genes (PGs) were independently horizontally transf...

    Authors: Pengjun Xu, Bin Lu, Jinyan Liu, Jiangtao Chao, Philip Donkersley, Robert Holdbrook and Yanhui Lu
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:12
  24. Adaptive radiations are triggered by ecological opportunity – the access to novel niche domains with abundant available resources that facilitate the formation of new ecologically divergent species. Therefore,...

    Authors: Joshua W. Lambert, Martin Reichard and Daniel Pincheira-Donoso
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:10
  25. Social insects are among the most serious invasive pests in the world, particularly successful at monopolizing environmental resources to outcompete native species and achieve ecological dominance. The invasiv...

    Authors: Pierre-André Eyer, Bryant McDowell, Laura N. L. Johnson, Luis A. Calcaterra, Maria Belen Fernandez, DeWayne Shoemaker, Robert T. Puckett and Edward L. Vargo
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:209
  26. Obligate pollination mutualisms (OPMs) are specialized interactions in which female pollinators transport pollen between the male and female flowers of a single plant species and then lay eggs into those same ...

    Authors: J. T. D. Finch, S. A. Power, J. A. Welbergen and J. M. Cook
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:193
  27. Adaptive evolution is one of the crucial mechanisms for organisms to survive and thrive in new environments. Recent studies suggest that adaptive evolution could rapidly occur in species to respond to novel en...

    Authors: Yiyong Chen, Noa Shenkar, Ping Ni, Yaping Lin, Shiguo Li and Aibin Zhan
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:187
  28. Comparing sexual size dimorphism (SSD) in the light of the phylogenetic hypothesis may help to understand the phenotypic evolution associated with sexual selection (size of whole body and of reproduction-relat...

    Authors: Guadalupe López Juri, Margarita Chiaraviglio and Gabriela Cardozo
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:186
  29. Algal isomorphic biphasic life cycles alternate between free-living diploid (tetrasporophytes) and haploid (dioicious gametophytes) phases and the hypotheses explaining their maintenance are still debated. Cla...

    Authors: Vasco M. N. C. S. Vieira, Aschwin H. Engelen, Oscar R. Huanel and Marie-Laure Guillemin
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:183
  30. Breeding site choice constitutes an important part of the species niche. Nest predation affects breeding site choice, and has been suggested to drive niche segregation and local coexistence of species. Intersp...

    Authors: Jere Tolvanen, Janne-Tuomas Seppänen, Mikko Mönkkönen, Robert L. Thomson, Hannu Ylönen and Jukka T. Forsman
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:181
  31. The distinction between lineages of neotropical bats from the Pteronotus parnellii species complex has been previously made according to mitochondrial DNA, and especially morphology and acoustics, in order to sep...

    Authors: Ondine Filippi-Codaccioni, Marie-Pauline Beugin, Damien M. de Vienne, Elodie Portanier, David Fouchet, Cecile Kaerle, Lina Muselet, Guillaume Queney, Eric J. Petit, Corinne Regis, Jean-Baptiste Pons and Dominique Pontier
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:175
  32. Conditional differentiation is one of the most fundamental drivers of biodiversity. Competitive entities (usually species) differ in environmental or ecological niche enabling them to co-exist. Conditional dif...

    Authors: Vasco M. N. C. S. Vieira, Aschwin H. Engelen, Oscar R. Huanel and Marie-Laure Guillemin
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:174
  33. Tamquammys has been considered one of the basal ctenodactyloid rodents, which has been documented in the earliest to middle Eocene (~ 56.0–48.5 Ma) in China. It was the most abundant and widespread rodent genus i...

    Authors: Łucja Fostowicz-Frelik, Qian Li and Xijun Ni
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:150
  34. Adaptation to new hosts in phytophagous insects often involves mechanisms of host recognition by genes of sensory pathways. Most often the molecular evolution of sensory genes has been explained in the context...

    Authors: Fernando Diaz, Carson W. Allan and Luciano M. Matzkin
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:144
  35. Sexual selection continues after copulation via either sperm competition or cryptic female choice, and favors sperm traits that maximize sperm competitiveness. Both sperm swimming velocity and longevity are im...

    Authors: Alfonso Rojas Mora, Magali Meniri, Sabrina Ciprietti and Fabrice Helfenstein
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:142
  36. While the communities constituted by phytophageous insects and their parasites may represent half of all terrestrial animal species, understanding their diversification remains a major challenge. A neglected i...

    Authors: Hui Yu, Dan Liang, Enwei Tian, Linna Zheng and Finn Kjellberg
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:134
  37. The zooplanktonic cladocerans Daphnia, present in a wide range of water bodies, are an important component of freshwater ecosystems. In contrast to their high dispersal capacity through diapausing eggs carried by...

    Authors: Mingbo Yin, Xiaoyu Wang, Xiaolin Ma, Sabine Gießler, Adam Petrusek, Johanna Griebel, Wei Hu and Justyna Wolinska
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:130
  38. Spatial isolation, diverging environmental conditions and social structures may lead to the differentiation of various traits, e.g. molecules, morphology and behaviour. Bird calls may provide important informa...

    Authors: Jan Christian Habel, Martin Husemann and Werner Ulrich
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:112
  39. The maintenance of considerable genetic variation in sexually selected traits (SSTs) is puzzling given directional selection expected to act on these traits. A possible explanation is the existence of a genoty...

    Authors: Agata Plesnar-Bielak, Anna Maria Skwierzyńska, Kasper Hlebowicz and Jacek Radwan
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:109
  40. Symbiosis is a major source of evolutionary innovation and, by allowing species to exploit new ecological niches, underpins the functioning of ecosystems. The transition from free-living to obligate symbiosis ...

    Authors: Ewan J. A. Minter, Chris D. Lowe, Megan E. S. Sørensen, A. Jamie Wood, Duncan D. Cameron and Michael A. Brockhurst
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:108
  41. Along with sperm, in many taxa ejaculates also contain large numbers of seminal fluid proteins (SFPs). SFPs and sperm are transferred to the mating partner, where they are thought to play key roles in mediatin...

    Authors: Michael Weber, Julia Wunderer, Birgit Lengerer, Robert Pjeta, Marcelo Rodrigues, Lukas Schärer, Peter Ladurner and Steven A. Ramm
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:81

Annual Journal Metrics

  • For BMC Evolutionary Biology (former title)

    2022 Citation Impact
    3.4 - 2-year Impact Factor
    3.6 - 5-year Impact Factor
    1.061 - SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper)
    0.968 - SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)

    2023 Speed
    29 days submission to first editorial decision for all manuscripts (Median)
    193 days submission to accept (Median)

    2023 Usage 
    1,882,764 downloads
    3,013 Altmetric mentions

  • Transparency and Openness
    TOP Factor score - 9

    Peer Community In
    BMC Ecology and Evolution welcomes submissions of pre-print manuscripts recommended by the Peer Community In (PCI) platform. The journal may use PCI reviews and recommendations for the review process if appropriate. For instructions to submit your PCI recommended article, please click here. To find out more, please read our blog

Sign up for article alerts and news from this journal