One possible effect of climate change is the generation of a mismatch in the seasonal timing of interacting organisms, owing to species-specific shifts in phenology. Despite concerns that plants and pollinators might be at risk of such decoupling, there have been few attempts to test this hypothesis

Flowers are often visited by many species of animals.
\nThese sometimes differ in size, behavior, and other
\ncharacteristics that translate into differences in their effectiveness as pollinators. The differences
\nmay be manifest in their effect on reproductive
\nsuccess either thro

Field experiments were conducted at two streams to determine the mechanisms by which mayfly prey detect and avoid stonefly predators, and to quantify the effect of stonefly predators upon mayfly behavior, distribution, and activity levels. Direct observations of the interactions between stoneflies a

A pervasive idea among pollination biologists is that bees cannot see red flowers. This idea has led many workers to assume that red coloration is an adaptation by which flowers exclude bees as visitors. However, recent empirical and theoretical evidence strongly supports the alternative view, that

In this Viewpoint paper we highlight the application of ecological and evolutionary approaches to two themes in pollination biology: (1) links between pollinator behaviour and plant mating systems, and (2) generalization and specialization in pollination systems. We also describe how mathematical mo

The extreme specificity

Variation in food availability is likely to occur in the wild, and may affect resource allocation to various life history traits. Quantitative adult diet restriction had no effect on life—span or mean individual egg mass, but reduced fecundity in the butterfly Speyeria mormonia. The sum of fecundity

Evidence is presented that effective mutualism occurs between two species which also compete for pollination and which act as mutualistic partners at the same time that their sequential flowering is maintained by competition.

Male insects of many species donate nutrients to their females at mating, and the females can use these nutrients for egg production and somatic maintenance. These male-derived nutrients represent male investment in reproduction. The relative investment by each sex in reproduction has been postulate

The theory, parameterized with global averaged leaf traits and microclimate, predicts a moderate level of leaf thermoregulation across a broad air temperature gradient, and predicts that net carbon assimilation can be maximized by means of a trade-off between leaf thermal stability and photosyntheti

Traditional approaches to the study of fragmented landscapes invoke an island‐ocean model and assume that the nonhabitat matrix surrounding remnant patches is uniform. Patch isolation, a crucial parameter to the predictions of island biogeography and metapopulation theories, is measured by distance

It is shown how MaxEnt can accurately predict patterns such as species-area relationships (SARs) and abundance distributions in macroecology and be a foundation for ecological theory.

This overview of non-visual communication in freshwater benthic animals emphasizes recent studies of the effect of chemical and mechanical signals on predator-prey interactions of benthic macroinvertebrates and amphibians. Prey species use chemical signals to modify their morphological development,

Abstract Floral phenotypes may be as much the result of selection for avoidance of some animal visitors as selection for improving the interaction with better pollinators. When specializing on hummingbird-pollination, Penstemon flowers may have evolved to improve the morphological fit between bird a

While sociality has been hypothesized to drive the evolution of communicative complexity, the relationship remains to be formally tested. We derive a continuous measure of social complexity from demographic data and use this variable to explain variation in alarm repertoire size in ground-dwelling s

We argue for expanding the role of theory in ecology to accelerate scientific progress, enhance the ability to address environmental challenges, foster the development of synthesis and unification, and improve the design of experiments and large-scale environmental-monitoring programs. To achieve th

Recent reports of world‐wide declines and extinctions of amphibian populations have raised questions about the relation of environmental change to the demise of certain amphibian species. Between 1974 and 1982, 11 populations of boreal toads ( Bufo boreas boreas ) in the West Elk Mountains of Colora

The results suggest that in addition to size thresholds and species abundances, size distributions are important for understanding interaction patterns in plant-pollinator webs. It is likely that the understanding will be improved further by characterizing for entire communities how nectar productio

The pattern of movements of the bumblebees and the various properties of the plants appear to represent coevolved adaptations and the bumbles' movement patterns appear to be optimal in the sense that they result in the maximum net rate of energy gain to the bumbling.

To a hummingbird, clusters of flowers on inflorescences represent patches and provide an ideal situation to test prediction of optimal patch-use. The basic question is what decision rule should a hummingbird use to decide whether or not to leave an inflorescence? The hypothesis is that hummingbirds