Revisiting Parker 1970

In a paper published in Biological Reviews in 1970, Geoff Parker reviewed the evidence for sperm competition in nature, discussed why the phenomenon is likely to common in insects and described adaptations in animals to counter sperm competition. Forty-six years after the paper was published I asked Geoff Parker about how he got interested in …

Revisiting Huey and Bennett 1987

In a paper published in Evolution in 1987, Raymond Huey and Albert Bennett presented the results of their comparative analysis of temperature preferences and temperature dependence of running speeds in Australian lygosomid skinks. By chasing lizards down racing tracks at different temperatures, Hue and Bennett showed that coadaptation between thermal preference and thermal dependence of …

Revisiting Kempenaers et al. 1992

In a study published in Nature in 1992, Bart Kempenaers, Geert R. Verheyen, Marleen Van den Broeck, Terry Burke, Christine Van Broeckhoven and André Dhondt showed that female blue tits choose higher-quality males for extra-pair copulations (EPC), providing evidence in support of the genetic quality hypothesis for extra-pair matings. Twenty-five years after the paper was …

Revisiting Carpenter et al. 1987

In a study published in Ecology in 1987, Stephen Carpenter and colleagues carried out whole-lake manipulations to show that primary productivity in lakes is regulated both by trophic interactions and abiotic factors. Their findings were considered "revolutionary" because, at the time, lake ecosystems were thought to be primarily under the control of nutrients.  Thirty years …

Revisiting Chase and Leibold 2002

In a study published in Nature in 2002, Jonathan Chase and Mathew Leibold showed, through experiments in ponds in different watersheds, that the productivity-diversity relationship was scale-dependent. Among ponds within a watershed, the relationship was hump-shaped while across watersheds the relationship was positive and linear. Fifteen years after the paper was published, I asked Jonathan …

Revisiting Ehrlich and Raven 1964

In 1964, Paul Ehrlich and Peter Raven published a paper in Evolution that reported the findings of their literature survey of larval food plants of butterflies. Based on the patterns they found, they hypothesized that caterpillar-host plant relationships result from "coevolution", and that the secondary chemicals produced by plants,  which till then were thought to …