Revisiting West and King 1988

In a paper published in Nature in 1988, Meredith West and Andrew King demonstrated  that that a wing stroke visual display by female cowbirds, which don't sing, plays a role in song learning of male cowbirds. The findings of the study provided evidence for the role of visual stimulation in song development, a process that …

Revisiting Gillespie 2004

In a paper published in Science in 2004, Rosemary Gillespie demonstrated that both dispersal and in situ speciation contribute to accumulation of species numbers of Tetragnathid spiders on Hawaiian islands. Moreover, accumulation, whether through dispersal or speciation, happens in a way that no island contains more than one species of a particular ecomorph, i.e. in …

Revisiting O’Brien et al. 1983

In a paper published in Science in 1983, Stephen O'Brien, David Wildt, David Goldman, Carl Merril and Mitchell Bush showed that the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) had extremely low levels of genetic diversity, a pattern that they interpreted as resulting from a population bottleneck. This study was one of the first to apply genetic tools to …

Revisiting Eldredge and Gould 1972

In a landmark chapter published in 1972 in a book called Models in Paleobiology, Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould proposed, based on their observations of the fossil record, that evolution proceeds in short bursts of change separated by long periods of stasis, a theory they called "Punctuated Equilbria." In 2016, 44 years after the …

Revisiting Scheffer et al. 2001

In a paper published in Nature in 2001, Marten Scheffer, Steve Carpenter, Jonathan Foley, Carl Folke and Brian Walker reviewed the evidence for large-scale shifts between alternate stable states in different ecosystems, the patterns that emerge from such shifts, and its implications for the management of these ecosystems. Fifteen years after the paper was published, …

Revisiting Strong 1992

In a paper published in Ecology in 1992, Donald Strong reviewed the empirical literature on "actual" and "potential" trophic cascades, based on which he argued why trophic cascades are likely to be restricted to simple, low-diversity food webs. Twenty-six years after the paper was published, I spoke to Donald Strong about his interest in food …

Revisiting Komdeur et al. 1997

In a paper published in Nature in 1997, Jan Komdeur, Serge Daan, Joost Tinbergen and Christa Mateman showed, through a combination of observation, experiment and genetic analysis, that, in the endemic and endangered Seychelles warbler, parents can manipulate sex ratio adaptively to improve their future reproductive success. Nineteen years after the paper was published, I …

Revisiting Karban et al. 2000

In a paper published in Oecologia in 2000, Richard Karban, Ian Baldwin, Kimberly Baxter, Grit Laue and Gary Felton experimentally demonstrated that plants that had not been attacked by herbivores could sense and respond, by upping their defenses, to cues released by neighboring plants that had been attacked. Seventeen years after the paper was published, …

Revisiting Kokko et al. 2002

In a paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London London B, Hanna Kokko, Robert Brooks, John McNamara and Alasdair Houston integrated 'Fisherian' and 'good genes' ideas into a general model of female mate choice for indirect benefits. Fourteen years after the paper was published I asked Hanna Kokko how she got interested …

Revisiting Leibold et al. 2004

In a paper published in Ecology Letters in 2004, Mathew Leibold, Marcel Holyoak, Nicolas Mouquet, Priyanga Amarasekare, Jonathan Chase, Martha Hoopes, Robert Holt, Jonathan Shurin, Richard Law, Dave Tilman, Michel Loreau and Andrew Gonzalez reviewed the metacommunity concept in ecology and the four paradigms or approaches that have guided theoretical and empirical work on metacommunities …