Hot off the presses! Jun 01 Trends Ecol Evol

The Jun 01 issue of the Trends Ecol Evol is now up on Pubget (About Trends Ecol Evol): if you're at a subscribing institution, just click the link in the latest link at the home page. (Note you'll only be able to get all the PDFs in the issue if your institution subscribes to Pubget.)

Latest Articles Include:

• Editorial Board
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(6):i (2009)
  
• Alternative mechanisms of range expansion are associated with different changes of evolutionary potential
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(6):289-292 (2009)
  Human-induced and natural range expansion of species are expected to lead to different patterns of genetic diversity, which might themselves be trait dependent. Recent studies examined the molecular and quantitative genetic variation following the range expansion of three plant species. The results suggest that contrasting diversity patterns among species reflect how range expansion has occurred and the level of fragmentation of the original habitat. Unexpectedly, even introductions from a homogeneous environment do not preclude a species from adapting to a new environment and becoming invasive.
• Evolution education in natural history museums
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(6):292-293 (2009)
  
• Coping with the heat
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(6):293-294 (2009)
  
• From natural gestures to complex grammar
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(6):295-296 (2009)
  
• Bateman's principles and human sex roles
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(6):297-304 (2009)
  In 1948, Angus J. Bateman reported a stronger relationship between mating and reproductive success in male fruit flies compared with females, and concluded that selection should universally favour 'an undiscriminating eagerness in the males and a discriminating passivity in the females' to obtain mates. The conventional view of promiscuous, undiscriminating males and coy, choosy females has also been applied to our own species. Here, we challenge the view that evolutionary theory prescribes stereotyped sex roles in human beings, firstly by reviewing Bateman's principles and recent sexual selection theory and, secondly, by examining data on mating behaviour and reproductive success in current and historic human populations. We argue that human mating strategies are unlikely to conform to a single universal pattern.
• Evolutionary consequences of cryptic genetic variation
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(6):305-311 (2009)
  Phenotypic evolution depends on heritable variation in phenotypes. A central aim of evolutionary biology, therefore, is to understand how processes generating phenotypic variation interact with selection and drift to result in phenotypic evolution. Recent studies have highlighted the propensity for populations to harbor genetic variation that contributes to phenotypic variation only after some environmental or genetic change. Many authors have suggested that release of this cryptic genetic variation by stressful or novel environments can facilitate phenotypic adaptation. However, there is little empirical evidence that stressful or novel environments release cryptic genetic variation, or that, once released, it contributes to phenotypic evolution. We argue that empirical studies are needed to answer these questions, and identify the empirical approaches needed to study the relationship between environment, released cryptic genetic variation and phenotypic evolution.
• The jellyfish joyride: causes, consequences and management responses to a more gelatinous future
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(6):312-322 (2009)
  Human-induced stresses of overfishing, eutrophication, climate change, translocation and habitat modification appear to be promoting jellyfish (pelagic cnidarian and ctenophore) blooms to the detriment of other marine organisms. Mounting evidence suggests that the structure of pelagic ecosystems can change rapidly from one that is dominated by fish (that keep jellyfish in check through competition or predation) to a less desirable gelatinous state, with lasting ecological, economic and social consequences. Management actions needed to stop such changes require tactical coping strategies and longer-term preventative responses based on fundamental and targeted research on this understudied group.
• Smelling global climate change: mitigation of function for plant volatile organic compounds
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(6):323-331 (2009)
  Plant volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have important roles in plant adaptation to the environment and serve as infochemicals in multitrophic interactions. Global climate change factors, such as increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, ozone and temperature, could alter how insects perceive such compounds. Here we review recent research on the influence of climate change parameters on the ecological functions of VOCs, with specific focus on terpenoids, the best-characterized VOCs. We summarize how emission patterns and concentrations of VOCs could change in future environments, mainly from the perspectives of plant defense and stress responses. We discuss how higher carbon dioxide concentrations, elevated ozone levels and increased temperatures could affect the biological functions of VOCs, particularly their role in plant defense.
• Gene tree discordance, phylogenetic inference and the multispecies coalescent
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(6):332-340 (2009)
  The field of phylogenetics is entering a new era in which trees of historical relationships between species are increasingly inferred from multilocus and genomic data. A major challenge for incorporating such large amounts of data into inference of species trees is that conflicting genealogical histories often exist in different genes throughout the genome. Recent advances in genealogical modeling suggest that resolving close species relationships is not quite as simple as applying more data to the problem. Here we discuss the complexities of genealogical discordance and review the issues that new methods for multilocus species tree inference will need to address to account successfully for naturally occurring genomic variability in evolutionary histories.
• Unicolonial ants: where do they come from, what are they and where are they going?
  - Trends Ecol Evol 24(6):341-349 (2009)
  Unicolonial ant populations are the most extensive cooperative units known in nature, forming networks of interconnected nests extending sometimes hundreds of kilometers. Within such a supercolony, worker altruistic behavior might be maladaptive, because it seems to aid random members of the population instead of relatives. However, recent genetic and behavioral data show that, viewed on a sufficiently large scale, unicolonial ants do have colony boundaries that define very large kin groups. It seems likely that they are family groups that continue to express their kin-selected behavior as they grow to extreme sizes. However, at extreme sizes, kin selection theory predicts that these behaviors are maladapted and evolutionarily unstable, a prediction that is supported by their twiggy phylogenetic distribution.