Theory predicts that males should tailor the size of their ejaculates according to temporal changes in the risk of sperm competition. Specifically, males are predicted to allocate more sperm to each mating event with increasing risk (i.e., the probability that the sperm from two males will...

Albeit there is growing evidence that males prefer to mate with ornamented females, it has been suggested that the production of costly ornaments may reduce female fecundity, hence favoring males with a preference for females with average ornamentation. In the rock sparrow, Petronia petronia,...

We investigated whether mating behavior (sperm expenditure, courtship rate, and nest guarding) varied according to different levels of sperm competition in territorial males of two goby species, the grass and the black gobies. We measured sperm expenditure (sperm released after 30 min from the...

Brood desertion involves a series of interactions between the members of a pair. This process is likely to be based on either member's perception of the other's propensity to desert. We manipulated this perception in males by experimentally increasing female body mass in the rock sparrow...

Fundamental frequency (F0, broadly 'pitch') is an integral part of spoken human language; however, a comprehensive quantitative model for F0 can be a challenge to formulate owing to the large number of effects and interactions between effects that lie behind the human voice's production of F0,...

The avoidance of familiar individuals as mates can act to maximize the benefits of polyandry or might help to minimize inbreeding in small or highly philopatric populations. As previous mates are also familiar, the effects of familiarity and mating history can often be confounded. Here, we...

Females often partition their reproductive investment differentially according to variation in male phenotype. Although evidence for differential maternal investment is accumulating in species with resource-based mating systems, there is relatively little evidence for such effects in species...

Regeneration and survival of bottomland hardwoods are affected by environmental variables related to the hydrologic regime. Climate change, specifically alterations to precipitation patterns, may have outsized effects on these forests. In Tennessee, USA, precipitation has increased by 15% since...