The common practice of using subspecies as conservation targets raises the question of
whether efforts are focused on preserving conspicuous components of the species' …

Background Understanding how phenotypic variation scales from individuals, through
populations, up to species, and how it relates to genetic and environmental factors, is …

Identification of mechanisms that promote variation in life-history traits is critical to
understand the evolution of divergent reproductive strategies. Here we compiled a large life …

Lizards have been model organisms for ecological and evolutionary studies from individual
to community levels at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Here we highlight lizards as …

The pace of new reptile species descriptions, especially of new lizard descriptions, is rapidly
increasing. The number of recognized lizard species has increased by more than 30% since …

Recent conceptual, technological and methodological advances in phylogenetics have
enabled increasingly robust statistical species delimitation in studies of biodiversity. As the …

Convergent evolution can explain similarity in morphology between species, due to
selection on a fitness-enhancing phenotype in response to local environmental conditions …

Aim Species adapt differently to contrasting environments, such as open habitats with
sparse vegetation and forested habitats with dense forest cover. We investigated …

The expansion of human-altered landscapes affects biodiversity on every continent. In the
Cerrado biodiversity hotspot of central Brazil, Eucalyptus plantations increasingly claim …

Simple Summary Islands represent hotspots of biodiversity and ideal places to study
evolutionary processes. Wall lizards of the genus Podarcis are widespread and well-studied …