Traits are key for understanding the environmental responses and ecological roles of
organisms. Trait approaches to functional ecology are well established for plants, whereas …

The number of published studies using geometric morphometrics (GM) for analysing
biological shape has increased steadily since the beginning of the 1990s, covering multiple …

The relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning is often assessed through
trait diversity. However, the relationship between traits and functions is typically assumed but …

Male genitalia exhibit patterns of divergent evolution driven by sexual selection. In contrast,
for many taxonomic groups, female genitalia are relatively uniform and their patterns of …

To complete their development, diverse animal species rely on the presence of communities
of symbiotic microbiota that are vertically transmitted from mother to offspring. In the dung …

Following the introduction of cattle, exotic dung beetles (Coleoptera: Aphodiidae,
Geotrupidae, Scarabaeidae) were imported into the Antipodes (Australia and New Zealand) …

Age and size at maturity are key life‐history components, yet the proximate underpinnings
that mediate intra‐and interspecific variation in life history remain poorly understood. We …

Macrostructural control of stress distribution and microstructural influence on crack
propagation is one of the strategies for obtaining high mechanical properties in stag beetle …

Phenotypic plasticity allows organisms to cope with rapid environmental change. Yet exactly
when during ontogeny plastic responses are elicited, whether plastic responses produced in …

Understanding the interplay between genetic differentiation, ancestral plasticity, and the
evolution of plasticity during adaptation to environmental variation is critical to predict …