Insular populations of mammals have been shown to undergo drastic morphological
changes relative to mainland counterparts, and these adaptations can provide insight into …

Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain size changes in insular mammals, but no
single variable suffices to explain the diversity of responses, particularly within Rodentia …

Adult body size correlates strongly with fitness, but mean body sizes frequently differ among
conspecific populations. Ultimate, fitness-based explanations for these deviations in animals …

Brain-size reduction in domesticated forms of mammals in comparison to their wild
ancestors is well documented in numerous species. Although it does not involve intentional …

Mammals have independently evolved a wide variety of morphological adaptations for use
in avoiding death by predation, including spines, quills, dermal plates, and noxious sprays …

The allometric relationship between brain and body size among vertebrates is often
considered a manifestation of evolutionary constraints. However, birds and mammals have …

Aim My goals here are to (1) assess the generality of the island rule–the graded trend from
gigantism in small species to dwarfism in larger species–for mammals and other terrestrial …

The evolution of striking phenotypes on islands is a well‐known phenomenon, and there
has been a long‐standing debate on the patterns of body size evolution on islands. The …

Aim We investigated the hypothesis that the insular body size of mammals results from
selective forces whose influence varies with characteristics of the focal islands and the focal …

The tendency for island populations of mammalian taxa to diverge in body size from their
mainland counterparts consistently in particular directions is both impressive for its regularity …