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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Cross-Host Correlations And Multivariate Effects Of Herbivore Specialization, Daniel J. Zydek
Cross-Host Correlations And Multivariate Effects Of Herbivore Specialization, Daniel J. Zydek
USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations
The distribution of insect herbivores among plant hosts is largely nonrandom: most herbivores have limited sets of hosts within one or a few plant families. This host use specialization is reinforced by traits that confer differential fitness across host plant species. Classic explanations for herbivore specialization predict that evolutionary trade-offs reinforce these relationships by imposing costs in the form of reduced potential fitness on alternative hosts, due to negative genetic correlations in fitness across hosts. This prediction that trade-offs constrain host use in herbivores can be tested with experimental evolution, by showing the direct evolutionary effects of host manipulation on …
Reproduction And Parasite-Mediated Selection, Meredith A. Krause
Reproduction And Parasite-Mediated Selection, Meredith A. Krause
USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Sexual reproduction generates genetic diversity that can help hosts respond to selection by parasites, and in this thesis, I test three predictions on how reproduction impacts predictions by the parasite theory of sex and the Red Queen hypothesis. In Chapter one, using a meta-analysis, I found that asexuals (lower genetic diversity) have more parasites than sexuals (higher genetic diversity), but this difference can be heavily mediated by the mode and origin of asexuality. Further, hybridization but not polyploidy can blunt predicted differences in parasite loads among sexual and asexual hosts. In Chapter two, I flip the perspective of Red Queen …
Effects Of Inter-Male Status Challenge And Psychopathic Traits On Sexual Aggression, Amy M. Hoffmann
Effects Of Inter-Male Status Challenge And Psychopathic Traits On Sexual Aggression, Amy M. Hoffmann
USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Sexual aggression (SA) is a serious social problem that has been linked to a variety of negative physical and mental health outcomes for survivors and produces significant monetary costs to society. In the past five decades, a wealth of research has improved our understanding of the individual and sociocultural factors that contribute to SA perpetration; however, epistemological differences in theoretical approaches to the subject (i.e., evolutionary, feminist) have resulted in gaps in the empirical literature. Informed by both feminist and evolutionary perspectives, this study attempts to examine the ways in which same-gender interpersonal interactions and individual psychopathology interact to produce …