The renaissance of interest in sexual selection during the last decades has fuelled an extraordinary increase of scientific papers on the subject in spiders. Research has focused both on the process of sexual selection itself, for example on the signals and various modalities involved, and on the patterns, that is the outcome of mate choice and competition depending on certain parameters. Sexual selection has most clearly been demonstrated in cases involving visual and acoustical signals but most spiders are myopic and mute, relying rather on vibrations, chemical and tactile stimuli. This review argues that research has been biased towards modalities that are relatively easily accessible to the human observer. Circumstantial and comparative evidence indicates that sexual selection working via substrate-borne vibrations and tactile as well as chemical stimuli may be common and widespread in spiders. Pattern-oriented research has focused on several phenomena for which spiders offer excellent model objects, like sexual size dimorphism, nuptial feeding, sexual cannibalism, and sperm competition. The accumulating evidence argues for a highly complex set of explanations for seemingly uniform patterns like size dimorphism and sexual cannibalism. Sexual selection appears involved as well as natural selection and mechanisms that are adaptive in other contexts only. Sperm competition has resulted in a plethora of morphological and behavioural adaptations, and simplistic models like those linking reproductive morphology with behaviour and sperm priority patterns in a straightforward way are being replaced by complex models involving an array of parameters. Male mating costs are increasingly being documented in spiders, and sexual selection by male mate choice is discussed as a potential result. Research on sexual selection in spiders has come a long way since Darwin, whose spider examples are reanalysed in the context of contemporary knowledge, but the same biases and methodological constraints have persisted almost unchanged through the current boom of research.

The nutritional morphology, physiology and ecology of terrestrial isopods (Isopoda: Oniscidea) is significant in two respects. (1) Most oniscid isopods are truly terrestrial in terms of being totally independent of the aquatic environment. Thus, they have evolved adaptations to terrestrial food sources. (2) In many terrestrial ecosystems, isopods play an important role in decomposition processes through mechanical and chemical breakdown of plant litter and by enhancing microbial activity. While the latter aspect of nutrition is discussed only briefly in this review, I focus on the evolutionary ecology of feeding in terrestrial isopods.

Due to their possessing chewing mouthparts, leaf litter is comminuted prior to being ingested, facilitating both enzymatic degradation during gut passage and microbial colonization of egested faeces. Digestion of food through endogenous enzymes produced in the caeca of the midgut glands (hepatopancreas) and through microbial enzymes, either ingested along with microbially colonized food or secreted by microbial endosymbionts, mainly takes place in the anterior part of the hindgut. Digestive processes include the activity of carbohydrases, proteases, dehydrogenases, esterases, lipases, arylamidases and oxidases, as well as the nutritional utilization of microbial cells. Absorption of nutrients is brought about by the hepatopancreas and/or the hindgut epithelium, the latter being also involved in osmoregulation and water balance. Minerals and metal cations are effectively extracted from the food, while overall assimilation efficiencies may be low. Heavy metals are stored in special organelles of the hepatopancreatic tissue. Nitrogenous waste products are excreted via ammonia in its gaseous form, with only little egested along with the faeces. Nonetheless, faeces are characterized by high nitrogen content and provide a favourable substrate for microbial colonization and growth. The presence of a dense microbial population on faecal material is one reason for the coprophagous behaviour of terrestrial isopods. For the same reason, terrestrial isopods prefer feeding on decaying rather than fresh leaf litter, the former also being more palatable and easier to digest. Acceptable food sources are detected through distance and contact chemoreceptors. The ‘quality’ of the food source determines individual growth, fecundity and mortality, and thus maintenance at the population level. Due to their physiological adaptations to feeding on and digesting leaf litter, terrestrial isopods contribute strongly to nutrient recycling during decomposition processes. Yet, many of these adaptations are still not well understood.

Allelopathy is an interference mechanism by which plants release chemicals which affect other plants; while it has often been proposed as a mechanism for influencing plant populations and communities, its acceptance by plant ecologists has been limited because of methodological problems as well as difficulties of relating the results of bioassays used for testing allelopathy to vegetation patterns in the field. Here we argue that the concept of allelopathy is more appropriately applied at the ecosystem-level, rather than the traditional population/community level of resolution. Firstly, we consider the wide ranging effects of secondary metabolites (widely regarded as allelochemicals) on organisms and processes which regulate ecosystem function, including herbivory, decomposition and nutrient mineralization. It is apparent that plants with allelopathic potential against other organisms induce net changes in ecosystem properties, which may in turn impact upon the plant community in the longer term. We then illustrate these concepts using two contrasting examples of how invasive plant species with allelopathic potential may alter ecosystem properties through the production of secondary metabolites, i.e. Carduus nutans (nodding thistle) in New Zealand pastures and Empetrum hermaphroditum (crowberry) in Swedish boreal forests. In both cases the production of secondary metabolites by the invasive species induces important effects on other organisms and key processes, which help determine how the ecosystem functions and ultimately the structure of the plant community. These examples help demonstrate that the concept of allelopathy is most effectively applied at the ecosystem-level of resolution, rather than at the population-level (i.e. plant-plant interference).

A programme of research into phase change in the desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria, is described. The ability to change phase between solitarious and gregarious forms in response to population density is a key feature of locusts and is central to their occasional yet catastrophic impact on humans. Phase polymorphism is an extreme form of phenotypic plasticity. The most labile phase characteristic is behaviour. It is argued that a fully integrated study of behavioural phase change provides a powerful tool for understanding both the mechanisms of phase change and locust population dynamics, both of which offer possibilities for improved management and control of desert locust plagues. An assay for measuring behavioural phase-state in individual locusts was derived, based on logistic regression analysis. Experiments are described that used the assay to quantify the time-course of behavioural change, both within the life of individual locusts and across generations. The locust-related stimuli that provoke behavioural gregarization were investigated. Complex interactions were found between tactile, visual and olfactory stimuli, with the former exerting the strongest effect. Behavioural analysis also directed a study of the mechanisms whereby adult females exert an epigenetic influence over the phase-state of their developing offspring. Female locusts use their experience of the extent and recency of being crowded to predict the probability that their offspring will emerge into a high-density population, and alter the development of their embryos accordingly through a gregarizing agent added to the foam that surrounds the eggs at laying. There is also a less pronounced paternal influence on hatchling phase-state. An understanding of the time-course of behavioural phase change led to a study of the effect of the fine-scale distribution of resources in the environment on interactions between individual locusts, and hence on phase change. This, in turn, stimulated an exploration of the implications of individual behavioural phase change for population dynamics. Cellular automata models were derived that explore the relationships between population density, density of food resources and the distribution of resources in the environment. The results of the simulation showed how the extent of gregarization within a population increases with rising population size relative to food abundance and increasing concentration of food resources. Of particular interest was the emergence of critical zones across particular combinations of resource abundance, resource distribution and population size, where a solitarious population would rapidly gregarize. The model provided the basis for further laboratory and field experiments, which are described.

The aim of this review is to consider the potential mechanisms birds may use to manipulate the sex of their progeny, and the possible role played by maternal hormones. Over the past few years there has been a surge of reports documenting the ability of birds to overcome the rigid process of chromosomal sex determination. However, while many of these studies leave us in little doubt that mechanisms allowing birds to achieve this feat do exist, we are only left with tantalizing suggestions as to what the precise mechanism or mechanisms may be. The quest to elucidate them is made no easier by the fact that a variety of environmental conditions have been invoked in relation to sex manipulation, and there is no reason to assume that any particular mechanism is conserved among the vast diversity of species that can achieve it. In fact, a number of intriguing proposals have been put forward. We begin by briefly reviewing some of the most recent examples of this phenomenon before highlighting some of the more plausible mechanisms, drawing on recent work from a variety of taxa. In birds, females are the heterogametic sex and so non-Mendelian segregation of the sex chromosomes could conceivably be under maternal control. Another suggestion is that follicles that ultimately give rise to males and females grow at different rates. Alternatively, the female might selectively abort embryos or ‘dump lay’ eggs of a particular sex, deny certain ova a chance of ovulation, fertilization or zygote formation, or selectively provision eggs so that there is sex-specific embryonic mortality. The ideas outlined in this review provide good starting points for testing the hypotheses both experimentally (behaviourally and physiologically) and theoretically.

Recent reviews of specific topics, such as the relationship between male attractiveness to females and fluctuating asymmetry or attractiveness and the expression of secondary sexual characters, suggest that publication bias might be a problem in ecology and evolution. In these cases, there is a significant negative correlation between the sample size of published studies and the magnitude or strength of the research findings (formally the ‘effect size’). If all studies that are conducted are equally likely to be published, irrespective of their findings, there should not be a directional relationship between effect size and sample size; only a decrease in the variance in effect size as sample size increases due to a reduction in sampling error. One interpretation of these reports of negative correlations is that studies with small sample sizes and weaker findings (smaller effect sizes) are less likely to be published. If the biological literature is systematically biased this could undermine the attempts of reviewers to summarise actual biology relationships by inflating estimates of average effect sizes. But how common is this problem? And does it really affect the general conclusions of literature reviews? Here, we examine data sets of effect sizes extracted from 40 peer-reviewed, published meta-analyses. We estimate how many studies are missing using the newly developed ‘trim and fill’ method. This method uses asymmetry in plots of effect size against sample size (‘funnel plots’) to detect ‘missing’ studies. For random-effect models of meta-analysis 38% (15/40) of data sets had a significant number of ‘missing’ studies. After correcting for potential publication bias, 21% (8/38) of weighted mean effects were no longer significantly greater than zero, and 15% (5/34) were no longer statistically robust when we used random-effects models in a weighted meta-analysis. The mean correlation between sample size and the magnitude of standardised effect size was also significantly negative (rs =−0·20, P<0·0001). Individual correlations were significantly negative (P<0·10) in 35% (14/40) of cases. Publication bias may therefore affect the main conclusions of at least 15–21% of meta-analyses. We suggest that future literature reviews assess the robustness of their main conclusions by correcting for potential publication bias using the ‘trim and fill’ method.

Recent studies have provided evolutionary explanations for much of the variation in mortality among human infectious diseases. One gap in this knowledge concerns respiratory tract pathogens transmitted from person to person by direct contact or through environmental contamination. The sit-and-wait hypothesis predicts that virulence should be positively correlated with durability in the external environment because high durability reduces the dependence of transmission on host mobility. Reviewing the epidemiological and medical literature, we confirm this prediction for respiratory tract pathogens of humans. Our results clearly distinguish a high-virulence high-survival group of variola (smallpox) virus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Corynebacterium diphtheriae, Bordetella pertussis, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and influenza virus (where all pathogens have a mean percent mortality [ges ]0.01% and mean survival time >10 days) from a low-virulence low-survival group containing ten other pathogens. The correlation between virulence and durability explains three to four times of magnitude of difference in mean percent mortality and mean survival time, using both across-species and phylogenetically controlled analyses. Our findings bear on several areas of active research and public health policy: (1) many pathogens used in the biological control of insects are potential sit-and-wait pathogens as they combine three attributes that are advantageous for pest control: high virulence, long durability after application, and host specificity; (2) emerging pathogens such as the ‘hospital superbug’ methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and potential bioweapons pathogens such as smallpox virus and anthrax that are particularly dangerous can be discerned by quantifying their durability; (3) hospital settings and the AIDS pandemic may provide footholds for emerging sit-and-wait pathogens; and (4) studies on food-borne and insect pathogens point to future research considering the potential evolutionary trade-offs and genetic linkages between virulence and durability.

Insects may survive subzero temperatures by two general strategies: Freeze-tolerant insects withstand the formation of internal ice, while freeze-avoiding insects die upon freezing. While it is widely recognized that these represent alternative strategies to survive low temperatures, and mechanistic understanding of the physical and molecular process of cold tolerance are becoming well elucidated, the reasons why one strategy or the other is adopted remain unclear. Freeze avoidance is clearly basal within the arthropod lineages, and it seems that freeze tolerance has evolved convergently at least six times among the insects (in the Blattaria, Orthoptera, Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Diptera and Lepidoptera). Of the pterygote insect species whose cold-tolerance strategy has been reported in the literature, 29% (69 of 241 species studied) of those in the Northern Hemisphere, whereas 85% (11 of 13 species) in the Southern Hemisphere exhibit freeze tolerance. A randomization test indicates that this predominance of freeze tolerance in the Southern Hemisphere is too great to be due to chance, and there is no evidence of a recent publication bias in favour of new reports of freeze-tolerant species. We conclude from this that the specific nature of cold insect habitats in the Southern Hemisphere, which are characterized by oceanic influence and climate variability must lead to strong selection in favour of freeze tolerance in this hemisphere. We envisage two main scenarios where it would prove advantageous for insects to be freeze tolerant. In the first, characteristic of cold continental habitats of the Northern Hemisphere, freeze tolerance allows insects to survive very low temperatures for long periods of time, and to avoid desiccation. These responses tend to be strongly seasonal, and insects in these habitats are only freeze tolerant for the overwintering period. By contrast, in mild and unpredictable environments, characteristic of habitats influenced by the Southern Ocean, freeze tolerance allows insects which habitually have ice nucleators in their guts to survive summer cold snaps, and to take advantage of mild winter periods without the need for extensive seasonal cold hardening. Thus, we conclude that the climates of the two hemispheres have led to the parallel evolution of freeze tolerance for very different reasons, and that this hemispheric difference is symptomatic of many wide-scale disparities in Northern and Southern ecological processes.

Human susceptibility to obesity is an unusual phenomenon amongst animals. An evolutionary analysis, identifying factors favouring the capacity for fat deposition, may aid in the development of preventive public health strategies. This article considers the proximate causes, ontogeny, fitness value and evolutionary history of human fat deposition. Proximate causes include diet composition, physical activity level, feeding behaviour, endocrine and genetic factors, psychological traits, and exposure to broader environmental factors. Fat deposition peaks during late gestation and early infancy, and again during adolescence in females. As in other species, human fat stores not only buffer malnutrition, but also regulate reproduction and immune function, and are subject to sexual selection. Nevertheless, our characteristic ontogenetic pattern of fat deposition, along with relatively high fatness in adulthood, contrasts with the phenotype of other mammals occupying the tropical savannah environment in which hominids evolved. The increased value of energy stores in our species can be attributed to factors increasing either uncertainty in energy availability, or vulnerability to that uncertainty. Early hominid evolution was characterised by adaptation to a more seasonal environment, when selection would have favoured general thriftiness. The evolution of the large expensive brain in the genus Homo then favoured increased energy stores in the reproducing female, and in the offspring in early life. More recently, the introduction of agriculture has had three significant effects: exposure to regular famine; adaptation to a variety of local niches favouring population-specific adaptations; and the development of social hierarchies which predispose to differential exposure to environmental pressures. Thus, humans have persistently encountered greater energy stress than that experienced by their closest living relatives during recent evolution. The capacity to accumulate fat has therefore been a major adaptive feature of our species, but is now increasingly maladaptive in the modern environment where fluctuations in energy supply have been minimised, and productivity is dependent on mechanisation rather than physical effort. Alterations to the obesogenic environment are predicted to play a key role in reducing the prevalence of obesity.

I analyse and summarize the empirical evidence in mammals supporting alternative benefits that individuals may accrue when committing nonparental infanticide. Nonparental infanticide may provide the perpetrator with nutritional benefits, increased access to limited resources, increased reproductive opportunities, or it may prevent misdirecting parental care to unrelated offspring. The possibility that infanticide is either a neutral or maladaptive behaviour also is considered. I devote the second half of this article to reviewing potential mechanisms that individuals may use to prevent infanticide. These counterstrategies include the early termination of pregnancy, direct aggression by the mother against intruders, the formation of coalitions for group defence, the avoidance of infanticidal conspecifics, female promiscuity, and territoriality. I evaluate the support for each benefit and counterstrategy across different groups of mammals and make suggestions for future research.

Metazoans are composed of a finite number of recognisable cell types. Similar to the relationship between species and ecosystems, knowledge of cell type diversity contributes to studies of complexity and evolution. However, as with other units of evolution, the cell type often resists definition. This review proposes guidelines for characterising cell types and discusses cell homology and the various developmental pathways by which cell types arise, including germ layers, blastemata (secondary development/neurulation), stem cells, and transdifferentiation. An updated list of cell types is presented for a familiar, albeit overlooked model taxon, adult Homo sapiens, with 411 cell types, including 145 types of neurons, recognised. Two methods for organising these cell types are explored. One is the artificial classification technique, clustering cells using commonly accepted criteria of similarity. The second approach, an empirical method modeled after cladistics, resolves the classification in terms of shared features rather than overall similarity. While the results of each scheme differ, both methods address important questions. The artificial classification provides compelling (and independent) support for the neural crest as the fourth germ layer, while the cladistic approach permits the evaluation of cell type evolution. Using the cladistic approach we observe a correlation between the developmental and evolutionary origin of a cell, suggesting that this method is useful for predicting which cell types share common (multipotential) progenitors. Whereas the current effort is restricted by the availability of phenotypic details for most cell types, the present study demonstrates that a comprehensive cladistic classification is practical, attainable, and warranted. The use of cell types and cell type comparative classification schemes has the potential to offer new and alternative models for therapeutic evaluation.

A gynostemium, comprising stamen filaments adnate to a syncarpous style, occurs in only three groups of monocots: the large family Orchidaceae (Asparagales) and two small genera Pauridia (Hypoxidaceae: Asparagales) and Corsia (Corsiaceae, probably in Liliales), all epigynous taxa. Pauridia has actinomorphic (polysymmetric) flowers, whereas those of Corsia and most orchids are strongly zygomorphic (monosymmetric) with a well-differentiated labellum. In Corsia the labellum is formed from the outer median tepal (sepal), whereas in orchids it is formed from the inner median tepal (petal) and is developmentally adaxial (but positionally abaxial in orchids with resupinate flowers). Furthermore, in orchids zygomorphy is also expressed in the stamen whorls, in contrast to Corsia. In Pauridia a complete stamen whorl is suppressed, but the ‘lost’ outer whorl is fused to the style. The evolution of adnation and zygomorphy are discussed in the context of the existing phylogenetic framework in monocotyledons. An arguably typological classification of floral terata is presented, focusing on three contrasting modes each of peloria and pseudopeloria. Dynamic evolutionary transitions in floral morphology are assigned to recently revised concepts of heterotopy (including homeosis) and heterochrony, seeking patterns that delimit developmental constraints and allow inferences regarding underlying genetic controls. Current evidence suggests that lateral heterotopy is more frequent than acropetal heterotopy, and that full basipetal heterotopy does not occur. Pseudopeloria is more likely to generate a radically altered yet functional perianth, but is also more likely to cause acropetal modification of the gynostemium. These comparisons indicate that there are at least two key genes or sets of genes controlling adnation, adaxial stamen suppression and labellum development in lilioid monocots; at least one is responsible for stamen adnation to the style (i.e. gynostemium formation), and another controls adaxial stamen suppression and adaxial labellum formation in orchids. Stamen adnation to the style may be a product of over-expression of the genes related to epigyny (i.e. a form of hyper-epigyny). If, as seems likely, stamen–style adnation preceded zygomorphy in orchid evolution, then the flowers of Pauridia may closely resemble those of the immediate ancestors of Orchidaceae, although existing molecular phylogenetic data indicate that a sister-group relationship is unlikely. The initial radiation in Orchidaceae can be attributed to the combination of hyper-epigyny, zygomorphy and resupination, but later radiations at lower taxonomic levels that generated the remarkable species richness of subfamilies Orchidoideae and Epidendroideae are more likely to reflect more subtle innovations that directly influence pollinator specificity, such as the development of stalked pollinaria and heavily marked and/or spur-bearing labella.

Osteichthyan and chondrichthyan fish present an astonishing diversity of skeletal and dental tissues that are often difficult to classify into the standard textbook categories of bone, cartilage, dentine and enamel. To address the question of how the tissues of the dermal skeleton evolved from the ancestral situation and gave rise to the diversity actually encountered, we review previous data on the development of a number of dermal skeletal elements (odontodes, teeth and dermal denticles, cranial dermal bones, postcranial dermal plates and scutes, elasmoid and ganoid scales, and fin rays). A comparison of developmental stages at the tissue level usually allows us to identify skeletogenic cell populations as either odontogenic or osteogenic on the basis of the place of formation of their dermal papillae and of the way of deposition of their tissues. Our studies support the evolutionary affinities (1) between odontodes, teeth and denticles, (2) between the ganoid scales of polypterids and the elasmoid scales of teleosts, and (3) to a lesser degree between the different bony elements. There is now ample evidence to ascertain that the tissues of the elasmoid scale are derived from dental and not from bony tissues. This review demonstrates the advantage that can be taken from developmental studies, at the tissue level, to infer evolutionary relationships within the dermal skeleton in chondrichthyans and osteichthyans.

Fetal growth and development is dependent upon the nutritional, hormonal and metabolic environment provided by the mother. Any disturbance in this environment can modify early fetal development with possible long-term outcomes as demonstrated by extensive work on ‘programming’. Growth restriction resulting from a deficit in tissue/organ cell number (as measured by tissue DNA content) is irrecoverable. However, when the cell size (or cell protein content) is reduced, the effects on growth may not be permanent.

Recent epidemiological studies using archival records of anthropometric measurements related to early growth in humans have shown strong statistical associations between these indices of early development and diseases in later life. It has been hypothesised that the processes explaining these associations involve adaptive changes in fetal organ development in response to maternal and fetal malnutrition. These adaptations may permanently alter adult metabolism in a way which is beneficial to survival under continued conditions of malnutrition but detrimental when nutrition is abundant.

This hypothesis is being tested in a rat model which involves studying the growth and metabolism in the offspring of rat dams fed a low-protein diet during pregnancy and/or lactation. Using this rat model, it has been demonstrated that there is:

(i) Permanent growth retardation in offspring nursed by dams fed a low-protein diet.

(ii) Permanent and selective changes in organ growth. Essential organs like the brain and lungs are relatively protected from reduction in growth at the expense of visceral organs such as the liver, pancreas, muscle and spleen.

(iii) Programming of liver metabolism as reflected by permanent changes in activities of key hepatic enzymes of glycolysis and gluconeogenesis (glucokinase and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase) in a direction which would potentially bias the liver towards a ‘starved’ setting. We have speculated that these changes could be a result of altered periportal and perivenous regions of the liver which may also affect other aspects of hepatic function.

(iv) Deterioration in glucose tolerance with age.

(v) An increase in the life span of offspring exposed to maternal protein restriction only during the lactation period, and a decrease in life span when exposed to maternal protein restriction only during gestation.

These studies show that hepatic metabolism and even longevity can be programmed by events during early life.

By contrast with a multitude of laboratory studies on the social organization of fish, relatively little is known about the size, composition and dynamics of free-ranging fish shoals. We give an overview of the available information on fish shoals and assess to what degree the predictions made from laboratory studies are consistent with field data. The section on shoal choice behaviour in the laboratory is structured so that the evidence for different shoaling preferences is discussed in the context of their mechanisms and functions. Predictions based on experiments in captivity regarding preferences for conspecifics, individuals of similar body length and unparasitized fish were highly consistent with field observations on free-ranging shoals whereas preferences for familiar conspecifics and kin remain to be conclusively demonstrated in the field. In general, there is a shortage of studies in which shoaling preferences have been investigated both in the laboratory and the field, and field studies have so far been largely descriptive revealing little about the underlying mechanisms of observed patterns. Given the great importance of fish shoals both in fundamental and applied research, an advancement of our knowledge of their social organization should significantly contribute to a better understanding of a whole range of topics including reciprocal altruism, group-living and self-organization.

Many significant diseases of human civilization are thought to have arisen concurrently with the advent of agriculture in human society. It has been hypothesised that the food produced by farming increased population sizes to allow the maintenance of virulent pathogens, i.e. civilization pathogens, while domestic animals provided sources of disease to humans. To determine the relationship between pathogens in humans and domestic animals, I examined phylogenetic data for several human pathogens that are commonly evolutionarily linked to domestic animals: measles, pertussis, smallpox, tuberculosis, taenid worms, and falciparal malaria. The majority are civilization pathogens, although I have included others whose evolutionary origins have traditionally been ascribed to domestic animals. The strongest evidence for a domestic-animal origin exists for measles and pertussis, although the data do not exclude a non-domestic origin. As for the other pathogens, the evidence currently available makes it difficult to determine if the domestic-origin hypothesis is supported or refuted; in fact, intriguing data for tuberculosis and taenid worms suggests that transmission may occur as easily from humans to domestic animals. These findings do not abrogate the importance of agriculture in disease transmission; rather, if anything, they suggest an alternative, more complex series of effects than previously elucidated. Rather than domestication, the broader force for human pathogen evolution could be ecological change, namely anthropogenic modification of the environment. This is supported by evidence that many current emerging infectious diseases are associated with human modification of the environment. Agriculture may have changed the transmission ecology of pre-existing human pathogens, increased the success of pre-existing pathogen vectors, resulted in novel interactions between humans and wildlife, and, through the domestication of animals, provided a stable conduit for human infection by wildlife diseases.

Insects have evolved sophisticated flight control mechanisms permitting a remarkable range of manoeuvres. Here, I present a qualitative analysis of insect flight control from the perspective of flight mechanics, drawing upon both the neurophysiology and biomechanics literatures. The current literature does not permit a formal, quantitative analysis of flight control, because the aerodynamic force systems that biologists have measured have rarely been complete and the position of the centre of gravity has only been recorded in a few studies. Treating the two best-known insect orders (Diptera and Orthoptera) separately from other insects, I discuss the control mechanisms of different insects in detail. Recent experimental studies suggest that the helicopter model of flight control proposed for Drosophila spp. may be better thought of as a facultative strategy for flight control, rather than the fixed (albeit selected) constraint that it is usually interpreted to be. On the other hand, the so-called ‘constant-lift reaction’ of locusts appears not to be a reflex for maintaining constant lift at varying angles of attack, as is usually assumed, but rather a mechanism to restore the insect to pitch equilibrium following a disturbance. Differences in the kinematic control mechanisms used by the various insect orders are related to differences in the arrangement of the wings, the construction of the flight motor and the unsteady mechanisms of lift production that are used. Since the evolution of insect flight control is likely to have paralleled the evolutionary refinement of these unsteady aerodynamic mechanisms, taxonomic differences in the kinematics of control could provide an assay of the relative importance of different unsteady mechanisms. Although the control kinematics vary widely between orders, the number of degrees of freedom that different insects can control will always be limited by the number of independent control inputs that they use. Control of the moments about all three axes (as used by most conventional aircraft) has only been proven for larger flies and dragonflies, but is likely to be widespread in insects given the number of independent control inputs available to them. Unlike in conventional aircraft, however, insects' control inputs are likely to be highly non-orthogonal, and this will tend to complicate the neural processing required to separate the various motions.

This review examines aspects of cetacean brain structure related to behaviour and evolution. Major considerations include cetacean brain-body allometry, structure of the cerebral cortex, the hippocampal formation, specialisations of the cetacean brain related to vocalisations and sleep phenomenology, paleoneurology, and brain-body allometry during cetacean evolution. These data are assimilated to demonstrate that there is no neural basis for the often-asserted high intellectual abilities of cetaceans. Despite this, the cetaceans do have volumetrically large brains. A novel hypothesis regarding the evolution of large brain size in cetaceans is put forward. It is shown that a combination of an unusually high number of glial cells and unihemispheric sleep phenomenology make the cetacean brain an efficient thermogenetic organ, which is needed to counteract heat loss to the water. It is demonstrated that water temperature is the major selection pressure driving an altered scaling of brain and body size and an increased actual brain size in cetaceans. A point in the evolutionary history of cetaceans is identified as the moment in which water temperature became a significant selection pressure in cetacean brain evolution. This occured at the Archaeoceti – modern cetacean faunal transition. The size, structure and scaling of the cetacean brain continues to be shaped by water temperature in extant cetaceans. The alterations in cetacean brain structure, function and scaling, combined with the imperative of producing offspring that can withstand the rate of heat loss experienced in water, within the genetic confines of eutherian mammal reproductive constraints, provides an explanation for the evolution of the large size of the cetacean brain. These observations provide an alternative to the widely held belief of a correlation between brain size and intelligence in cetaceans.

The Paleogene (Paleocene–Oligocene) fossil record of birds in Europe is reviewed and recent and fossil taxa are placed into a phylogenetic framework, based on published cladistic analyses. The pre-Oligocene European avifauna is characterized by the complete absence of passeriform birds, which today are the most diverse and abundant avian taxon. Representatives of small non-passeriform perching birds thus probably had similar ecological niches before the Oligocene to those filled by modern passerines. The occurrence of passerines towards the Lower Oligocene appears to have had a major impact on these birds, and the surviving crown-group members of many small arboreal Eocene taxa show highly specialized feeding strategies not found or rare in passeriform birds. It is detailed that no crown-group members of modern ‘families’ are known from pre-Oligocene deposits of Europe, or anywhere else. The phylogenetic position of Paleogene birds thus indicates that diversification of the crown-groups of modern avian ‘families’ did not take place before the Oligocene, irrespective of their relative position within Neornithes (crown-group birds). The Paleogene fossil record of birds does not even support crown-group diversification of Galliformes, one of the most basal taxa of neognathous birds, before the Oligocene, and recent molecular studies that dated diversification of galliform crown-group taxa into the Middle Cretaceous are shown to be based on an incorrect interpretation of the fossil taxa used for molecular clock calibrations. Several taxa that occur in the Paleogene of Europe have a very different distribution than their closest extant relatives. The modern survivors of these Paleogene lineages are not evenly distributed over the continents, and especially the great number of taxa that are today restricted to South and Central America is noteworthy. The occurrence of stem-lineage representatives of many taxa that today have a restricted Southern Hemisphere distribution conflicts with recent hypotheses on a Cretaceous vicariant origin of these taxa, which were deduced from the geographical distribution of the basal crown-group members.

A number of taxonomically diverse species of araneoid spiders adorn their orb-webs with conspicuous silk structures, called decorations or stabilimenta. The function of these decorations remains controversial and several explanations have been suggested. These include: (1) stabilising and strengthening the web; (2) hiding and concealing the spider from predators; (3) preventing web damage by larger animals, such as birds; (4) increasing foraging success; or (5) providing a sunshield. Additionally, they may have no specific function and are a consequence of stress or silk regulation. This review evaluates the strength of these explanations based on the evidence. The foraging function has received most supporting evidence, derived from both correlative field studies and experimental manipulations. This contrasts with the evidence provided for other functional explanations, which have not been tested as extensively. A phylogenetic analysis of the different decoration patterns suggests that the different types of decorations are as evolutionary labile as the decorations themselves: the analysis shows little homology and numerous convergences and independent gains. Therefore, it is possible that different types of decorations have different functions, and this can only be resolved by improved species phylogenies, and a combination of experimental and ultimately comparative analyses.