Inference in ecology and evolution is still mostly based on significance testing. We summarize problems with this approach and argue that it should be replaced by the adequate description of effect size estimates.

The reasons for the recent global replacement of the Wolbachia wMelCS variant by wMel in Drosophila populations remain unknown. In our study, we investigated the fitness of wild-caught D. melanogaster strains from Portugal at three developmental temperatures in presence and absence of these two Wolbachia types. The endosymbionts had no influence on life history traits that are determined during the development, such as development time, body size and number of ovarioles. In contrast, adult fitness components like oogenesis, fecundity and longevity were affected by temperature and Wolbachia type.

In many animals (like the neriid flies below), the expression of male condition-dependent traits is influenced by both genetic and environmental quality. We show that the environmental component has much more consistent effects on trait expression. Our findings raise questions about the potential for condition-dependent traits to signal genetic quality.

Interspecific variation in both sex allocation and sex allocation plasticity in the hermaphroditic flatworm genus Macrostomum, including among closely related species, suggests that both sex allocation and sex allocation plasticity are evolutionarily labile. Moreover, self-fertilization, but not mating strategy, predicts the evolution of sex allocation plasticity in Macrostomum.

Total number of cocoons produced, hatching rate and number of juveniles, according to each type of trio formed according to the assignment to the known mitochondrial lineages (L1, L2, L3) of the Allolobophora chlorotica species complex.

Rhizobia bearing the hrrP locus can exploit legumes, but a genetic disruption experiment shows that hrrP can also reduce rhizobium fitness (root nodule count) in some genotypic combinations of rhizobia (r1-r5) and hosts (Legume 1-2).

We investigated effects of artificial selection for locomotor activity on the death-feigning behavior, sprint speed, and biogenic amines in the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum. There were significantly differences in death-feigning behavior and sprint speed between selected strains, but not biogenic amines.

From 150 inbred lines of Drosophila melanogaster, donor and recipient populations was selected to perform genetic rescue crosses. The negative consequences of inbreeding depression was alleviated for both egg-to-adult viability and a behavioural locomotor trait in the F₁ and F₄ generations.

Orb weaving spiders, such as the Argiope aurantia pictured, construct adhesive threads. These threads consist of a support line and droplets with adhesive cores. During prey capture, the thread may enter a suspension bridge configuration that requires contributions from both thread components. Suspecting this interdependce, we were able to demonstrate that the stiffness of both capture thread components are correlated when accounting for phylogeny in 16 orb weaving species.

In this paper, I investigate the short- and long-term consequences of genome doubling on the additive genetic variance of populations. I found that polyploidization is associated with an initial decrease of adaptive potential, quickly compensated (less than 200 generations on average) by the better masking of recessive deleterious mutations associated with polyploidy, which compensates for the initial decrease in additive variance.