Empirical understanding of dispersal evolution is limited, due in large part to the complexity of the dispersal process and the difficulty of quantifying dispersal directly. To move ahead, it may help to focus on universal dispersal traits: propensity—the discrete emigration response distinguishing dispersers from non‐dispersers—and distance. In particular, little is known about the evolution of dispersal distance, including w...

The fate of carbon stored in Arctic peatlands remains uncertain because of the complex nature of the effects of climate change on permafrost and peatland carbon cycling. Expansion and/or shrinkage of Arctic peatlands under climate change also remain unknown due to lack of ground data and difficulties detecting changes in the extent of these ecosystems, meaning that land surface model predictions currently inadequately quantify...

Assessing direct fitness effects of individual genetic diversity is challenging due to the intensive and long‐term data needed to quantify survival and reproduction in the wild. But resolving these effects is necessary to determine how inbreeding and outbreeding influence eco‐evolutionary processes. We used 8 years of capture–recapture data and single nucleotide polymorphism genotypes for 1906 individuals to test for effects o...

A fundamental goal of ecology is to understand how the physical environment influences intraspecific variability in life history and, consequently, fitness. In streams, discharge and associated habitat conditions change along a continuum from intermittency to permanence: Headwater streams typically have smaller watersheds and are thus more prone to drying than higher‐order streams with larger watersheds and more consistent dis...

Source–sink patch dynamics occur when movement from sources stabilizes sinks by compensating for low local vital rates. The mechanisms underlying source–sink dynamics may be complicated in species that undergo transitions between discrete life stages, particularly when stages have overlapping habitat requirements and similar movement abilities. In these species, for example, the demographic effects of movement by one stage may...

Dispersal evolves as an adaptive mechanism to optimize individual fitness across the landscape. Specifically, dispersal represents a mechanism to escape fitness costs resulting from changes in environmental conditions. Decades of empirical work suggest that individuals use local habitat cues to make movement decisions, but theory predicts that dispersal can also evolve as a fixed trait, independent of local conditions, in envi...

Populations optimize the match of phenotype to environment by localized natural selection, adaptive phenotypic plasticity, and habitat choice. Habitat choice may also be achieved by several mechanisms, including matching habitat choice, where individuals distribute themselves based on self‐assessment of the phenotype–environment match. Matching habitat choice is a relatively untested concept, but one that could advance our und...

This study provides data on the genetic structuring of the pipefish Syngnathus abaster in the western Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas. A total of 109 specimens were collected in brackish‐water biotopes. The control region and three other regions of the mitochondrial genome were analysed. The most relevant result was the high genetic structuring found by Bayesian inference ( BI ), maximum likelihood ( ML ) and network analyses,...