Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction: What paths to mean reproductive success of individuals and shifting mean fitness of mammalian populations?
1.1 Spatiotemporal variations in microhabitat from molecular to phenotypic levels of organization
2.0 Mammals: From humble vertebrate beginnings to global terrestrial dominance
2.1 Robustness matters: Appearance and early evolution of mammals
2.2 Order Monotremata: Good work ethic, predictable and abundant food, lots of luck
2.3 Subclass Theria (Infraclasses Metatheria and Eutheria): “Tinkering” with contents of a generalized “toolkit”
2.4 The mammalian placenta: The “intimate connection” between female reproductive physiology, offspring heat regulation, and life history strategies
3.0 Variability of mammalian thermal niches: Differential effects of local and global environmental heterogeneity
3.1 Are there general laws of mammalian thermal niches and of thermal tolerance evolvability?
3.2 Is genetic heterogeneity an advantage in fine-grained conditions?
3.3 Spatiotemporal variability in microclimates and macroclimates: Seasonal forests as natural laboratories for theoretical, descriptive, and experimental research on mammalian thermal tolerances
3.4 Thermal tolerances of mantled howler monkeys are preadapted to stressful regimes
4.0 Robustness and polyphenisms in mammals: “Core processes”, repatterning, “constrained variation”, and “regulatory logic”
4.1 Laboratory studies of mammals can contribute to an understanding of robustness and plasticity: Flück’s research program as a model
4.2 Mammalian motor patterns targeting the neck: The “regulatory logic” of molecules and cells
4.3 Stereotyped motor patterns as polymorphisms: An ESS approach to interactions between females of different dominance rank
4.4 Adaptive polyphenism: “Spatiotemporal compartmentalization” of discontinuous phenotypic variation (Nijhout 2003)
4.5 Benefits of group membership: “Information centres”, flexible access to limiting resources, and phenotype-buffering
5.0 Learning may generate phenotypic variability in heterogeneous regimes
6.0 Discussion: Stimulus ↔ Response ↔ Stimulus
7.0 Synopsis
7.1 Coda
References
