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Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Resurrection of Dormant Daphnia magna: Protocol and Applications
Published on: January 19, 2018
Surprising evolutionary predictions from enhanced ecological realism
Ulf Dieckmann1, Johan A J Metz
1Evolution and Ecology Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria. dieckmann@iiasa.ac.at
Abstract:
A focus on the eco-evolutionary feedback continually operating between a population's evolution and its environment helps to appreciate the generality of ESS theory. Here we illustrate, through a sequence of four examples, how respecting such feedback in the evolutionary dynamics of quantitative traits may result in qualitatively unexpected outcomes. Reviewing existing insights and complementing these with new results, we show (1) that evolutionary matrix games are fundamentally degenerate and allow a natural unfolding, (2) that selection-driven extinction may not be rare in nature, (3) that evolutionary epidemiology should not rely on R0 maximization, and (4) why the occurrence of Hardy-Weinberg proportions generically requires an evolutionary explanation.
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