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Natural and sexual selection are often presumed to act most directly on behavior (e.g., what an animal chooses to do when confronted by a predator), which is expressed within limits set by whole-organism performance abilities (e.g., how fast it can run) that are determined by subordinate traits (e.g., muscle fiber-type composition). A weakness of this conceptual and operational model is the absence of an explicit recognition of the place of life history traits.
Evolutionary physiology is the study of physiological evolution, which is to say, the manner in which the functional characteristics of individuals in a population of organisms have responded to selection across multiple generations during the history of the population.Garland, T., Jr.; and P. A. Carter (1994). "Evolutionary physiology". Annual Review of Physiology 56: 579-621. doi:10.1146/annurev.ph.56.030194.003051. It is a subdiscipline of both physiology and evolutionary biology. Practitioners in this field come from a variety of backgrounds, including physiology, evolutionary biology, ecology and genetics. Accordingly, the range of phenotypes studied by evolutionary physiologists is broad, including but not limited to life history, behavior, whole-organism performance, functional morphology, biomechanics, anatomy, classical physiology, endocrinology, biochemistry, and molecular evolution. It is closely related to comparative physiology and environmental physiology.
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As the name implies, evolutionary physiology is the product of what was at one time two distinct scientific disciplines. According to Garland and Carter, evolutionary physiology arose in the late 1970s, following "heated" debates concerning the metabolic and thermoregulatory status of dinosaurs and mammal-like reptiles. This period was followed by attempts in the early 1980s to integrate quantitative genetics into evolutionary biology, which had spill-over effects on other fields, such as behavioral ecology and ecophysiology. In the mid- to late-1980s, phylogenetic comparative methods started to became popular in many fields, including physiological ecology and comparative physiology. An 1987 volume titled "New Directions in Ecological Physiology"Feder, M. E.; A. F. Bennett, W. W. Burggren, and R. B. Huey, eds. (1987). New directions in ecological physiology. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 364 pp. ISBN 0521349389. had little ecology but a considerable emphasis on evolutionary topics. It generated vigorous debate, and within a few years the National Science Foundation had developed a panel titled Ecological and Evolutionary Physiology.
As a hybrid scientific discipline, evolutionary physiology provides some unique perspectives. For example, an understanding of physiological mechanisms can help in determining whether a particular pattern of phenotypic variation or covariation (such as an allometric relationship) represents what could possibly exist or just what selection has allowed. Similarly, a thorough knowledge of physiological mechanisms can greatly enhance understanding of possible reasons for evolutionary correlations and constraints than is possible for many of the traits typically studied by evolutionary biologists (such as morphology).
Important areas of current research include:
In the United States, research in evolutionary physiology is funded mainly by the National Science Foundation. A number of scientific societies feature sections that encompass evolutionary physiology, including:
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