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The Biological Journal of the Linnean Society publishes original papers concerned with the process of organic evolution in the broadest sense. It particularly welcomes contributions that illustrate the unifying concepts of evolutionary biology with evidence, either observational or theoretical, from any relevant field of the biological sciences. We are especially keen to receive manuscripts on evolutionary genomics.
The Biological Journal succeeded (in 1969) the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, the journal in which Darwin and Wallace published their historic papers on the origin of species in 1858.
Instructions for Authors
Submissions to the Biological Journal are now made on-line using Manuscript Central. To submit to the journal go to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bjls.
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Editor
Prof. J. A. Allen
School of Biological Sciences
University of Southampton
Southampton
SO16 7PX
UK
- Sound reasons for silence: why do molluscs not communicate acoustically?
Geerat J. Vermeij
- Latitudinal clines in body size, but not in thermal tolerance or heat-shock cognate 70 (HSC70), in the highly-dispersing intertidal gastropod Littorina keenae (Gastropoda: Littorinidae)
Hyuk Je Lee, Elizabeth G. Boulding
- A role for ecology in male mate discrimination of immigrant females in Calopteryx damselflies?
Maren Wellenreuther, Elodie Vercken, Erik I. Svensson
- Sex pheromones and trail-following pheromone in the basal termites Zootermopsis nevadensis (Hagen) and Z. angusticollis (Hagen) (Isoptera: Termopsidae: Termopsinae)
Christian Bordereau, Michael J. Lacey, Etienne Sémon, Jean-Claude Braekman, Jean Ghostin, Alain Robert, Janet Shellman Sherman, David Sillam-Dussčs
- Parallel evolution of termite-egg mimicry by sclerotium-forming fungi in distant termite groups
Kenji Matsuura, Toshihisa Yashiro
- Geographical variation in an ant–plant interaction correlates with domatia occupancy, local ant diversity, and interlopers
Megha Shenoy, Renee M. Borges
- Phylogeny, diversification patterns and historical biogeography of euglossine orchid bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
Santiago R. Ramírez, David W. Roubik, Charlotte Skov, Naomi E. Pierce
- Microsatellite allele sequencing in population analyses of the South American cactophilic species Drosophila antonietae (Diptera: Drosophilidae)
Luciana P. B. Machado, Rogério P. Mateus, Fabio M. Sene, Maura H. Manfrin
- The distribution of circularly polarized light reflection in the Scarabaeoidea (Coleoptera)
J. David Pye
- Climate cooling promoted the expansion and radiation of a threatened group of South American orchids (Epidendroideae: Laeliinae)
Alexandre Antonelli, Christiano F. Verola, Christian Parisod, A. Lovisa S. Gustafsson
- Does sympatry predict life history and morphological diversification in the Mexican livebearing fish Poeciliopsis baenschi?
Laura E. Scott, Jerald B. Johnson
- Co-evolution of the premaxilla and jaw protrusion in cichlid fishes (Heroine: Cichlidae)
C. Darrin Hulsey, Phillip R. Hollingsworth, Roi Holzman
- Phenotypic evolution in high-elevation populations of western fence lizards (Sceloporus occidentalis) in the Sierra Nevada Mountains
Adam D. Leaché, Der-Shing Helmer, Craig Moritz
- Thermal effects on reptile reproduction: adaptation and phenotypic plasticity in a montane lizard
Rory S. Telemeco, Rajkumar S. Radder, Troy A. Baird, Richard Shine
- Evolutionary innovations of squamate reproductive and developmental biology in the family Chamaeleonidae
Robin M. Andrews, Kristopher B. Karsten
- Biogeography and diversity among montane populations of mouse shrew (Soricidae: Myosorex) in Tanzania
William T. Stanley, Jacob A. Esselstyn
- Evolutionary history of the bank vole Myodes glareolus: a morphometric perspective
Ronan Ledevin, Johan R. Michaux, Valérie Deffontaine, Heikki Henttonen, Sabrina Renaud
- Why do Anatolian ground squirrels exhibit a Bergmannian size pattern? A phylogenetic comparative analysis of geographic variation in body size
Hakan Gür
- Morphofunctional patterns in Neotropical felids: species co-existence and historical assembly
Miriam M. Morales, Norberto P. Giannini
- Widespread hybridization between the Greater Spotted Eagle Aquila clanga and the Lesser Spotted Eagle Aquila pomarina (Aves: Accipitriformes) in Europe
Ülo Väli, Valery Dombrovski, Rimgaudas Treinys, Ugis Bergmanis, Szilárd J. Daróczi, Miroslav Dravecky, Vladimir Ivanovski, Jan Lontkowski, Grzegorz Maciorowski, Bernd-Ulrich Meyburg, Tadeusz Mizera, Róbert Zeitz, Hans Ellegren
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Sound reasons for silence: why do molluscs not communicate acoustically?
Geerat J. Vermeij
Abstract
Many adaptively beneficial states of form, behaviour and physiology are absent in large parts of the evolutionary tree of life. Although the causes of these absences can never be fully known, insights into the possibilities and limitations of adaptive evolution can be gained by examining the conditions that would be necessary for the forbidden phenotypes to evolve. Here, the case of acoustic communication in molluscs is considered. The production of sound as a warning to predators or as a means to attract mates is widespread among arthropods and vertebrates, both on land and in water, but is unknown among molluscs, even though many derived clades of gastropods and cephalopods are characterized by internal fertilization and by the evolution of long-distance visual and chemical signalling. Many molluscs possess suitable hard parts – shell, operculum and jaws – for producing sound, but most shell-bearing molluscs lack the agility or aggression necessary to cope with high-activity enemies attracted to an acoustic beacon. Their evolutionary background, arising from the generally passive adaptations of molluscs and other animals with low metabolic rates, prevents selection favouring communication by sound, and indeed favours silence. Several clades of shell-bearing gastropods and cephalopods were identified in which sound production has the greatest potential to arise or to be discovered.
© 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 100, 485-493.
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