The limited availability of resources is predicted to impose trade-offs between growth, reproduction and self-maintenance in animals. However, although some studies have shown that early reproduction suppresses growth, reproduction positively correlates with size in others. We use detailed records from a large population of semi-captive elephants in Myanmar to assess the relationships between size (height and weight), reproduction and survival in female Asian elephants, a species characterized by slow, costly life history. Although female height...

1. Interspecific hybridization is common in plants under natural conditions, but the ecological mechanisms underlying when and how it happens have not fully been understood. 2. Taraxacum calanthodium and T. lugubre are two herbaceous annals co-occurring in alpine meadows of the eastern Tibetan Plateau that share the same pollinators including domestic honeybees during their overlapping flowering times. Because honeybees tend to visit flowers less discriminatively when bee densities are high, we hypothesized that intense apiculture...