Stephen C. Stearns, Ph.D.

Bio | Career | Honors |  Publications |  Some Modest Advice for Graduate Students
 
NESCent Conference Participants

Books
Original research articles in peer reviewed journals
Review articles

Other publications
Papers written by students under my supervision

Books

Stearns, S.C. & R. Hoekstra. 2005. Evolution, an introduction, 2nd Edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

   
     
Stearns, S.C. (Editor). 1987. The Evolution of Sex and its Consequences. Birkhaeuser Verlag, Basel. 350 p.     Stearns, S.C. 1992. The Evolution of Life Histories. Oxford University Press. 248 p.

 
Stearns, S.C. (ed.). 2007. Evolution in health and disease, 2nd Edition. Oxford University press, Oxford. 368 p.     Stearns, B.P. & S.C. Stearns. 1999. Watching, from the edge of extinction. Yale University Press, New Haven. [also in a Japanese edition]

 

Stearns, S.C. & R. Hoekstra. 2000. Evolution, an introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford. [also in a Brazilian Portuguese edition]

2nd Edition

    Hendry, A.P. & S.C. Stearns (eds.). 2004. Evolution Illuminated: Salmon and their relatives. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 560 p.

Publications:

Original research articles in peer reviewed journals:

1.      Stearns, S.C. 1975. Light responses of Daphnia pulex. Limnology and Oceanography20: 564-570.

2.      Stearns, S.C. 1978. Interpopulational differences in reproductive traits Neoheterandria tridentiger (Pisces: Poeciliidae) in Panama. Copeia 188-190.

3.      Stearns, S.C., and R.D. Sage. 1980. Maladaptation in a marginal population of the mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis. Evolution 34: 65-75.

4.      Stearns, S.C. 1981. On measuring fluctuating environments: Predictability, constancy, and contingency. Ecology 62: 185-199.

5.      Stearns, S.C., and R.E. Crandall. 1981. Quantitative predictions of delayed maturity. Evolution 35: 455-463.

6.      Crandall, R.E., and S.C. Stearns. 1982. Variational models of life-histories. Theoretical Population Biology 21: 11-23.

7.      Critchlow, R.E., and S.C. Stearns. 1982. The structure of food webs. American Naturalist 120: 478-499.

8.      Hilborn, R., and S.C.  Stearns.  1982. On inference in ecology and evolutionary biology: the problem of multiple causes. Acta Biotheoretica 31: 145-164.

9.      Stearns, S.C.  1983.  The evolution of life-history traits in mosquito fish since their introduction to Hawaii in 1905: rates of evolution, heritabilities, and developmental plasticity.  American Zoologist23: 65-76.

10.  Stearns, S.C. 1983.  A natural experiment in life-history evolution: field data on the introduction of mosquito fish, Gambusia affinis, to Hawaii. Evolution. 37: 601-617.

11.  Stearns, S.C. 1983.  The genetic basis of differences in life-history traits among six stocks of mosquito fish (Gambusia affinis) that shared ancestors in 1905. Evolution. 37: 618-627.

12.  Stearns, S.C. 1983. A tractable model system in which social deprivation early in life leads to behavior-mediated functional sterility: The mosquito fish, Gambusia affinis. Animal Behavior 31: 950-951.

13.  Stearns, S.C. 1983. The influence of size and phylogeny on patterns of covariation in the life-history traits of mammals. Oikos 41: 173-87.

14.  Stearns, S.C.  1984. The effects of size and phylogeny on patterns of covariation in the life-history traits of reptiles. American Naturalist 123: 56-72:

15.  Stearns, S.C. 1984. Heritability estimates for age- and length-at-maturity in two populations of mosquito fish that shared ancestors in 1905. Evolution 38: 368-75.

16.  Stearns, S.C., and J. Koella. 1986.  The evolution of phenotypic plasticity in life-history traits:   Predictions for norms of reaction for age- and size-at-maturity.  Evolution 40: 893-913.

17.  Gebhardt, M.D., and S.C. Stearns. 1988.  Reaction norms for age and size at eclosion in Drosophila mercatorum. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 1: 335-354.

18.  Kozlowski, J., and S.C. Stearns. 1989.  Hypotheses for the production of excess zygotes: Models of risk-aversion and progeny choice.  Evolution 43: 1369-1377.

19.  Hillesheim, E., and S.C. Stearns. 1992. Correlated responses in life-history traits to artificial selection for body weight in Drosophila melanogater. Evolution 46: 745-52.

20.  Gebhardt, M.D., and S.C. Stearns. 1992.  Phenotypic plasticity for life history traits in Drosophila melanogaster.  III. Effect of the environment on genetic parameters. Genetical Research 60: 87-101.

21.  Ebert, D., L.Y. Yampolsky, and S.C. Stearns. 1992. Genetics of life history  in Daphnia magna I. Heritabilities at two food levels. Heredity 70: 335-343.

22.  Kawecki, T.J., and S.C. Stearns. 1993. The evolution of life histories in spatially heterogeneous environments: Optimal reaction norms revisited. Evolutionary Ecology 7: 155-174.

23.  Gebhardt, M.D. and S.C. Stearns. 1993. Phenotypic plasticity for life history traits in Drosophila melanogaster.  I. Effect on phenotypic and environmental correlations. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 6: 1-16.

24.  Gebhardt, M.D. and S.C. Stearns. 1993.  Phenotypic plasticity for life history traits in Drosophila melanogaster.  II. Epigenetic mechanisms and the scaling of variances. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 6: 17-30.

25.  Stearns, S.C., M. Kaiser, and E. Hillesheim. 1993.  Effect on fitness components of enhanced expression of elongation factor EF-1a. I.  The contrasting approaches of molecular and population biologists. American Naturalist 142: 961-993.

26.  Stearns, S.C, and M. Kaiser. 1993.  The effects of enhanced expression of elongation factor EF-1a on lifespan in Drosophila melanogaster.  IV. A summary of three experiments. Genetica 91:167-182.

27.  Keller, L.F., P. Arcese, J.N.M. Smith, W.M. Hochachka, and S.C. Stearns. 1994. Selection against inbred song sparrows during a natural population bottleneck. Nature 372: 356-357.

28.  Stearns, S.C., and T.J. Kawecki. 1994.  Fitness sensitivity and the canalization of fitness components. Evolution 48: 1438-1450.

29.  Stearns, S.C., M. Kaiser and T.J. Kawecki.  1995. The differential genetic and environmental canalization of fitness components in Drosophila melanogaster.   Journal of Evolutionary Biology 8: 539-557.

30.  Blarer, A., M. Doebeli, and S.C. Stearns. 1995. Diagnosing senescence: inferring evolutionary causes from phenotypic patterns can be misleading.  Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B262: 305-312.

31.  Stearns, S.C., and M. Kaiser. 1996.  Effect on fitness components of enhanced expression of elongation factor EF-1a. III.  Tradeoff analysis. Evolution 50: 795-806.

32.  Stearns, S.C., M. Kaiser, and A. Blarer. 1996.  A case study in experimental evolution:  Reproductive effort and induced responses in Drosophila melanogaster.  Plant Species Biology 11: 97-105.

33.  Kaiser, M., M. Gasser, R. Ackermann, and S.C. Stearns. 1997.  P element inserts in transgenic flies: a cautionary tale. Heredity 78:1-11.

34.  Stearns, S.C., M. Ackermann & M. Doebeli. 1998.  The experimental evolution of aging in fruitflies.  Experimental Gerontology 33: 785-792.

35.  Stearns, S.C., M. Kaiser, A. Blarer, M. Ackermann & M. Doebeli. 2000.  The evolution of intrinsic mortality, growth, and reproduction in fruitflies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA 97: 3309-3313.

36.  Gasser, M, M. Kaiser, D. Berrigan, & S.C. Stearns. 2000. Life history correlates of evolution under high and low adult mortality.  Evolution 54:1260-1272.

37.  Ackermann, M., R. Bijlsma, A.C. James, L. Partridge, B.J. Zwaan & S.C. Stearns. 2001.  Effects of assay conditions in life history experiments with Drosophila melanogaster.  Journal of Evolutionary Biology 14: 199-209.

38.  Kern, S., M. Ackermann, S.C. Stearns & T.J. Kawecki. 2001. Decline in offspring viability as a manifestation of aging in Drosophila melanogaster.  Evolution 55: 1822-1831.

39.  Pletcher, S.D., S.J.  Macdonald, R. Maguerie, U. Certa, S.C. Stearns, L. Partridge & D.B. Goldstein. 2002.  Genomic patterns of gene expression exhibit signatures of senescence in Drosophila.  Current Biology 12: 712-723.

40.  Stearns, S.C. & P. Magwene. 2003.  The naturalist in a world of genomics.  American Naturalist 161: 171-180.

41.  Ackermann, M., S.C. Stearns & U. Jenal. 2003.  Senescence in a bacterium with asymmetric division.  Science 300: 1920.

Review articles

1.      Stearns, S.C. 1976. Life history tactics: A review of the ideas. Quarterly Review of Biology 51: 3-47.

2.      Stearns, S.C. 1977. The evolution of life-history traits: A critique of the theory and a review of the data. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 8: 145-171.

3.      Stearns, S.C. 1980. A new view of life-history evolution. Oikos 35: 266-281.

4.      Stearns, S.C. 1982b. The role of development in the evolution of life histories. In J.T. Bonner (ed.), The role of development in evolution. pp. 237-258.  Springer-Verlag, New York.

5.      Stearns, S.C. 1982c.  The emergence of evolutionary and community ecology as experimental sciences.  Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 25: 621-648.

6.      Stearns, S.C. 1985a.  The evolution of sex and the role of sex in evolution.  Experientia 41: 1231-1235.

7.      Stearns, S.C. 1986a.  Natural selection and fitness, adaptation and constraint.  In D. Raup and D. Jablonski (eds.), Patterns and Processes in the History of Life.  Dahlem Konferenzen. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg. pp. 23-44.

8.      Stearns, S.C. 1987b.   The selection arena hypothesis. In S.C. Stearns (ed.). 1987. The evolution of sex and its consequences. Birkhaeuser Verlag. pp. 299-311.

9.      Stearns, S.C. 1989a.  The evolutionary significance of phenotypic plasticity.  Bioscience 39: 436-445.

10.  Stearns, S.C. 1989c.  Tradeoffs in life-history evolution.  Functional Ecology 3: 259-268.

11.  Wanntorp, H.-E., D.R. Brooks, T. Nilsson, S. Nylin, F. Ronquist, S.C. Stearns, and N. Wedell. 1990. Phylogenetic approaches in ecology. Oikos 57: 119-132.

12.  Stearns, S.C. 1990.  The evolutionary maintenance of sexual reproduction: The solutions proposed for a longstanding problem.  Journal of Genetics 69: 1-10.

13.  Stearns, S.C., G. de Jong, and R. Newman. 1991.  The effects of phenotypic plasticity on genetic correlations. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 6: 122-126.

14.  Jones, J.S., D. Ebert, and S.C. Stearns. 1992. Life history and mechanical constraints on  reproduction in genes, cells, and Daphnia.  In R.J. Berry,  T.J. Crawford, and G.M. Hewitt (eds.), Genes in Ecology, 33rd Symp. Brit. Ecol. Soc., Blackwell Scientific. pp. 393-404.

15.  Stearns, S.C. 1994.   The evolutionary links between fixed and variable traits.  Acta Paleontologica Polonica 38: 215-232.

16.  Stearns, S.C. 1997. Biodiversity: A Review of the Scientific Issues.  In J.B. Lachavanne and R. Fuge (eds.), Biodiversity in Land-Inland Water Ecotones.  Paris: Parthenon 1997 (UNESCO/MAB).  pp. 269-275.

17.  Stearns, S.C. 1999. Storie naturali.  In Frontiere della Vita.Volume IV:  341-350.

18.  Stearns, S.C. 2000.  Life history evolution:  successes, limitations, and prospects.  Naturwissenschaften.  87: 476-486

19.  Stearns, S.C. 2000.  Daniel Bernoulli (1738): evolution and economics under risk.  Journal of Biosciences 25: 221-228.

20.  Stearns, S.C. & L. Partridge. 2001.  The genetics of aging in Drosophila.  In E. Masoro & S. Austad (eds.), Handbook of Aging, 5th Ed., Academic Press.  Pp. 345-360.

21.  Stearns, S.C. & D. Ebert. 2001.  Evolution in health and disease: Work in progress. Quarterly Review of Biology 76: 417-432.

22.  Stearns, S.C. 2002.  Life history evolution.  In Frontiers of Life 4: 351-359  (Translation of 78 above).

23.  Stearns, S.C. 2002.  Darwinian Medicine.  Introductory Essay In M Pagel (ed.), Oxford Encyclopedia of Evolution, Oxford University Press.

24.  Stearns, S.C. 2003.  Evolutionary thinking in the medical sciences.  Encyclopedia of the Human Genome, Macmillan, London.

25.  Stearns, S.C., Kappeler, P.M. & Pereira, M.E.  2003.  Primate life histories and future research. Pp. 301-312 In P. M. Kappeler & M.E. Pereira (eds.), Primate Life Histories and Socioecology.  Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago.

26.  Stearns, S.C. & A.P. Hendry. 2004.  Introduction:  The salmonid contribution to key issues in evolution.  In Hendry & Stearns (eds.) 2004, pp. 3-19.

27.  Sultan, S. & S.C. Stearns. 2005.  Environmentally contingent variation.  In Hallgrimsson, B. & B.K. Hall (eds), Variation: A Hierarchical Examination of a Central Concept in Biology.  Academic Press (in press).

Other publications

1.      Stearns, S.C. 1971. Murphy. Limnology and Oceanography16: 1000-1002.

2.      Stearns, S.C. 1972. Models: 2. Limnology and Oceanography17: 500-501.

3.      Stearns, S.C., and R.E. Crandall. 1981b. Bet-hedging and persistence as adaptations of colonizers.  In G.G.E. Scudder and J.L. Reveal (eds.), Evolution Today. Hunt Inst. Biol. Doc., Pittsburgh. pp. 371-383.

4.      Stearns, S.C. 1982a. Reply to Etges.  Oikos 38: 122-124.

5.      Stearns, S.C., and R.E. Crandall. 1984.  Plasticity for age and size at sexual maturity: a life-history response to unavoidable stress.  In G. Potts and R.J. Wootton (eds.), Fish Reproduction, Academic Press, London.  pp. 13-33.

6.      Stearns, S.C. 1982d. On fitness.  In D. Mossakowski and G. Roth (Eds.), Environmental Adaptation and Evolution: A Theoretical and Empirical Approach. G. Fischer-Verlag, Stuttgart. pp. 3-17.

7.      Stearns, S.C. 1983a.  Introduction to the symposium: The interface of life-history evolution, quantitative genetics, and whole-organism ontogeny.  American Zoologist23: 3-4.

8.      Stearns, S.C. 1983g.  Rapid evolution in ecological time.  Bioscience 33: 460.

9.      Stearns, S.C. 1984c.  How much of the phenotype is necessary to understand evolution at the level of the gene? In K. Woehrmann and V. Loeschke (eds.), Population biology and evolution. Springer-Verlag, Berlin. pp. 31-45.

10.  Stearns, S.C. 1984d. Models in evolutionary ecology. In K. Woehrmann and V. Loeschke (eds.), Population biology and evolution. Springer-Verlag, Berlin. pp. 261-5.

11.  Stearns, S.C. 1984e.  The tension between adaptation and constraint in the evolution of reproductive patterns.  In W. Engels (ed.), Invertebrate Reproduction.  Elsevier-North Holland, Amsterdam. pp. 387-98.

12.  Stearns, S.C. 1984f.  Selection misconstrued.  Commentary on Selection by Consequences by B.F. Skinner.  Behavioral and Brain Science 7: 499.

13.  Stearns, S.C. 1986b.  Is there a balance of nature? In W.F. Eppenberger and R. Kopp (eds.), Endzeit? Helbing and Lichtenhahn, Basel and Frankfurt. pp. 121-135.

14.  Stearns, S.C., and P. Schmid-Hempel. 1987. Evolutionary insights should not be wasted.  Oikos 49: 118-125.

15.  Stearns, S.C. 1987d.  Some modest advice for graduate students. Bulletin of the British Ecological Society 18: 82-89.

16.  Stearns, S.C. 1987e.  Some modest advice for graduate students. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 68: 145-150.

17.  Gebhardt, M.D., S.C. Stearns, H. Bachmann and T. Diggelmann. 1987f.  Plasticity of age and size at hatching in D. mercatorum. Drosophila Information Service 66: 56-60.

18.  Stearns, S.C., T. Diggelmann, M. Gebhardt, H. Bachmann, and R. Wechsler.  1987g.  A device for collecting flies of precisely determined post-hatching age.  Drosophila Information Service 66: 167-169.

19.  Stearns, S.C. 1987h.  Evolution und Naturschutz.  Reveue Suisse de Zoologie 94: 625-638.

20.  Stearns, S.C. 1989b.  Comparative and experimental approaches to the evolutionary ecology of development.  Geobios memoire speciale No. 12: 349-355.

21.  Barbault, R., and S. Stearns. 1991.  Towards an evolutionary ecology linking species interactions, life-history strategies and community dynamics: An introduction.  Acta Oecologia 12: 3-10.

22.  Hillesheim, E., and S.C. Stearns. 1991b.  Repeatability of life history traits in Drosophila melanogaster estimated on standard medium.  Drosophila Information Service 70: 86-90.

23.  Stearns, S.C. 1996. Introductory remarks. Ecoscience 3: R3-R5

24.  Stearns, S.C. 2002. Progress on canalization. (Commentary.) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 99: 10229-10230.

25.  Stearns, S.C. 2003. Safeguards and spurs. (News & views)  Nature 424:  501-503.

Papers written by students under my supervision

(I do not put my name on all papers written in my group - only those to which I make a substantive contribution)

1.      Gebhardt, M.D. 1987. Parental care: A freshwater phenomenon? Environmental Biology of Fish. 19: 69-72.

2.      Koella, J.C. 1988.  The tangled bank: The maintenance of sexual reproduction through competitive interactions.  Journal of Evolutionary Biology1: 95-116.

3.      Ebert, D. 1991. The effect of size at birth, maturation threshold and genetic differences on the life history of Daphnia magna. Oecologia (Berlin) 86: 243-250.

4.      Perrot, V., S. Richerd, and M. Valéro. 1991. Transition from haploidy to diploidy. Nature 351: 315-317.

5.      Gebhardt, M.D. 1991. A note on the application of diallel crosses for the analysis of genetic variation in natural populations.  Theoretical and Applied Genetics 82: 54-56.

6.      Valéro, M., S. Richer, V. Perrot, and C. Destombe. 1992. Evolution of alternation of haploid and diploid phases in life cycles.  Trends in Ecology and Evolution 7: 25-29.

7.      Kawecki, T.J. 1992. Young queens of the harvesting ant Messor semirufus avoid founding in places visited by conspecific workers.  Insectes Sociaux 39: 113-115.

8.      Yampolsky, L.Yu. 1992. Genetic variation in the sexual reproduction rate within a population of a cyclic parthenogen, Daphnia magna.  Evolution 46: 833-37.

9.      Ebert, D. 1992. A food independent maturation threshold and canalization of size at maturity in Daphnia. Limnology and Oceanography37: 878-881.

10.  Hellriegel, B. 1992. Modeling the immune response to malaria with ecological concepts: short-term behaviour against long-term equilibrium.  Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B 250: 249-256.

11.  Ebert, D., L.Y. Yampolsky, and A.J. van Noordwijk. 1992. Genetics of life history  in Daphnia magna II. Phenotypic plasticity. Heredity 70: 344-352.

12.  Brett, M.T., L. Martin, and T.J. Kawecki. 1992. An experimental test of the egg-ratio method: estimated versus observed death rates.  Freshwater Biology 28: 237-248.

13.  Kawecki, T.J. 1993. Age and size at maturity in a patchy environment: Fitness maximization versus evolutionary stability.  Oikos 66: 309-317.

14.  Ebert, D., and L. Yampolsky. 1993. Family planning in Daphnia:  When is clutch size determined?  Russian Journal of Aquatic Ecology 1: 143-147.

15.  Koella, J. 1993.  Ecological correlates of chiasma frequency in plants.  Biological Journal of the Linnean Society of London 48: 227-238.

16.  Ebert, D. 1993. The tradeoff between offspring size and number in Daphnia magna:  The influence of genetic, environmental, and maternal effects. Archiv für Hydrobiologie Suppl. 90 4: 453-473.

17.  Richerd, S., Perrot, V., Couvet, D., Valéro, M. & Kondrashov, A., 1993.  Deleterious mutations can account for the maintenance of the haplo-diploid cycle. In Genetics and Evolution of Aquatic Organisms, Edited by A. R. Beaumont. (Chapman & Hall), 263-280

18.  Hellriegel, B., U. Leugger, L. Keller, and H. Zandt. 1993.  Education and science for maintaining biodiversity.  Biodiversity Letters 1: 131-133.

19.  Ebert, D. 1994. A maturation size threshold and phenotypic plasticity of age and size at maturity in Daphnia magna.  Oikos 69: 309-317

20.  Yampolsky, L. Yu., and D. Ebert. 1994.  Variation and plasticity of biomass allocation in Daphnia. Functional Ecology 8: 435-440.

21.  Perrot, V. 1994. Experimental approaches to the evolution of life cycles. Lectures in Mathematics and the Life Sciences 25: 121-134.

22.  Ebert, D. 1994. Fractional resource allocation into few eggs: Daphnia as an example.  Ecology 75: 568-71.

23.  Senn, J., and E. Haukioja. 1994. Reactions of the mountain birch to bud removal: effects of severity and timing, and implications for herbivores.  Functional Ecology 8: 494-501.

24.  Hanhimäki, S., J. Senn, and E. Haukioja. 1994. Performance of insect herbivores on hybridizing Trends in Ecology and Evolution: the case of subarctic birches.  Journal of Animal Ecology 63: 163-175.

25.  Kawecki, T.J. 1994. Mutation accumulation and the evolutionary cost of being a generalist. American Naturalist 144:833-838.

26.  Yampolsky, L.Yu., R.M. Kamaltynov, D. Ebert, D.A. Filatov, and V.I. Chernykh. 1994. Variation of allozyme loci in endemic gammarids of Lake Baikal. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society of London 53: 309-323.

27.  Yampolsky, L.Y.,  and S.M.Scheiner. 1995.  Developmental noise, phenotypic plasticity, and allozyme heterozygosity in Daphnia..  Evolution 48: 1715-1722.

28.  Kawecki, T.J. 1995. Demography of source-sink populations and the evolution of ecological niches. Evolutionary Ecology 9: 38-44.

29.  Kawecki, T.J. 1995. Adaptive plasticity of egg size in response to competition in the cowpea weevil, Callosobruchus maculatus (Coleoptera: Bruchidae). Oecologia 102: 81-85.

30.  Kawecki T.J. 1995. Expression of genetic and environmental variance for life history characters on the usual and novel hosts in the cowpea weevil, Callosobruchus maculatus. Heredity 75: 70-76.

31.  Kawecki, T.J. 1997. Habitat quality ranking depends on habitat-independent environmental factors: amodel and results from Callasobruchus maculatus.  Functional Ecology 11:247-254.

32.  Doebeli, M., A. Blarer, and M. Ackermann. 1997. Population dynamics, demographic stochasticity, and the evolution of cooperation.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 94: 5167-5171.

33.  Ebert, D. 1997.  The evolution and genetics of maturation in Daphnia. In B. Streit, T. Städler & C.M. Lively, Evolutionary ecology of freshwater animals.  Birkhäuser Verlag, pp. 151-178.

34.  Sakwinska, O. 2000.  Trimethylamine does not trigger antipredatory life history shifts in Daphnia.  Limnology and Oceanography 45:988-990.

35.  Sakwinksa, O. 2002.  Response to fish kairomone in Daphnea galeata life history traits relies on shift to earlier instar at maturation.  Oecologia 131: 409-417.

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