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The expanding value of long-term studies of individuals in the wild

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 6, pages 1799–1801 (2022)Cite this article

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Over the past seventy-five years, long-term population studies of individual organisms in their natural environments have been influential in illuminating how ecological and evolutionary processes operate, and the extent of variation and temporal change in these processes. As these studies have matured, the incorporation of new technologies has generated an ever-broadening perspective, from molecular and genomic to landscape-level analyses facilitated by remote-sensing.

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Fig. 1: Classic models in the development of long-term population studies of individuals in the wild.

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Acknowledgements

Our individual work has been funded by a wide range of sources including grants from the UK’s Natural Environmental Research Council, the European Research Council (B.C.S. & L.E.B.K.), and the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health in the US (S.C.A.). The long-term studies that we describe here would not have been possible without the extraordinary dedication of hundreds of field assistants, graduate students, postdocs and supportive colleagues.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Ben C. Sheldon

  2. Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Loeske E. B. Kruuk

  3. Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Susan C. Alberts

  4. Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Susan C. Alberts

Authors
  1. Ben C. Sheldon
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  2. Loeske E. B. Kruuk
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  3. Susan C. Alberts
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Correspondence to Ben C. Sheldon.

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Sheldon, B.C., Kruuk, L.E.B. & Alberts, S.C. The expanding value of long-term studies of individuals in the wild. Nat Ecol Evol 6, 1799–1801 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01940-7

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