This book, featuring a superb selection of papers from leading authors, summarises the state of current understanding about the extent of genetic variation within wild populations and the ways to monitor such variation. It proposes the idea that a fundamental objective of evolutionary ecology is necessary to predict organism, population, community and ecosystem response to environmental change. In fact, the overall theme of the papers centres around the expression of genetic variation and how it is shaped by the action of natural selection in the natural environment.

Phenotypic variation is influenced by both genetic and environmental variation. One important source of environmental variation is the maternal effect: influences of the maternal environment on offspring phenotype. Heritable maternal effects have been shown to influence the life histories, behaviour, and population dynamics of a wide variety of plants and animals. They are likely to have evolved as a mechanism for cueing offspring to appropriate development for predicted environmental conditions. This will be the first book dealing with the broad range of maternal effects.