671812 external_news 1704289775 1704289775 James Stroud, assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences, had a problem. The evolutionary biologist had spent several years studying lizards on a small island in Miami. These Anolis lizards had looked the same for millennia; they had apparently evolved very little in all that time. Logic told Stroud that if evolution had favored the same traits over millions of years, then he should expect to see little to no change over a single generation. Except that’s not what he found. Instead of stability, Stroud saw variability. One season, shorter-legged anoles survived better than the others. The next season, those with larger heads might have an advantage. This story builds on Stroud's recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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