How can we link genotypic,
phenotypic, individual, population, and community levels of organization so as
to illuminate general ecological and evolutionary processes and provide a
framework for a quantitative, integrative evolutionary biology? We introduce an
evolutionary framework that maps different levels of biological diversity onto
one another. We provide (1) an overview of maps linking levels of biological
organization and (2) a guideline of how to analyse the complexity of
relationships from genes to population growth.
We specify the appropriate
levels of biological organization for responses to selection, for opportunities
for selection, and for selection itself. We map between them and embed these
maps into an ecological setting.