1.  Introduction: What paths to mean reproductive success of individuals and shifting mean fitness of mammalian populations? -- 2.  Mammals: From humble vertebrate beginnings to global terrestrial dominance -- 3.  Variability of mammalian thermal niches: Differential effects of local and global environmental heterogeneity -- 4.  Robustness and polyphenisms in mammals: ?Core processes?, repatterning, ?constrained variation?, and ?regulatory logic? -- 5.  Learning may generate phenotypic variability in heterogeneous regimes -- 6. Discussion: Stimulus ? Response ? Stimulus -- 7. Synopsis -- References.

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