Reviews & Analysis

A global analysis of the relationship between photosynthesis and temperature identifies key similarities and differences when scaling from leaves to ecosystems and suggests that carbon uptake by vegetation may be able to adjust to a warming world.

When local crop failures in different regions occur simultaneously, the result can be an amplification of global food production shocks. Better understanding of the role of production synchronicity in historic food system stability is an important step towards anticipating possible future losses.

Three studies presenting genomes and transcriptomes from different life stages of nearly all major lineages of medusozoans present radically different gene expression profiles between life cycle stages and many medusa-specific genes.

The EAT-Lancet Commission proposes a universal healthy diet that could help to limit environmental changes within the planetary boundaries, but further work is needed to adapt this diet to local conditions and limit unintended environmental and health impacts of changing diets.

The evolution of the human facial skeleton is evaluated in the context of its extinct hominin relatives, and the biomechanical, physiological and social influences on its development are considered.

The World Database on Protected Areas has evolved since 1959 to become an essential resource for monitoring global progress in terrestrial and marine habitat protection. This Review illustrates the users and uses of the WDPA, its history of quality improvements and challenges for future development.

The reduction in biodiversity after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event did not instantaneously create evolutionary opportunities for planktonic protists. Survivors instead re-diversified in pulses that followed morphological innovations.

An assessment of the taxonomic composition of airborne pollen using targeted high-throughput sequencing may help in understanding environmental and human drivers of the grass pollen season and in allergy prevention and management.

Analysis of Phanerozoic vertebrate community richness suggests there have been constraints on tetrapod diversity dynamics over much of their evolutionary history.

Parasites’ biological rhythms coordinate their activities with both the external environment and the biotic environment of their host. Here, the authors discuss biological rhythms of both host and parasite from an ecological and evolutionary perspective.

A review of current knowledge of the mosquito and vertebrate host species for Zika virus, mechanisms of vector-borne transmission, and the possible scenarios of recent Zika virus emergence and evolution, including potential spillback from urban to zoonotic cycles.

Analysis of genomes, transcriptomes and proteomes from recently diverged rice species provides mechanistic insight into the process of de novo gene origination.

Changes in species distribution and abundance can be captured using essential biodiversity variables (EBVs). Here, the authors synthesize the data and approaches needed for EBVs that allow monitoring of populations in both space and time.

Integrating fossil and geochemical records challenges the notion that the Ediacaran and Cambrian worlds were markedly distinct and places biotic and environmental change within a longer-term narrative.

A study of habitat loss associated with global trade reveals growing impacts on bird biodiversity and carbon sequestration. Overall increases in impacts are driven by changing consumption patterns and human population increases — and may be even greater if land-use intensification is considered.

Comparative analysis of microexons across bilaterians identifies a new protein domain associated with the evolutionary origin of microexon inclusion in neural tissues.

A game theory study supported by in vitro experimental data shows that drug treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer cells causes the cells to switch between evolutionary games they play among each other. Moreover, the work calls into question standard assumptions on the fitness costs of drug resistance to cancer cells.

A survey of 16S rRNA sequences of the skin microbiomes of amphibians across the globe reveals links between climate and species richness as well as potential bacterial gene functions. The work paves the way for mechanistic studies of how the environment affects microbial community assembly.

Conceptualising the Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor (LECA) is essential for unravelling early evolution, yet there is disagreement over what form LECA took. Here the authors examine four potential forms of LECA: an abstract phylogenetic state, a single cell, a population, and a consortium of organisms.

Evolutionary change in trait variation has the potential to affect the ecosystem tipping points that are of concern in a world undergoing anthropogenic change.