Coevolution articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Host-parasite coevolution can lead to arms races favouring novel immunogenetic alleles or the maintenance of diversity in a balanced polymorphism. Here, Lighten et al. combine data on MHC diversity across three guppy species and simulations to show that polymorphisms of immunogenetic supertypes may persist even as alleles within supertypes are involved in an arms race.

    • Jackie Lighten
    • , Alexander S. T. Papadopulos
    •  & Cock van Oosterhout

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Arms races between phage and bacteria are well known from lab experiments, but insight from field systems is limited. Here, the authors show changes in the resistance and CRISPR loci of bacteria and the infectivity, host range and genome size of phage over multiple years in an aquaculture environment.

    • Elina Laanto
    • , Ville Hoikkala
    •  & Lotta-Riina Sundberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hosts vary in how dependent they are on their beneficial symbionts. Here, Fisher and colleagues analyse the results of symbiont-removal experiments from 106 symbioses in a phylogenetic context and show that host dependence is associated with symbiont transmission mode, function, and genome size.

    • Roberta M. Fisher
    • , Lee M. Henry
    •  & Stuart A. West

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Attine ants, including the leaf-cutting ants, cultivate fungi as their sole source of food. Here, Nygaard et al. use whole genome and transcriptome sequences from seven ant species and their fungal cultivars to reconstruct the reciprocal genetic changes underlying the evolution of the ant-fungus mutualism.

    • Sanne Nygaard
    • , Haofu Hu
    •  & Jacobus J. Boomsma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Killer whales have evolved into specialized ecotypes based on hunting strategies and ecological niches. Here, Andrew Foote and colleagues sequenced the whole genome of individual killer whales representing 5 different ecotypes from North Pacific and Antarctic, and show expansion of small founder groups to adapt to specific ecological niches.

    • Andrew D. Foote
    • , Nagarjun Vijay
    •  & Jochen B.W. Wolf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Foraging is energetically demanding for animals like hawkmoths that feed while flying. Here, Haverkamp et al. show that Manduca sexta has an innate preference for feeding on species of Nicotianawhose flower corolla length best matches the length of their proboscis, which allowed more efficient foraging and yielded the highest caloric gain.

    • Alexander Haverkamp
    • , Julia Bing
    •  & Markus Knaden

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nitrogen fixation in oceans is facilitated by associations between marine phytoplankton and cyanobacteria such as UCYN-A. Here, Cornejo-Castillo et al. show that UCYN-A diversified in the late Cretaceous under strong purifying selection to become lineage-specific symbiont partners with different prymnesiophytes.

    • Francisco M. Cornejo-Castillo
    • , Ana M. Cabello
    •  & Silvia G. Acinas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mutualistic interactions involve trading benefits between cooperative species. Here, the authors show that restricting the resource acquisition of a mutualistic partner can increase mutualism by promoting resource trade, which suggests that conflict may lead to increased cooperation.

    • Gregory A. K. Wyatt
    • , E. Toby Kiers
    •  & Stuart A. West

  • Article |

    Oldowan stone tool-making might have influenced the evolution of human language and teaching. Here the authors show that transmission of Oldowan tool-making skills improves with teaching and language, suggesting that hominin reliance on stone tool-making generated selection for teaching and language.

    • T. J. H. Morgan
    • , N. T. Uomini
    •  & K. N. Laland

  • Article |

    The role of predator evolution in eco-evolutionary dynamics has received less attention than that of prey. Here, Hiltunen and Becks show that prey anti-predator traits evolve faster and are more variable in the presence of co-evolved predators, resulting in altered community dynamics.

    • Teppo Hiltunen
    •  & Lutz Becks

  • Article |

    Insertion sequences are transposable elements that are found in the genomes of many bacteria. Here, the authors identify an enhancer element that results in a high frequency of excision of insertion elements, and suggest that the excision enhancer element coevolved with the insertion sequences.

    • Masahiro Kusumoto
    • , Tadasuke Ooka
    •  & Tetsuya Hayashi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Female water striders have evolved a strategy to control the frequency of copulation. In this article, male water striders are shown to attract predators during copulation to coerce the female into yielding more quickly. These findings demonstrate how adaptive behaviour may be influenced by predation.

    • Chang S. Han
    •  & Piotr G. Jablonski

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