Evolutionary ecology articles within Nature Communications

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  • 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 |

    Climate change is causing many species to shift their distributional ranges. Here, Comte et al.show that, among stream fish, shifts at the leading edge and the trailing edge of the range are influenced by different mechanisms related to individual species traits and their phylogenetic history.

    • Lise Comte
    • , Jérôme Murienne
    •  & Gaël Grenouillet

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The coexistence of alternative antipredatory strategies is poorly understood. Here, the authors show that warning colours lose their effectiveness when passerine birds, their main predators, fledge their young, which suggests that predators’ learning impacts selection for conspicuous warning signals.

    • Johanna Mappes
    • , Hanna Kokko
    •  & Leena Lindström

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The evolution of social behaviour is usually explained by kin selection. Here, the authors show that mutual host exploitation by a parasitoid wasp maximizes the average reproductive success of individual females, which suggests that cooperative brood care does not rely on kin selection in these wasps.

    • Xiuyun Tang
    • , Ling Meng
    •  & Baoping Li

  • Article |

    Modern arthropods present niche differentiation between larvae and adult stages. Here, Liu et al. describe a larval fossil of Leanchoilia illecebrosa, an early Cambrian arthropod from China, and show a feeding appendage, unknown in adults, that suggests that niche differentiation originated in the early Cambrian.

    • Yu Liu
    • , Joachim T. Haug
    •  & Xianguang Hou

  • Article |

    Cardiac function can limit high-temperature tolerance in fish. Here, Antilla et al.show similar cardiac responses to warming for two wild Atlantic salmon populations with different environmental temperatures, which suggests that cardiac plasticity is independent of natural habitat.

    • Katja Anttila
    • , Christine S. Couturier
    •  & Anthony P. Farrell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Large-scale effects of climate on the distribution of insects are unclear. Here, the authors use data from European butterflies and dragonflies to show that light-coloured insect species are favoured in warmer climates, which has implications in forecasting the potential impact of climate change.

    • Dirk Zeuss
    • , Roland Brandl
    •  & Stefan Brunzel

  • Article |

    Reconstructing patterns of diversification of early animals is challenging. Here, Vannier et al.describe complex digestive organs in arthropods from the early Cambrian of China and Greenland and show similarities with modern crustaceans, suggesting that these structures might have promoted ecological diversification.

    • Jean Vannier
    • , Jianni Liu
    •  & Allison C. Daley

  • Article |

    The function of zebra stripes remains unclear as none of the options have been validated ecologically. Here, the authors, matching striping patterns to environmental variables, test the main hypotheses against each other and find that biting fly avoidance best explains the presence of stripes in equids.

    • Tim Caro
    • , Amanda Izzo
    •  & Theodore Stankowich

  • Article |

    Marine cone snails use venom for defence and predation. Here, Dutertre et al.show that cone snails produce structurally and functionally distinct venoms for each purpose and that defence toxins are potent on fish and mammalian targets, suggesting that they have evolved specifically for protection.

    • Sébastien Dutertre
    • , Ai-Hua Jin
    •  & Richard J. Lewis

  • Article |

    Competition can promote genetic divergence and speciation, but empirical evidence for this is scarce. Here, Winkelmann et al.show that competition between cichlid fish in Lake Tanganyika promotes the use of rocks or shells for shelter, contributing to morphological and genetic divergence.

    • Kai Winkelmann
    • , Martin J. Genner
    •  & Lukas Rüber

  • Article |

    Rusinga Island in Kenya is home to important fossil beds, including remains of the early ape Proconsul. Here the authors reconstruct the Early Miocene environment in Rusinga Island, and find that Proconsul lived in a dense closed-canopy tropical seasonal forest, a warm and relatively wet local habitat.

    • Lauren A. Michel
    • , Daniel J. Peppe
    •  & Kieran P. McNulty

  • Article |

    Animal colouration is the product of competing selection pressures. Here the authors analyse the diversity of facial colouration in Old World monkeys and apes, and find that colour patterns are linked to social factors, whereas the different levels of facial pigmentation arise as a result of ecological pressures.

    • Sharlene E. Santana
    • , Jessica Lynch Alfaro
    •  & Michael E. Alfaro

  • Article |

    Persistence of cooperation requires limited spread of defectors, but it is unclear how evolutionary history affects the spread of these individuals. Here, Jousset et al.show that microbial cooperators can only inhibit defectors that are closely related to them, suggesting that evolutionary history can predict the stability of cooperation.

    • Alexandre Jousset
    • , Nico Eisenhauer
    •  & Stefan Scheu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cuckoo eggs mimic those of their hosts to evade rejection. Here, the authors demonstrate that African cuckoo finch females combine both mimicry and a strategy of repeatedly parasitizing the same host nests to increase success by creating uncertainty in host defenses.

    • Martin Stevens
    • , Jolyon Troscianko
    •  & Claire N. Spottiswoode

  • Article |

    Excessive and costly defensive traits sometimes evolve contrary to what is expected based on the individual fitness. Here the authors provide evidence that asymmetrical natural selection explains the evolution of excessive investments in defence against enemies, including autoimmune responses.

    • Mark C. Urban
    • , Reinhard Bürger
    •  & Daniel I. Bolnick

  • Article |

    For parents, sons are more evolutionarily lucrative than daughters if sons get more chances to breed (and vice versa). Kahn et al. find that mosquitofish take advantage of this: they anticipate the future mating prospects of their offspring and bias production towards the sex with greater opportunities.

    • Andrew T. Kahn
    • , Hanna Kokko
    •  & Michael D. Jennions

  • Article |

    It has been thought that the evolution of mammals similar to modern grass-eating horses in South America ∼38 million years ago was a response to the spread of grasslands. This study uses microscopic plant silica fossils from southern Argentina to show that these presumed grass-eating mammals evolved in forests, not grasslands.

    • Caroline A.E. Strömberg
    • , Regan E. Dunn
    •  & Alfredo A. Carlini

  • Article |

    The rise of open-habitat ecosystems in southern South America is thought to have occurred with the spread of hypsodont mammals 26 million years ago. In this study, the fossil record of plants preserved in Patagonia suggests that open-habitat ecosystems emerged 15 million years later than previously assumed.

    • Luis Palazzesi
    •  & Viviana Barreda

  • Article |

    In Müllerian mimicry two or more harmful species share a similar appearance for mutual benefit. This study identifies a large Müllerian mimicry complex in North American velvet ants, where 65 species mimic each other through shared colour patterns gained as the result of independent evolution.

    • Joseph S. Wilson
    • , Kevin A. Williams
    •  & James P. Pitts

  • Article |

    Humans, with their opposable thumbs, are not the only species with tool-related morphological adaptations. This study shows that tool use in New Caledonian crows is facilitated by a straight bill, enabling a firm grip on tools, and an extremely wide binocular field, affording excellent visual feedback.

    • Jolyon Troscianko
    • , Auguste M.P. von Bayern
    •  & Graham R. Martin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Beringian mammoths were abundant 45,000 to 30,000 years ago, but then experienced a long decline in concert with changes in climate, habitat and human presence. This study uses14C dating to trace their spatio temporal pattern of extinction until the loss of final island populations about 4,000 years ago.

    • G.M. MacDonald
    • , D.W. Beilman
    •  & B. Van Valkenburgh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Vascular plants with root systems evolved in the mid-Palaeozoic with symbiotic fungi. Fieldet al. show that in contrast to non-vascular plants lacking roots, the efficiency of plant–fungal symbiosis increased for vascular plants with root systems as carbon dioxide levels declined in the mid-Palaeozoic.

    • Katie J. Field
    • , Duncan D. Cameron
    •  & David J. Beerling

  • Article |

    The cryptic Wood White butterflies,Leptidea sinapis and Leptidea reali, represent a model for the study of speciation. Dincă et al. use DNA and chromosome data to show that this group, in fact, consists of a triplet of species, a result that provides a new perspective on cryptic biodiversity.

    • Vlad Dincă
    • , Vladimir A. Lukhtanov
    •  & Roger Vila

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasmids are present in many bacteria and are often transferred between different species causing horizontal gene transfer. By comparing the sequences of 25 plasmid DNA backbones, the authors show that homologous recombination is prevalent in plasmids and that the plasmids have adapted to persist in different host bacteria.

    • Peter Norberg
    • , Maria Bergström
    •  & Malte Hermansson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent work has shown that the transmission of malaria from mosquito to human is inefficient. In this study, an analysis of published literature is used to understand this inefficiency, which is likely due to heterogeneous biting, where 20% of people receive 80% of the bites.

    • David L. Smith
    • , Chris J. Drakeley
    •  & Simon I. Hay

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