Studying human-specific de novo genes originated from long non-coding RNA, the authors reveal molecular mechanisms that facilitate nuclear export of these young genes, and show experimental evidence for the role of one such gene in brain development.

Modelling reveals large swathes of land in tropical grassy and dry forest biomes that are climatically suitable for commercial plantations of oil palm and would comply with current zero-deforestation commitments, but where conversion to oil palm would, in many locations, cause loss of habitat and biodiversity.

Over the past seventy-five years, long-term population studies of individual organisms in their natural environments have been influential in illuminating how ecological and evolutionary processes operate, and the extent of variation and temporal change in these processes. As these studies have matured, the incorporation of new technologies has generated an ever-broadening perspective, from molecular and genomic to landscape-level analyses facilitated by remote-sensing.

The authors test whether spatial scale (plot, local and landscape) affects the supply of various ecosystem services in grasslands, finding that some services are predicted by plot-level properties while others depend more on landscape-level management.

Social insects often groom nestmates as an anti-pathogen behaviour, providing social immunity. Here the authors show that anti-fungal grooming behaviour by ants selects for the fungus to produce more but less-virulent and less-detectable spores, suggesting pathogen adaptation to social immunity.

Genomic analyses show that two independent fusions involving the same chromosome altered recombination patterns and contributed to reproductive isolation between two Pristionchus nematodes.

Analysing 20,000 plant-pollinator interactions over 3 yr in a fragmented island ecosystem, the authors show that forest edges benefit community diversity and network robustness to extinction in the face of declining forest area.

The authors resurveyed a previously sampled set of mountain transects on five continents, showing that the ranges of non-native plant species have shifted upslope in most locations in just 5–10 years.

Adaptation to new environments often involves changes in gene expression. This study shows a role of ancestral gene expression plasticity in heavy metal adaptation of two independent lineages of Silene uniflora.

The authors compiled body size data from mammal and bird museum collections in North America to show that intraspecific variation in body size, but not mean body size, has increased over time.

Transforming the rapidly growing ocean economy into a ‘blue economy’ based on principles of sustainability, equity and inclusivity is crucial. We contend that marine biotechnology is not on this trajectory and that a more holistic approach for people and nature is needed to bring marine biotechnology into the blue economy.

A visionary and interdisciplinary scientist who brought a fearless passion to everything she did, inspiring all those around her.

Calls to decolonize disciplines and institutions circulate in the scientific community. In ecology, only the surface of the colonial structure has been scratched. We propose that two gaps must be filled to decolonize the ‘decolonial turn’ itself: recognition of decolonial theories produced in the Global South and a deeper historical and socioeconomic analysis of forms of production and validation of knowledge in ecology.

We celebrate Alfred Russel Wallace on the bicentenary of his birth.