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Pollution in urban areas causes higher rates of mutation than in unpolluted areas. This Perspective discusses the effects of these mutations on the health, evolutionary fitness and ecology of urban organisms.
Through genetic and molecular analyses of interspecific stigma–pollen interactions, the authors show that Brassicaceae plants use an integrated pollen discrimination system and a shared pollen rejection pathway to reject conspecific self-pollen and heterospecific pollen. This establishes a mechanistic link between self-incompatibility and speciation in this clade.
In an analysis of how biotic interactions regulate hominin evolutionary dynamics, the authors show that speciation is negatively related to species diversity in Australopithecus and Paranthropus, in the same way that it is in many other vertebrates, whereas the genus Homo is characterized by positive diversity-dependent speciation and negative diversity-dependent extinction.
Analysis of cell types and circuit design of the primary rod pathway in zebrafish suggests that this specialized downstream circuit for rod signalling has been established before the divergence of teleost fish and mammals.
A comparative transcriptomic analysis of eight tissue types in twenty bilaterian species reveals the long-lasting effects of genome duplication on the evolution of novel tissue-specific gene-expression patterns.
A transcriptomic analysis of 8 tissues across 20 bilaterian species reveals that ancestral gains of tissue-specific gene expression were closely associated with whole-genome duplications in vertebrates and the diversification of ancestral tissue types.
Forests are spatially and temporally dynamic, such that forest degradation is best quantified across whole landscapes and over the long term. The European Union’s forest degradation policy, which focuses on contemporary primary forest conversion to plantations, ignores other globally prevalent forestry practices that can flip forests into a degraded state.
Evolutionary biologists should be proud of recent progress in their broad field. We highlight some developments in fundamental questions and the applied use of evolution.
A cell population in the neural plate border region of embryos of ascidians, the closest relatives of vertebrates, has properties similar to those of the neural crest cells and neuromesodermal cells of vertebrate embryos. The evolutionary origin of these multipotent cells may date back to the common ancestor of vertebrates and ascidians.
The volatile compound methyl jasmonate is emitted from plant roots and has been shown to trigger the formation of biofilms of beneficial bacteria in the rhizosphere, which suggests an active role of plants in luring microorganisms to aid them.
This study shows a pluripotent cell population with properties of vertebrate neural-crest cells and neuromesodermal progenitors in ascidian embryos, the closest invertebrate relatives of vertebrates.
An analysis of publicly available viral genomes explores the evolutionary dynamics of host jumps and shows that humans are as much a source of viral spillover events to other animals as they are recipients.
Analysis of publicly available viral genomes shows that humans may give more viruses to animals than they give to us, and reveals evolutionary mechanisms underpinning viral host jumps.