Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Directed evolution shows that low expression of the green fluorescent protein facilitates the evolution of cyan fluorescence in E. coli, which can be explained by synergy between the protein’s scarcity and its stability.
A panel of scientists, policymakers and practitioners have used an iterative voting process to collate a list of 15 priority emerging issues likely to affect marine and coastal biodiversity over the next 5–10 years.
Combining field data and greenhouse experiments, the authors show how agricultural management practices like fungicide applications can affect the degree to which arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in the soil provision phosphorus to plants.
Mammals host a diversity of parasites including lice. Using cophylogenetics and phylogenetic comparative methods, the authors show that the main lineages of placental mammal lice had a single common ancestor and find that all parasitic lice had an avian ancestral host.
A multidisciplinary approach, including genetics and behavioural assays, identifies a single gene, CYP4PC1, which integrates both sex differentiation and hormone signalling with sexual attractiveness in the German cockroach.
Biogeochemical analysis of a chronosequence of secondary forest succession in lowland Central Africa suggests that calcium becomes an increasingly scarce and potentially limiting resource with stand age and ecosystem calcium storage shifts from soil to woody biomass.
Competition among species in the coral microbiome has important outcomes in terms of coral health, but little is known about the mechanisms allowing pathogens to gain a competitive advantage. Here the authors show that the pathogen Vibrio coralliilyticus outcompetes commensal bacteria by inducing prophages.
Zebra finches flying in a wind tunnel use both vocal and visual communication to orientate themselves within the flock, and are able to enhance their use of one form of communication over another depending on circumstance.
Previous meta-analyses have found that few ecological time series are actually chaotic; here, the authors use recently developed chaos detection methods and a larger number of time series to show that 30% of studied time series are characterized as chaotic.
In a meta-analysis of studies comparing monocultures to plant species mixtures, the authors show that mixtures increase three different variables related to the phosphorus cycle: soil total phosphorus, phosphatase activity and available phosphorus.
Comparing the regulatory behaviour of naturally segregating promoter variants to randomly mutated promoters, the authors demonstrate both stabilizing and directional selection that reduce variation in phenotype.
Using single-cell transcriptomics, the authors generate a brain cell atlas for the pharaoh ant including individuals of different sexes and castes and show changes in cell composition underlying division of labour and reproductive specialization.
A paleogenome from an approximately 100,000-year-old polar bear shows massive prehistoric, and largely unidirectional, gene flow from polar bears into brown bears at a time of climate change-induced overlap in the ranges of the two species. This admixture event cannot be detected using genomic data from living polar bears.
Using data from 90 GPS-tagged black kites, the authors show that the ability to negotiate lateral drift is strongly selected over the course of the birds’ lifetimes, thereby shaping the abilities of the adult population.
Comparative genomics and proteomics of archaea and eukaryotes are used to explore the evolutionary history of eukaryotic chromatin, including modifications, catalytic functions and relationship with genomic parasites.
Genome-wide data of 16 ancient human individuals from islands of the North Moluccas, Sulawesi and East Nusa Tenggara reveal diverse sources of admixture and support a scenario of multiple dispersals into Wallacea.
Analysing gut microbial time series from wild baboons, the authors show that microbiome dynamics are rarely synchronized across hosts in shared environments but are highly individualized even within the same social groups.
Polar microalgae have high zinc demand. Here, the authors use quantitative proteomics and transcriptomics of polar and non-polar model algae combined with cellular physiology to show that zinc plays an important role in supporting photosynthetic growth in eukaryotic polar phytoplankton.
A high-resolution map of the realized range limit of high-elevation trees across the Himalayas shows that trees are absent from the thermal treeline, determined by growing-season temperature, across the western and central Himalayas, as a result of human disturbance and/or premonsoon drought.
Social living has costs and benefits; here the authors use field studies, experiments and models to show that non-consumptive predation pressure in Trinidadian guppy shoals increases parasite transmission and selects for higher virulence.