Articles in 2022

Tracking the behaviour of normal versus microbiome-free honeybees in experimental colonies, the authors show that gut microbiota colonization was associated with an increase in the rate and specificity of social interactions among bees and higher abundances of brain metabolites linked to these interactions.

Analysis of genetic variation underlying an antipredator morphological defence in Daphnia pulex shows that stabilizing selection operates on this plastic trait.

Coevolutionary warfare between bacteria and phage results in the diversification of anti-phage CRISPR arrays among the most successful bacterial competitors

This experimental study shows how the interplay between bacteria-phage coevolution and competition among bacterial genotypes results in increased diversity of bacterial CRISPR immunity.

Analyses of phenotypic variety in Fungi show that fungal body plans diversified episodically over time and appear distinct because of the extinction of intermediate forms, similar to what has been described in animals.

Cnidarians and ctenophores have morphologically simpler nervous systems than those of bilaterians. Discovery and characterization of neuropeptides in a comb jelly and a sea anemone support a common origin of animal peptidergic neurons from digestive cells that could sense their environment.

Nature Positive is an aspirational term that is increasingly being used by businesses, governments and NGOs, but there is a danger that its meaning is being diluted away from measurable overall net gain in biodiversity towards merely any action that benefits nature, argues E.J. Milner-Gulland.

Biochemical identification of neuropeptides in Cnidaria and Ctenophora, followed by analyses of their expression, suggests that peptidergic neurons were present at early stages of nervous system evolution.

Examining drivers of the latitudinal biodiversity gradient in a global database of local tree species richness, the authors show that co-limitation by multiple environmental and anthropogenic factors causes steeper increases in richness with latitude in tropical versus temperate and boreal zones.

A large dataset of aquatic biodiversity across multiple trophic levels from several wetlands in Brazil reveals that biodiversity–multifunctionality relationships break down with human pressures.

Eukaryotic phylogenies inferred from metabarcoding show that marine and non-marine microbial eukaryotes are in general phylogenetically distinct, but that transitions across the salt barrier have occurred hundreds of times, and in all lineages, and are particularly important for evolutionary diversification in fungi.

The authors use a theoretical model along with competition experiments between two aquatic plant species to show that phenotypic plasticity affects the outcome of competition.

Analysis of the species richness and functional diversity among species across 72 lakes finds that both variables are positively associated with ecosystem multifunctionality, but that—for smaller organisms only—these positive relationships break down with increasing human pressure.

A modelling study suggests that the proposed energetic barrier between prokaryotes and eukaryotes may not be relevant to the complexity gap between the two domains. The energetic advantage of early mitochondria was probably small, and eukaryotes likely emerged without the help of an endosymbiont.

Analysing the energetic constraints on prokaryotic cell size, the energetic implications of eukaryotic genome architecture, and the presence of endosymbionts, the authors suggest that mitochondria were not required for the initial origin of eukaryotes, but did facilitate their subsequent diversification and expansion.