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Using synthetic human gut communities and computational modelling, the authors show that increasing the complexity of dietary carbohydrates reduces microbial growth, balances positive and negative interspecies interactions, and reduces community sensitivity to perturbations.
Comparing the brain anatomy of fossil hominins and extant primates, the authors determine that strong covariation between different areas of the brain in Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis evolved under higher evolutionary rates than in any other primate. Strong covariation is present in juvenile and adult H. sapiens, and in juvenile but not adult great apes.
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.
The authors resample a plant–pollinator network that was initially characterized by a naturalist in the late nineteenth century in Finland. They find that only 7% of the original interactions persisted; generally, specialist pollinators disproportionally declined while generalist muscoid flies increased as the abundant pollinators.
Barcode lineage tracking of a competitive mutualism between Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii shows that selection favours yeast mutants that increase the yields of both species and strengthen the mutualism.
Cratonavis zhui, a bird from the Early Cretaceous of China, preserves a combination of non-avialan theropod skull features and a bird-like post-cranial skeleton.
An Indonesia-wide analysis identifies locations for potential mangrove restoration, ranked by scenarios of success likelihood according to biogeomorphology, current and past land use and land tenure, and estimates the restoration costs.