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A macroecological view suggests some global drivers of language endangerment and continuity, but a focus on individual languages will be important to stem the tide of language loss.
Using a global analysis of 6,511 spoken languages with 51 predictor variables spanning aspects of population, documentation, legal recognition, education policy, socioeconomic indicators and environmental features, the authors identify predictors of current and future language endangerment and loss.
Advances in spatial biodiversity science and nationally available data have enabled the development of indicators that report on biodiversity outcomes, account for uneven global biodiversity between countries, and provide direct planning support. We urge their inclusion in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
Two analyses of long-read sequencing show that the Winters sex-ratio distorter of Drosophila has been a part of a recent gene family expansion, coupled to the appearance of suppressors, in a genomic arms race driven by satellite DNA.
The Dox meiotic drive system distorts the sex ratio in Drosophila simulans. Here, the authors reconstruct the stepwise emergence, and recent amplification of Dox superfamily genes in parallel with the emergence of autosomal hairpin RNA-class siRNA loci that target subsets of these putative drivers.