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A combination of phylogenetic analysis and functional assays reveals surprising diversity of taste receptors in the ancestors of vertebrates and their complex evolutionary history.
Humans have the highest evolutionary rate towards becoming more altricial across all placental mammals, but this results primarily from postnatal enlargement of brain size rather than neonatal changes.
Using a new phylogeny of Pseudosuchia (crocodile-line archosaurs), the authors use diversification analyses and information theory to show that the interplay of abiotic and biotic processes over hundreds of millions of years shaped evolutionary history and diversification dynamics in this clade.
An agent-based model suggests that bacteria use direct-contact systems for inhibiting competitors when the attacking strain is outnumbered, and long-range diffusion systems when the attacker is common. These predictions are supported by competition experiments with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which also show that strains can use both types of system in conjunction.
Melanoma cell lines are used to identify the tumour characteristics that increase the chances of drug dependency, and mathematical modelling shows that this can be exploited for treatment using drug holidays with only measurements of total population size required for near optimality.
Analysing ten bipartite networks of empirically sampled biotic interactions and the associated species’ spatial distribution, the authors model how network degree distributions can be predicted by accounting for the frequency of co-occurrences between species.
The authors used multiple lines of evidence including behavioural assays, quantitative genetics and transcriptomics to explore schooling behaviour in guppies. Both genomic and transcriptomic analyses indicated that genes involved in neuron migration and synaptic function played key roles in the evolution of schooling behaviour.
Using deep learning to identify the assembly rules of microbial communities from different habitats, the authors develop a framework to quantify and predict the community-specific keystoneness of each species in any microbiome sample.
Nitrogen isotopic measurements from fossilized cycad leaves and ancestral state reconstructions suggest that N2-fixing symbiosis arose independently in the lineages leading to extant cycads at some point during or after the Jurassic.
Using high-resolution multi-omic data from biological wastewater treatment plants, the authors develop a method to forecast microbial community composition and function; the forecasting is accurate for 3 yr into the future.
The authors use a long-term evolve-and-resequence experiment in the flour beetle Tribolium castaneum to identify the genetic basis for variation in development time, finding that a deletion upstream of the enzyme Cyp18a1 is a main target of selection, and this allele accelerates development but trades off with fecundity.
Analysing the evolutionary history of two recent populations of a pathogenic fungus that infects wheat and ryegrasses, the authors show how recombination and selection on standing genetic variation contributed to adaptation to the new hosts.
Screening 100 million random genes, which lack homology to natural sequences, for their ability to rescue growth arrest of Escherichia coli cells caused by the toxin MazF, the authors find ~2,000 hits and demonstrate that one (RamF) confers resistance through interaction with chaperones and induction of toxin proteolysis.
The authors test whether a wide array of marine and terrestrial animal species occupy the full extent of their potential geographic range based on thermal tolerances. They find that many species are underfilling the warm part of their potential range, suggesting that biotic interactions can limit occupancy in climatically suitable areas adjacent to their ranges.
A synthesis of 443 studies across terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems reveals differences in the responses of non-native and native animal species to heatwaves, cold spells, storms, floods and droughts, and prompts discussion of how such extreme events may facilitate success of non-native species.
The authors investigate the genetic basis of inter-sexual mimicry in Ischnura elegans damselflies, where females are polymorphic and one female morph mimics males. By combining genomic, transcriptomic and phylogenetic evidence, they identify a causal locus and structural variants associated with the evolution of female polymorphism and male mimicry in this species.
A brain-cell atlas of a web-building spider and genomic comparisons between web-building and burrowing species identifies preserved ancestral neuron types and candidate neuronal genes that may be involved in the learning and memory pathways underlying web-building and hunting behaviours.
Using phylogenetic analysis of a hopanoid-producing gene in bacteria, the authors establish fossil 2-methylhopanes as lipid biomarkers for aerobic cyanobacteria and reveal the role of cyanobacteria in primary production before 750 million years ago.
A combination of phylogenomics, mouse gut experimental assays and ecological modelling shows how community structure controls the fitness costs and benefits of the type VI secretion system in the human gut symbiont Bacteroides fragilis.
Two Early Upper Palaeolithic genomes of humans that lived 36,000–37,000 years ago in Crimea reveal migration and admixture dynamics against a backdrop of climate change.