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Leveraging independent gains and losses of eusociality, the authors identify complementary signatures of selection in sweat bee genomes, including two proteins that bind and transport juvenile hormone.
Genomic and demographic analyses of the ‘Southern Resident’ killer whales in the North Pacific find that strong inbreeding depression is inhibiting growth of this small and isolated population. The findings help to explain why this group of whales is still declining despite 50 years of conservation efforts.
Theoretical models of foraging efficiency suggest that lunge-filter-feeding marine vertebrates could be as small as 10 kg. However, here the authors show with bio-logged data from filter-feeding minke whales that in practice there are minimum body-size constraints on filter feeders, below which this becomes an unviable feeding strategy.
A meta-analysis of peer-review data from over 300,000 biological sciences manuscripts reveals worse review outcomes for authors from historically excluded groups, and limited data evaluating the effectiveness of interventions to address bias in peer review.
A Bayesian state-dependent evolutionary phylodynamic model (SDevo) quantifies the difference in division rates between cells at the periphery and interior of a tumour. In simulations and using clinical hepatocellular carcinoma data, the authors use SDevo to interrogate spatial patterns in tumour growth.
Focusing on the serial differentiation of the presacral column across 1,136 extant mammal species, the authors find evidence of high within-group variation and an evolutionary trend towards increasing complexity.
The authors incorporate mechanistic information about lizard physiological responses to heat into predictions of trait variation across time and space, finding that the range of functional traits is more constrained in locations where the local climate strongly selects for thermal performance.
The authors sequence genome-wide data from multiple human individuals in southern Spain and find long-lasting genetic continuity. Here, in contrast to regions elsewhere in Europe, a 23,000-year-old individual from Malalmuerzo carries genetic ancestry that connects earlier Aurignacian-associated individuals with western European hunter-gatherers long after the Last Glacial Maximum.
Analysing pesticide residues in pollen and nectar collected by three bee species along a land-use gradient, the authors show that extensive foragers like Apis mellifera have higher pesticide risk than species that forage at intermediate or limited ranges, irrespective of landscape context.
A qualitative and quantitative analysis of 186 biodiversity-related policies in Colombia is used to describe how biodiversity has been integrated into policy domains, which policy instruments are most prevalent and how the policy mix has changed over six decades.
Social insects often groom nestmates as an anti-pathogen behaviour, providing social immunity. Here the authors show that anti-fungal grooming behaviour by ants selects for the fungus to produce more but less-virulent and less-detectable spores, suggesting pathogen adaptation to social immunity.
Genomic analyses show that two independent fusions involving the same chromosome altered recombination patterns and contributed to reproductive isolation between two Pristionchus nematodes.
Analysing 20,000 plant-pollinator interactions over 3 yr in a fragmented island ecosystem, the authors show that forest edges benefit community diversity and network robustness to extinction in the face of declining forest area.
The authors resurveyed a previously sampled set of mountain transects on five continents, showing that the ranges of non-native plant species have shifted upslope in most locations in just 5–10 years.
Adaptation to new environments often involves changes in gene expression. This study shows a role of ancestral gene expression plasticity in heavy metal adaptation of two independent lineages of Silene uniflora.
The authors compiled body size data from mammal and bird museum collections in North America to show that intraspecific variation in body size, but not mean body size, has increased over time.
After assaying the cognitive ability of juvenile pheasants and releasing them into a new landscape, the authors show that pheasants with better memory developed larger home range sizes and more successfully avoided predation at the edges of the home range.
The authors report a specialized obsidian handaxe workshop at the site of Simbiro III in Ethiopia, suggesting that hominins more than 1.2 million years ago took advantage of opportunities provided by changing environmental conditions.