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Using pseudogenes as a neutral reference, the authors examine whether prokaryotic pangenomes have evolved primarily under selection or neutral drift. They show that even rare intact accessory genes are often under selection, providing support for an adaptive pangenome model.
A compilation of survey data from pre- and post-2000 for 42 raptor species across parts of West, Central, East and southern Africa shows 88% of species in population decline and reveals trends across regions, protected areas and species size.
The authors evolved antibiotic-resistant Helicobacter pylori in the absence of antibiotics and presence of DNA from antibiotic-sensitive strains. Horizontal gene transfer mediated the molecular reverse evolution of the antibiotic-resistance gene to the antibiotic-sensitive allele, and the authors used theoretical modelling to determine the evolutionary conditions that promote reverse evolution.
Combining long-term atmospheric CO2 records with satellite observations of vegetation activities across the Northern Hemisphere, the authors identify a weakening trend of the link between spring and summer productivity over the past 40 years.
Remote sensing of vegetation productivity in mangroves and nearby terrestrial evergreen forests shows that mangrove productivity has increased more but also shown more variability in the last two decades compared to nearby terrestrial forests, suggesting they are more vulnerable to coastal water deficits.
The authors compare how grasslands, shrublands and forests differ in their capacity to recover from fires, and how this recovery depends on deviations in water balance caused by drought; they show that the compound effects of fire and drought are less impactful in forests than in non-forests, owing to deeper rooting structures that can maintain access to water.
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.
A spatial analysis of how transportation noise corresponds with ‘redlining’ categories of racial segregation in US cities is combined with a literature review of the effects of noise on urban wildlife.
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.