Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
A non-parametric framework, including an application to empirical data, is presented for estimating the local structural stability of ecological communities under environmental changes.
Analysis of genomes from bonobo and chimpanzee populations reveals an ancient admixture event between bonobos and an extinct great ape several hundred thousand years ago and suggests introgression of functional genes from the archaic ape into bonobos.
Genome-wide data for 763 individuals from inner Eurasia reveal 3 admixture clines in present-day populations that mirror geography, illuminating the historic spread and mixture of peoples across the Eurasian steppe, taiga and tundra.
Neotropical tree community composition shows opposing successional pathways for wet and dry forests, but as vegetation cover increases over time, trends converge. Selecting species that have similar wood density to early successional communities could improve reforestation prospects.
Analysing the genome of a snailfish from the Mariana Trench, the authors show genetic changes associated with unique morphological and physiological adaptations to life in the hadal zone.
DNA analyses of Mesolithic and Neolithic individuals indicates the British Neolithic transition was mediated by incoming continental farmers, with little gene flow from local hunter-gatherers.
An analysis of the global production of maize, rice, soybean and wheat from 1961 to 2008 reveals that, although production synchronization within these crops has decreased, leading to increased stability, synchrony between crops has increased, resulting in higher instability of global total calorie production.
Analysis of planktic foraminifera dynamics in the wake of the Cretaceous–Palaeogene mass extinction shows that increases in morphologic complexity preceded changes in species diversity and that the construction of new morphospace constrained diversification speed following the extinction event.
DNA metabarcoding is used to survey the spatial and temporal distribution of airborne grass pollen genera over the summer grass pollen season across Great Britain.
Transcriptomic and behavioural analyses of medaka fish demonstrate how photoperiodic activation of the long noncoding RNA LDAIR regulates behaviour in response to seasonal change.
Morphometric analyses of hominid teeth from Early to Middle Pleistocene Java reveal that Meganthropus was a Pleistocene Indonesian hominid distinct from Pongo, Gigantopithecus and Homo, and that molars previously assigned to Homo erectus are more likely to belong to Meganthropus.
A meta-analysis reveals that the presence of exotic species has a modest but significantly negative impact on the ecological properties of native marine communities and identifies the exotic species that exert the most harmful effects.
Historical genealogical data for nearly half a million individuals reveals that moderate fecundity maximized long-run reproductive success in a human population.
Comparing temperatures in the forest understory versus open habitat across boreal, temperate and tropical biomes, the authors show that tree canopies act as thermal insulators that buffer the understory against temperature extremes.
Songbirds are a species-rich group known for their diversified sexual traits. Genomic analysis of 11 songbird species reveals evolutionary strata and shows their role in reshaping the genomic architecture of songbird sex chromosomes.
Taphonomic experiments show that sedimentary flows constrained Ediacara biota preservation and that Ediacaran fossils do not necessarily reflect the external shape of the organism.
Analysing soil and rhizosphere microbial communities across a latitudinal gradient from southern to central Europe, the authors show that the belowground microbiomes of range-expanding plant species become more similar the further they are from their native range.
Using a multifactorial global change experiment, the authors show that warming grassland plots by +3 °C over 6 years accelerates the scaling rate of both taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity in soil bacterial and fungal communities.
Social spider colonies composed of ‘bold’ individuals have greater foraging success than ‘shy’ colonies, but this advantage diminishes as their frequency in the neighbourhood increases.