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A Bayesian phylogeographic analysis of vocabulary from 306 Pama–Nyungan languages suggests that the language family rose to dominance across Australia in a process of rapid replacement following an origin in the Gulf Plains region during the mid-Holocene.
High-coverage exomes from 300 central African hunter-gatherers and farmers reveal recent population trends and gene flow, as well as insight into the effects these trends have had on their respective mutational loads.
Targeted enrichment of >1,000 ultraconserved elements and divergence time analysis resolves relationships among 120 major acanthomorph lineages and provides a new timescale for acanthomorph radiation in the wake of the K–Pg boundary.
Stone tools are taken as signatures of hominin behavioural evolution, but we don’t know how exactly they conferred advantages in adaptation. Here a two-million-year dataset of stone flakes reassesses the evolutionary efficiency of this technology.
Little is known about the role of aquatic depth gradients in promoting intraspecific differentiation. Here, the authors present an annotated genome assembly of the roundnose grenadier, a deep-sea fish in which re-sequencing data indicate genotypic segregation by depth.
Secondary foundation species, such as epiphytes, form structurally complex habitats on primary foundation species. A meta-analysis shows that they significantly enhance the abundance and richness of inhabitants compared to primary foundation species alone.
Genome-wide data from ancient and modern individuals in Remote Oceania indicate population replacement but language continuity over the past 2,500 years. Papuan migrations led to almost complete genetic replacement of in situ East Asian-derived populations, but not replacement of Austronesian languages.
Incorporating a grazing module into a global dynamic vegetation model allows the effects of large herbivores to be accounted for. This revised model is applied to conditions in the present and during the Last Glacial Maximum.
The common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) is one of only three obligate blood-feeding mammals. By sequencing both its genome and gut metagenome, the authors provide a holistic view of the evolutionary adaptations that underlie this unusual diet.
The paralogues of a gene duplication specific to Drosophila melanogaster are shown to be essential for male and female gametogenesis, respectively, and to suppress fertility of the opposite sex.
Gene-based predictive models of trophic modes reveal the Asgard archaea are not phagocytotic, and suggest instead that the origin of phagocytosis required an ancestral archaeal input of cytoskeleton components, a suite of bacterial proteins centred around calcium signalling, and a certain degree of innovation.
Detecting selection events shared across human populations is challenging. Here, the authors identify overlapping and shared signatures of positive selection across human populations and connect shared targets of selection with potential biological mechanisms.
Laboratory experiments have shown evolutionary adaptation of phytoplankton to ocean acidification. Here, it is shown that this adaptation is masked in field conditions by pleiotropic effects.
A survey of black-grass occurrence and herbicide resistance on farms across the United Kingdom suggests that resistance drives weed density and that cyclical or combination herbicide application does not reduce resistance evolution.
Asexual vertebrates are extremely rare. Here, the authors sequence the genome of the Amazon molly, an asexual fish, and find few signs of genetic degeneration but clonal polymorphism and high heterozygosity, which might explain the success of this species.
A new Cretaceous arachnid fossil encased in Burmese amber sheds light on the evolution of spiders, as it preserves both primitive and derived features, suggestive of a basal Araneae position.
Two further specimens of Chimerachne yangi preserved in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber shed light on the origin of spiders and the development of their spinning organs.
The marbled crayfish is an emerging invasive species in freshwater habitats. Here, the authors sequence the genome of the marbled crayfish and show that evolution of this decapod crustacean involved genome duplication, triploidy and clonal expansion.
Eusociality evolved independently in Hymenoptera and in termites. Here, the authors sequence genomes of the German cockroach and a drywood termite and provide insights into the evolutionary signatures of termite eusociality.
Here, a biogeographical model reconstructs ancestral locations of dinosaurs, revealing the spatial mechanisms underpinning their lengthy radiation process over 170 million years: initially rapid, movement slowed towards the time of their extinction.