Reviews & Analysis

New details of the social and sex lives of platypodine ambrosia beetles support a controversial link between parental monogamy and complex animal societies.

Microbial communities may often be composed of a wide diversity of taxa that perform similar functions. Here, the authors discuss the roles of function, functional redundancy and taxonomy in microbial community assembly and coexistence.

How biotic interactions change across spatial scales is not well characterized. Here, the authors outline a theoretical framework to explore the spatial scaling of multitrophic communities, and present testable predictions on network-area relationships (NARs).

Craniofacial modelling illustrates the lack of a biomechanical function for the hominin browridge and points to a potential role in social communication.

An 85,000-year-old Homo sapiens finger bone in Saudi Arabia is the oldest directly dated fossil for our species outside Africa and the Levant. This suggests a more prolonged human expansion out of Africa, and along a different route, than previously thought.

New dates for Spanish rock art open up the possibility that Neanderthals were artists, but further evidence is required before we can be certain.

Horizontal gene transfer events — the exchange of genetic material between organisms — can be used to date the timeline of evolution of microorganisms that lack a fossil record.

An audit of recent research on the scales of data collection in ecology highlights the field’s data limitations, which may hinder progress in linking processes across scales.

Human development is restricting animal movement within anthropogenic landscapes, with consequences for population- and ecosystem-level processes.

A conceptual model linking drivers of change to biodiversity loss identifies major gaps in the Aichi targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and provides a mechanism for developing new indicators.

Palaeoproteomics is an emerging field at the intersection of evolutionary biology, archaeology and anthropology. This Perspective provides a best practice primer for researchers, reviewers and editors.

A focus on the sharp edge of manufactured stone flakes reveals increasing control and efficiency over a 2-million-year dataset, and fosters replicable, standardized methods in lithic analysis. But scaling this method up to more complex stone tools may require further thought.

Genomes from hunter-gatherers dated to around 9,000 years ago reveal two early postglacial migrations into Scandinavia: an initial migration from the south and a second coastal migration north of the Scandinavian ice sheet.

Forests that are free of significant human-induced degradation should be accorded urgent conservation priority, it is argued, owing to evidence that they hold particular value for biodiversity, carbon sequestration and storage, water provision, and the maintenance of indigenous cultures and human health.

A duplicated gene in Drosophila melanogaster showcases an example of how sexual antagonism can be resolved.

The concept of ecosystem multifunctionality has emerged from two distinct research fields. In this Perspective, the authors reconcile these views by redefining multifunctionality at two levels that will be relevant for both fundamental and applied researchers.

Open data is increasing rapidly, but data sets may be scattered among many repositories. Here, the authors present an overview of the open data landscape in ecology and evolutionary biology, and highlight key points to consider when reusing data.

The genome of the Amazon molly (Poecilia formosa), a parthenogenetic fish species, shows little genetic decay and a high degree of diversity. The genetic health of this asexual vertebrate is surprising given the accumulation of genomic damage that is expected to follow from asexual reproduction.

Individual differences in behaviour have been of great interest to behavioural geneticists in recent years. This Review examines the genomic tools available to study such differences, and the pitfalls to avoid.

Allowing biogeographical data to evolve at varying rates on a globe, not a plane, reveals new insights into the origin and dispersal of dinosaurs. The method could also be applied to manifold organisms, from humans to influenza viruses.