Volume 1 Issue 1, January 2017

The study of invasive species is burgeoning and involves both the natural and social sciences.

The land sharing/sparing debate has stagnated. Finding a way forward requires that we ask new questions and, crucially, focus on human well-being and ecosystem services.

Major societal problems such as health, energy, food and clean water can be confronted using evolutionary principles, yet this approach is rarely explored. Here, we illustrate how nature's solutions can be applied and discuss the need for evolutionary biologists to inform the general public and influence decision makers.

Translating biodiversity science into policy is the complex challenge taken on by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. We talked to Executive Secretary Anne Larigauderie about how it works and what it hopes to achieve.

We speak to An Cliquet, a professor in the Department of European, Public and International Law at Ghent University, about working at the interface between conservation, biodiversity and law.

Microcosm experiments show that post-invasion evolution of residents and invaders means invasive species effects are even harder to predict than previously thought.

Analysis of bacterial communities inhabiting water ‘tanks’ in the foliage of tropical bromeliads reveals a surprising similarity in their metabolic capacity, despite large variation in microbial taxa.

Plant–insect interactions reveal rapid recovery of terrestrial ecosystems in the Southern Hemisphere after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, at more than twice the rate of contemporaneous Northern Hemisphere ecosystems.

Analysis of environmental DNA (eDNA) extracted from just 30 litres of seawater from the Arabian Gulf provides genetic insights into populations of the largest fish in the world.

The relationship between transcriptional and phenotypic dimorphism is poorly understood, and is based on variably supported assumptions about transcriptional architecture, phenotypic variation and the target of selection.

As well as allowing horizontal gene transfer, the increased copy number of plasmids could accelerate evolution. Here, it is shown that clinically relevant antibiotic resistance evolves faster when the target gene is on a plasmid.

Hymenopteran social insects require heterozygosity at the csd locus for female development. Here, it is shown how balancing selection overcomes founder effects to maintain this heterozygosity and allow the Asian honeybee to become invasive.

Large-scale geographic heterogeneity in extinction and recovery across the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, as indicated by preserved insect-damage of fossil leaves in Patagonia and the Western Interior of North America.

What are the molecular mechanisms underpinning local adaptation? Reciprocal transplant of mustard hill coral from a variable to a more stable habitat demonstrates that populations exhibit phenotypic signatures consistent with local adaptation.

Environmental DNA from water samples can be used to detect the presence and abundance of aquatic organisms. Here, the authors show that it can also be used to obtain population genetic information from whale sharks in the Arabian Gulf.

Successive alleles competing along predictable adaptive trajectories largely governs the rate of evolution of proteins involved in antimalarial drug resistance, with implications for management of antimicrobial resistance in the real world.

The form and function of an organism are often tightly linked, at least in eukaryotes. In contrast, here it is shown using phylogenetic comparative methods that shape and motility are unlinked across a bacterial taxon, allowing increased evolutionary flexibility.

Evolved native species with prior experience of invasives consistently perform better than naive invaders, supporting the emergence of increased biotic resistance as one consequence of evolution during invasions.

Romer’s Gap describes the period with few known fossils when early tetrapods were becoming increasingly terrestrial. Here, five new species, three stem tetrapods and two stem amphibians, are described from a location in Scotland shedding light on the phylogeny and environment of this period.

In protostomes the mouth develops from the embryonic blastophore, whereas in deuterostomes it develops separately. A comparison between two related protostomal and deuterostomal brachiopod species shows the role of Wnt signalling and mesoderm formation in this fundamental dichotomy of bilaterian animal body plan.

Microbial communities in the foliage of wild bromeliads exhibit remarkably stable functional community structure despite large variation in taxonomic composition, indicating that non-neutral processes drive changes in community composition.

Although inbreeding generally reduces genetic diversity, even after 10 generations of inbreeding 37.5% of the planarian worm Schmidtea mediterranea’s genome retains heterozygosity, and is maintained at low recombination rates in the wild.

Phenotypic persistence allows yeast and other microorganisms to endure stress conditions. Here a link is shown between DNA damage and the onset of persistence, resulting in increased genetic diversity in persister cells that could facilitate evolutionary adaptation.

One of the main drivers of human-induced biodiversity loss is exploitation of natural resources for trade. Here, the authors identify global ‘hotspots’ of threats to wildlife from international trade that directly link production of goods in one country with their consumption in another.

Relationships between antibiotic interactions and diversity are often examined in ecologically stable in silico models, but building in biologically realistic features is found to promote coexistence and more diversity than idealized models.

Existing rooting methods to determine ancestor–descendent relations in phylogenetic trees have limitations. A new rooting method called minimal ancestor deviation does not require outgroup knowledge and can be used on any type of data.

Years before they conquered the Internet, cats colonized our sofas. But they haven’t spent the last ten thousand years just snoozing. A new study reveals that tamed cats swept through Eurasia and Africa carried by early farmers, ancient mariners and even Vikings. The researchers analysed DNA from over 200 cat remains and found that farmers in the Near East were probably the first people to successfully tame wild cats 9,000 years ago, before a second wave of cat domestication a few thousand years later in ancient Egypt.