Volume 3 Issue 7, July 2019

Metastatic disease remains invariably fatal. Until truly curative therapies are developed, can clinical oncology benefit from lessons learned in pest management?

New research suggests that groups of ~130 modern humans at minimum undertook planned expeditions to colonise Sahul via a northern route. However, the necessity of more evidence to test this model reflects a need for change in the way we investigate the population history of this region.

A novel technique based on isotope analysis shows that, compared to ecosystem type, evolutionary history explains more variation in bacterial growth traits along an elevation gradient. This knowledge could help move microbial ecologists toward improved predictive models of soil processes.

A model-based approach allows quantification of lineage-specific speciation and extinction rates on the basis of phylogenetic trees.

The adaptive radiation of notothenioid fishes after the Antarctic glaciation was preceded by rapid genomic evolution and reduced bone density.

Across pre-Columbian Amazonia, the relationship between cultural transitions and climatic trends is assessed.

The authors of this Review discuss cooperative systems across all biological levels, including genomes, multicellular organisms and societies, and develop mathematical models to argue that enforcement is central to the evolution of cooperation.

A survey of 469 faculty members from ecology and evolutionary biology doctoral programmes across the United States finds that, although most respondents report engaging in diversity and inclusion activities at their institution, respondents who identified themselves as non-white, non-male and the first generation in their family to attend college engaged disproportionately more.

A 3,000-year record of capuchin monkey stone tool use shows long-term variability in technology outside of the human lineage.

Drone flights observed by West African green monkeys (Chlorocebus sabaeus) elicited responses distinct from those for known predators, but which were similar to their East African congenerics, suggesting such responses are conserved.

An assessment of global extinction in plants shows almost 600 species have become extinct, at a rate higher than background extinction levels, with the highest rates on islands, in the tropics and for shrubs, trees or species with narrow ranges.

Carbon and oxygen isotope analysis of sediments and soils from hominin locales in Kenya coupled with results from hominin taxa suggest that a dietary shift from C₃ to C₄ resources occurred in the genus Homo circa 1.65 million years ago despite palaeoenvironmental continuity.

A stochastic, age-structured model incorporating hunter-gatherer demographic rates and palaeoecological reconstructions of carrying capacity predicts that a founding population of 1,300–1,550 individuals was necessary to survive the initial peopling of Pleistocene Australia, New Guinea, Tasmania and neighbouring islands (Sahul).

Using stable isotope probing to quantify growth and carbon assimilation rates of soil microbes along an elevation gradient, the authors show that these traits are more constrained by evolutionary history than environmental variation.

A re-analysis of virus diversity in mammals that now takes into account host sharing finds that previous global estimates have been overstated by two orders of magnitude.

Cities can be used as natural laboratories for higher temperatures and CO₂ concentrations. Urban vegetation photosynthetic activity begins earlier, peaks earlier and ends later than in neighbouring rural areas.

ClaDS—a new Bayesian method for estimating diversification rates on phylogenies—performs well in inferring both large and small rate changes, and shows substantial rate heterogeneity within avian lineages.

Potatoes originated in the Andes and were introduced in Europe in the sixteenth century. Using historical genomes, the authors show that European potatoes were closely related to Andean landraces and find signatures of admixture with Chilean genotypes in Europe.

Phylogenetic comparative analysis of Antarctic notothenioid fishes reveals a burst of genomic diversification and evolution of key skeletal modifications before the onset of polar conditions in the Southern Ocean.

RNA-Seq analysis of an 8-year longitudinal study of long-lived bats reveals unique transcriptomic signatures and novel candidate genes associated with healthy ageing.

Palaeoproteomics offers an opportunity to resolve molecular phylogenies especially in contexts where ancient DNA does not preserve. Here collagen sequences resolve sloth phylogenies differently from morphology-based estimates, illuminating the utility of proteomics in systematics.