Volume 5 Issue 5, May 2021

Concerted conservation efforts have led to a remarkable recovery of multiple green turtle (Chelonia mydas) populations worldwide. The voracious feeding of these returning populations is radically transforming tropical seagrass habitats in ways that prompt a re-think of the reference state and management plans for seagrass meadows.

Global warming is irrevocably changing coastal marine communities, resulting in community reorganizations that favour generalist fishes that are able to associate with degraded or novel habitats.

It has long been asserted that samples of taxa that span more of the Tree of Life contain more features that humans find useful. This has now been tested at a global scale: across 13,500 plant genera and nearly 9,500 uses, the prediction holds, supporting a macroevolutionary perspective on biodiversity conservation.

A coarse-grained model of bacterial metabolism quantitatively predicts the trade-off between drug-free growth rate and antibiotic resistance evolution.

Correlational selection is selection on the basis of combinations of traits. This Review demonstrates how considering correlational selection through a genomics lens will enhance integration of evolutionary research in different fields.

This Perspective highlights how conservation of intraspecific variation is critical for sustaining nature’s contributions to people.

Maximum levels of global plant phylogenetic diversity capture more human benefits and at higher diversity levels than does random selection of taxa.

Horseshoe bats are thought to be natural hosts of SARS-CoV-2 but it is unclear whether other bat species are potential hosts. Virus–host receptor binding and infection assays, including receptors of 46 bat species, show dramatic variation in susceptibility to SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 infection among bat species.

CT scanning and an auditory bioengineering model are used to establish the sound power transmission and occupied bandwidth of the Neanderthal ear, suggesting similar auditory and speech capacities as those in Homo sapiens.

A comprehensive search for super-archaic introgression in >400 modern human genomes, including >200 from Island Southeast Asia, corroborates widespread Denisovan ancestry in ISEA populations but fails to detect any substantial super-archaic admixture signals compatible with the endemic fossil record.

Comparing pelvic sex differences across modern humans and chimpanzees reveals a similar pattern despite differences in magnitude of pelvis shape dimorphism, suggesting that this pattern did not evolve de novo in modern humans but was present in the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees.

The number of species unknown to science is profound and limits effective conservation of diversity. Here the authors estimate which clades and locations are most ripe for taxonomic discovery.

By analysing the evolutionary relationships of angiosperm species in 63 alpine floras worldwide, the authors find that each of the alpine floras represents an assemblage of more closely related species compared with their respective regional floras.

The authors document unexpectedly high levels of biodiversity in algal habitats between the coral reefs in the Great Barrier Reef.

Using a species generalization index calculated from a global dataset of reef fishes and their habitats, the authors show that generalist species respond more successfully to habitat disruption and are better able to move polewards in response to climate change.

Approximately half a trillion reef-building corals live across the Pacific Ocean, based on estimates of the population sizes of more than 300 species.

The authors demonstrate eco-evolutionary dynamics between the microbiome and a constituent member, which jointly affect fitness in the host plant.

This study develops metabolic fitness models that integrate drug action with evolutionary response to predict growth rates of resistance mutations and prevalent mechanisms of antibiotic resistance in Escherichia coli.

When signalling to attract mates, animals in poor condition could signal less to conserve resources (ability-based signalling) or more to maximize short-term reproductive success (needs-based signalling). Meta-analysis of 147 animal species shows that signalling is predominantly an honest indication of ability, although there is a trend for needs-based signalling when comparing old with young unmated individuals.