Evolution articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global spatiotemporal patterns of plant diversification are unclear. Here, the authors use a genus-level phylogeny and global distribution data for 14,244 flowering plant genera, finding a negative correlation between spatial patterns of diversification and genus diversity.

    • Dimitar Dimitrov
    • , Xiaoting Xu
    •  & Zhiheng Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) includes several pathogens thought to have originated in East Africa from an ancestor closely related to Mycobacterium canettii. Here, the authors describe a clinical tuberculosis strain isolated in Ethiopia that has typical M. canettii features but is phylogenetically much closer to the MTBC clade, supporting that the emergence of MTBC pathogens is a recent evolutionary event.

    • Bazezew Yenew
    • , Arash Ghodousi
    •  & Daniela Maria Cirillo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The timing of cellular evolution is poorly constrained. Here, the authors used improved molecular dating approaches to study the evolution of the ATP synthase in light of a dated tree of life thereby providing an absolute timescale for cellular evolution including eukaryotic origins.

    • Tara A. Mahendrarajah
    • , Edmund R. R. Moody
    •  & Anja Spang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Studies of the evolution of cooperation often assume information use that is inconsistent with empirical observations. Here, the authors’ research on general imitation dynamics reveals that cooperation is fostered by individuals using less personal information and more social information.

    • Xiaochen Wang
    • , Lei Zhou
    •  & Aming Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Scleractinian corals are important in both shallow and deep ecosystems. Here, the authors use global spatial distribution data with a phylogenetic approach to examine directionality and speed of colonization during depth diversification, finding an offshore-onshore pattern of evolution and that depth dispersion is associated with phenotypic innovations.

    • Ana N. Campoy
    • , Marcelo M. Rivadeneira
    •  & Chris Venditti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pneumococcal vaccination has been shown to promote emergence of non-vaccine S. pneumoniae serotypes. Here, the authors use data from Malawi to investigate whether vaccine introduction also results in changes in metabolic, virulence, and antimicrobial resistance profiles of circulating strains.

    • Uri Obolski
    • , Todd D. Swarthout
    •  & Robert S. Heyderman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To control transposable elements, fruit flies rely on distinct genomic regions called piRNA clusters. Here, new piRNA clusters were identified across diverse Drosophila species, displaying a conserved and specialised role in the control of endogenous retroviruses in ovarian somatic cells.

    • Jasper van Lopik
    • , Azad Alizada
    •  & Benjamin Czech Nicholson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Non-ammonia oxidising Thaumarachaeota lineages are common in acidic soils, but their evolution is unclear. Here, the authors assemble 15 genomes from deeply rooted Thaumarachaeota in topsoils and subsoils, investigating evolutionary divergence in the family Gagatemarchaeaceae.

    • Paul O. Sheridan
    • , Yiyu Meng
    •  & CĂ©cile Gubry-Rangin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ecogeographic rules link spatial patterns in phenotype and environment, potentially reflecting adaptation. This study identifies nine genes associated with body mass variation in song sparrow populations, supporting Bergmann’s Rule and highlighting the role of natural selection in local adaptation.

    • Katherine Carbeck
    • , Peter Arcese
    •  & Jennifer Walsh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Investigation of heterogametic transitions in sex chromosomes is challenging but fascinating from an evolutionary perspective. Here, Hu et al. have identified a transition from an XY to a ZW system in the genus Salix (willows) where both the Z and W chromosomes have originated from the ancestral Y.

    • Nan Hu
    • , Brian J. Sanderson
    •  & Matthew S. Olson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Little is known about how the evolution of gut microbiota is impacted by their surrounding community. Here, the authors examine the evolutionary ecology of the human gut microbiome, modelling resource competition to show that local evolutionary history can impact the structure and function of host microbiota.

    • Benjamin H. Good
    •  & Layton B. Rosenfeld

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The contribution of adaptive radiation to species and phenotypic diversity within major clades is not clear. Here, the authors use morphological and phylogenetic data for 1226 species of frogs, finding that less than half of families resemble adaptive radiation, but that adaptive radiation contributed to 75% of diversity.

    • Gen Morinaga
    • , John J. Wiens
    •  & Daniel S. Moen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Marine Alveolates (MALVs) include important parasites of other protists/animals. Here, using new data from MALV-I, the psammosids, and a new group called the eleftherids, the authors show MALVs, and therefore parasitism in early dinoflagellates, evolved from two distinct free-living ancestors.

    • Corey C. Holt
    • , Elisabeth Hehenberger
    •  & Patrick J. Keeling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Parental care in birds includes diverse behaviours but the variation in care from each parent across the breeding cycle and between species is unclear. Here, the authors study 1533 bird species, finding different patterns across breeding stages, and that species with strong sexual selection or paternity uncertainty tend to show female-biased care.

    • Daiping Wang
    • , Wenyuan Zhang
    •  & Xiang-Yi Li Richter

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors report two fossil lampreys, jawless vertebrates, from the Middle-Late Jurassic fossil Lagerstätte Yanliao Biota of North China. These large lampreys have an extensively toothed feeding apparatus resembling the Southern Hemisphere pouched lamprey, suggesting an ancestral predatory habit and southern origin of living lampreys.

    • Feixiang Wu
    • , Philippe Janvier
    •  & Chi Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Kra-Dai language family exhibits great linguistic diversity and tremendous socio-cultural importance in East Asia. In this study, the authors found that Kra-Dai languages initially diverged ~4,000 years ago in Southern China coinciding with prehistoric demic and agricultural diffusions likely driven by climate change.

    • Yuxin Tao
    • , Yuancheng Wei
    •  & Menghan Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Animals differ remarkably in how parental care is distributed between the male and female parent. Here, the authors use evolutionary simulations to reveal that sex differences in care readily emerge in a characteristic manner that is not captured by current sex role theory.

    • Xiaoyan Long
    •  & Franz J. Weissing

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The evolution of the middle ear in early therians is unclear. Here, the authors report a reconstructed, detached middle ear in a eutherian mammal from the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota, suggesting independent decoupling of hearing and chewing apparatuses.

    • Haibing Wang
    •  & Yuanqing Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Studies on mutant invasion typically assume populations in isolation, rather than part of an ecological community. Here, the authors use computational models to investigate how enemy-victim interactions influence properties of mutant invasion, showing that selection is substantially weakened.

    • Dominik Wodarz
    •  & Natalia L. Komarova

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mutations provide the genetic variability required for evolutionary change. Here, using pedigree-based whole genome sequencing, the authors determine that the Epaulette shark appears to have the lowest mutation rate identified in a vertebrate, providing a potential explanation for slow evolution in the shark lineage.

    • Ashley T. Sendell-Price
    • , Frank J. Tulenko
    •  & Manfred Schartl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Marine food resources are commonly thought to have become marginal food or abandoned altogether with the spread of agriculture in Europe. Here, the authors use biomarkers in dental calculus to track widespread consumption of seaweed and aquatic plants through the Neolithic and into the Early Middle Ages.

    • Stephen Buckley
    • , Karen Hardy
    •  & Maria Eulalia SubirĂ 

  • Article
    | Open Access

    West Nile virus is an animal pathogen that has spread rapidly in Europe in recent years, causing several human deaths. This study investigates the spatial and temporal dynamics of the virus circulation between Africa (its place of origin) and Europe.

    • Giulia Mencattelli
    • , Marie Henriette Dior Ndione
    •  & Giovanni Savini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photosynthesis is thought to be restricted to a few bacterial and eukaryotic phyla. Here, Li et al. provide evidence of photosynthetic abilities in uncultivated bacteria within the phylum Myxococcota, suggesting that some of these organisms may combine predatory and photosynthetic abilities.

    • Liuyang Li
    • , Danyue Huang
    •  & Yinzhao Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The largest increase in marine biodiversity in Earth’s history took place nearly 500 million years ago during a geological period called the Ordovician. This event is well documented based on paleontological data, but its causes are debated. This study uses a numerical model to demonstrate that global climate cooling may have triggered biodiversification at that time.

    • Daniel Eliahou Ontiveros
    • , Gregory Beaugrand
    •  & Alexandre Pohl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How much the environment influences inherited adaptive traits is debated and challenging to demonstrate in mammals. Here the authors performed a multigeneration study that failed to morphologically replicate enhanced wound healing response following ancestral liver injury in rats. However, heritable transcriptional effects suggest transmission at the molecular level, albeit of unclear functional relevance.

    • Johanna Beil
    • , Juliane Perner
    •  & RĂ©mi Terranova

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    A recent study demonstrated the existence of mutations that facilitate access to efficient evolutionary solutions. Here I discuss the implications of this finding and the potential to open a new chapter in the study of evolvability.

    • C. Brandon Ogbunugafor

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite the significance of mosquitos for human health, little research has focused on their phylogeny. Here, the authors present a resolved phylogenetic history of mosquitoes based on phylogenomics showing that these major disease vectors radiated coincidentally with geologic events and the diversification of their hosts.

    • John Soghigian
    • , Charles Sither
    •  & Brian M. Wiegmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reconstructing original fossil colour provides insights into the behaviour of ancient animals but is challenging because phaeomelanin pigments have a poor fossil record. Here, the authors present experimental data that predict the composition of fossil melanins and support the molecular preservation of phaeomelanin in 10 million year old frogs.

    • Tiffany S. Slater
    • , Shosuke Ito
    •  & Maria E. McNamara

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is still no consensus on the factors favouring the evolution of same-sex sexual behaviour in mammals. This study presents evidence that it is a widespread behaviour that has evolved repeatedly in mammals, and that may play an adaptive role in bonding and conflict resolution.

    • JosĂ© M. GĂłmez
    • , A. GĂłnzalez-MegĂ­as
    •  & M. VerdĂş

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While speciation rates vary across regions, the causes of this disparity and its impact on biodiversity patterns still puzzle scientists. Studying South American fish speciation, Cerezer et al. uncover key associations of body size evolution—especially rapid changes in uplands—with accelerated speciation.

    • Felipe O. Cerezer
    • , Cristian S. Dambros
    •  & Catherine H. Graham

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Corral-Lopez et al. use guppies as a model system for the evolution of collective motion. They show that guppies artificially selected for schooling remain highly coordinated across predation contexts and show key changes in brain morphology that likely increase the efficiency of sensory information relay.

    • Alberto Corral-Lopez
    • , Alexander Kotrschal
    •  & Niclas Kolm

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanisms behind the negative effects of social isolation on social species are unclear. Here, the authors examine colonies of carpenter ants, finding that behavioral, physiological, and lifespan changes may be caused by oxidative stress.

    • Akiko Koto
    • , Makoto Tamura
    •  & Laurent Keller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chronic infection with the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa often leads to coexistence of heterogeneous bacterial populations carrying diverse mutations. Here, Zhao et al. use genetic and multi-omics functional analyses to shed light on the multistage evolution of bacterial populations in the lungs of chronically infected patients.

    • Kelei Zhao
    • , Xiting Yang
    •  & Xikun Zhou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Marsupial mammals take much longer to develop than similarly sized placental mammals, though how brain development occurs across these different periods is unclear. Here they show that the neurodevelopmental events of cortical neurogenesis, cell migration and axon extension do not all temporally scale to the same extent.

    • Annalisa Paolino
    • , Elizabeth H. Haines
    •  & Laura R. Fenlon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Genetic bases of grain shape differentiation between the two subspecies of Asian cultivated rice have not been fully elucidated. Here, the authors report GSE9, a de novo gene evolved from a non-coding region of wild rice through acquisition of start codon, contributes to the grain shape difference between the two subspecies.

    • Rujia Chen
    • , Ning Xiao
    •  & Zefeng Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Yaks have been subject to natural selection, human domestication and interspecific introgression during their evolution. Here, the authors have identified genomic structural variations and the linked genes involved in these processes in domestic yaks, to reveal new insight into genetic basis of phenotypic diversity.

    • Xinfeng Liu
    • , Wenyu Liu
    •  & Jianquan Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biodiversity is unevenly distributed across the tree of life, and theoretical work suggests that biological complexity may be influential in forming these patterns. Here, Brinkworth et al. have shown that bird clades with more complex appendicular skeletons tend to have lower extant species richness.

    • Andrew Brinkworth
    • , Emily Green
    •  & Matthew A. Wills

  • Article
    | Open Access

    During evolution, genes can be recruited to new positions to perform novel functions. This study shows one such co-option event, where the reused gene networks are initially interlocked, so that any changes because of their function in one organ are mirrored in the other organs even if they provide no selective advantage, opening the potential for acquiring a novel function.

    • Sara Molina-Gil
    • , Sol Sotillos
    •  & James C.-G. HombrĂ­a

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