Zoology articles within Nature Communications

Featured

  • Article |

    Species response to environmental change can have an impact on community assemblages and ecosystem functioning. Here, the authors assess the combined impact of regional land use and climate change on bird functional diversity and find that global changes may lead to uniform species assemblages across Europe.

    • Wilfried Thuiller
    • , Samuel Pironon
    •  & Niklaus E. Zimmermann

  • Article |

    Communicative persistence is a key indicator of intentionality in humans. Here Roberts et al. show that two language-trained chimpanzees can dynamically and flexibly use persistent intentional communication to guide a naive experimenter to a food item hidden in a large outdoor enclosure.

    • Anna Ilona Roberts
    • , Sarah-Jane Vick
    •  & Charles R. Menzel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Locusts are destructive agricultural pests and serve as a model organism for studies of insects. Here, the authors report a draft genome sequence of the migratory locust, Locusta migratoria, and provide insight into genes associated with key survival traits such as phase-change, long-distance migration and feeding.

    • Xianhui Wang
    • , Xiaodong Fang
    •  & Le Kang

  • Article |

    Seahorses are very slow swimmers, yet they are specialized hunters of fast and evasive prey. Here the authors show that seahorse head morphology functions to create a zone of minimum hydrodynamic disturbance, which allows the seahorse to slowly approach the prey, and to position itself within capture range.

    • Brad J. Gemmell
    • , Jian Sheng
    •  & Edward J. Buskey

  • Article |

    Body clocks modulate physiological processes to follow a day–night cycle, but whether animals exposed to constant darkness express circadian rhythms is unknown. Here the authors examine the expression of circadian genes in Mexican cavefish, and find that these resemble a pattern expected from exposure to constant daylight.

    • Andrew Beale
    • , Christophe Guibal
    •  & David Whitmore

  • Article |

    Animal colouration is the product of competing selection pressures. Here the authors analyse the diversity of facial colouration in Old World monkeys and apes, and find that colour patterns are linked to social factors, whereas the different levels of facial pigmentation arise as a result of ecological pressures.

    • Sharlene E. Santana
    • , Jessica Lynch Alfaro
    •  & Michael E. Alfaro

  • Article |

    Acorn worms, or enteropneusts, are a group of hemichordates whose modern representatives are thought to be tubeless. Here Halaynch et al. provide evidence for modern tube-forming acorn worms found in Antarctic benthic communities.

    • Kenneth M. Halanych
    • , Johanna T. Cannon
    •  & Craig R. Smith

  • Article |

    Muscle power limits animal speed, but the extent of the effect is unknown. Here the authors examine the relationship between swimming speed, size and muscle function in the aquatic frog Xenopus laevis, and find that muscle–environmental interactions vary with body size, limiting muscle power and swimming speed.

    • Christofer J. Clemente
    •  & Christopher Richards

  • Article |

    Human activities affect marine predators in complex ways, yet we lack spatial understanding of cumulative impacts across key habitats. Here the authors analyse distribution and movements of eight marine predators, and find that species and human impacts vary across space and overlap within marine sanctuaries.

    • Sara M. Maxwell
    • , Elliott L. Hazen
    •  & Daniel P. Costa

  • Article |

    Being airborne is energetically costly for vertebrates, and migrating birds are expected to spend some resting time on the ground. Here Liechti et al. show that the Alpine swift (Tachymarptis melba) can stay airborne for more than 6 months, implying that this bird can sleep in flight.

    • Felix Liechti
    • , Willem Witvliet
    •  & Erich Bächler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cuckoo eggs mimic those of their hosts to evade rejection. Here, the authors demonstrate that African cuckoo finch females combine both mimicry and a strategy of repeatedly parasitizing the same host nests to increase success by creating uncertainty in host defenses.

    • Martin Stevens
    • , Jolyon Troscianko
    •  & Claire N. Spottiswoode

  • Article |

    Deep-sea coelacanth female fish were thought to enhance genetic variability in their offspring by mating with multiple males. Here, Lampert et al.analyse the paternity of the offspring of two females, and present evidence that coelacanth females are in fact monogamous.

    • Kathrin P. Lampert
    • , Katrin Blassmann
    •  & Manfred Schartl

  • Article |

    The distance that individuals disperse to between birth and first breeding determines the dynamics and genetic composition of natural populations. Here the authors show that in great tits (Parus major), the distance of local dispersal is genetically coupled with exploratory behaviour measured in the lab.

    • Peter Korsten
    • , Thijs van Overveld
    •  & Erik Matthysen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Endothermy facilitated mammalian species radiation, but the events leading to sustained thermogenesis are not clear. Here, the authors report functional brown adipose tissue in a protoendothermic mammal, linking nonshivering thermogenesis directly to the roots of eutherian endothermic evolution.

    • Rebecca Oelkrug
    • , Nadja Goetze
    •  & Carola W. Meyer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The evolutionary origins of the costal and neural bony plates of the turtle shell have long remained elusive. Here the authors show, through comparative morphological and embryological analyses, that the most of the carapace is derived from endoskeletal ribs.

    • Tatsuya Hirasawa
    • , Hiroshi Nagashima
    •  & Shigeru Kuratani

  • Article |

    Vocal learning is a feature that is specific to some species of mammals and birds, including oscine songbirds. Liu et alstudy the vocal, non-learning, eastern phoebe suboscine, and find that it uses the forebrain to control the vocal-motor system, similar to vocal learning oscines.

    • Wan-chun Liu
    • , Kazuhiro Wada
    •  & Fernando Nottebohm

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The saccus vasculosus is a circumventricular organ of the hypothalamus of many jawed fish whose function has remained a mystery for more than 300 years. Here the authors provide evidence that the saccus vasculosus functions as a sensor of seasonal changes in day length.

    • Yusuke Nakane
    • , Keisuke Ikegami
    •  & Takashi Yoshimura

  • Article |

    The Hula painted frog was the first amphibian to be declared extinct, and it has survived undetected for almost 60 years. Here Gafny and colleagues report a surviving Hula painted frog and provide evidence that it belongs to the otherwise extinct genus Latonia.

    • Rebecca Biton
    • , Eli Geffen
    •  & Sarig Gafny

  • Article |

    Modern crocodylian diversity is in decline and sympatry is rare, with usually no more than two or three species occurring in the same geographic area. Here Scheyer et al. identify a diversity peak in sympatric occurrence of at least seven new and previously characterized crocodylian species during the Miocene in South America.

    • T. M. Scheyer
    • , O. A. Aguilera
    •  & M. R. Sánchez-Villagra

  • Article |

    The adaptive significance of predation on conspecifics in non-carnivorous species is unclear. Here Vijendravarma et al. show that predatory cannibalism in Drosophila larvae has hallmarks of a functional behaviour, is genetically variable, and is favoured during experimental evolution under nutritional stress.

    • Roshan K. Vijendravarma
    • , Sunitha Narasimha
    •  & Tadeusz J. Kawecki

  • Article |

    Referential gestures such as pointing direct attention towards an object and have only been observed in apes and ravens. Vail et al. show that fish signal to indicate the location of hidden prey to hunting partners, demonstrating that referential gestures are not restricted to large-brained species.

    • Alexander L. Vail
    • , Andrea Manica
    •  & Redouan Bshary

  • Article |

    Electrophysiological studies in some fish species suggest that proprioception is needed for fin movement. Here the authors test mechanosensory abilities of afferent nerves in pectoral fin rays, and find that the activity of fin ray nerve fibres reflects the amplitude and velocity of fin ray bending.

    • Richard Williams IV
    • , Nicole Neubarth
    •  & Melina E. Hale

  • Article |

    Inhibition of return describes a mechanism in humans and monkeys whereby the visual detection of recently attended objects or locations is impaired. Gabay et al.find that inhibition of return is also present in archer fish, meaning that a fully developed cortex is not needed for this mechanism.

    • Shai Gabay
    • , Tali Leibovich
    •  & Ronen Segev

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Trunk exoskeleton elements of non-tetrapods such as scales and fin rays are believed to derive from the neural crest. Shimada and colleagues use long-term cell labelling methods to show that these elements are actually derived from the mesoderm.

    • Atsuko Shimada
    • , Toru Kawanishi
    •  & Hiroyuki Takeda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exposure to pesticides can disrupt foraging and navigation behaviour in bees. Palmer et al. use electrophysiology to show that two neonicotinoids and an organophosphate miticide cause neuronal dysfunction in the honeybee brain at environmentally relevant concentrations.

    • Mary J. Palmer
    • , Christopher Moffat
    •  & Christopher N. Connolly

  • Article |

    For parents, sons are more evolutionarily lucrative than daughters if sons get more chances to breed (and vice versa). Kahn et al. find that mosquitofish take advantage of this: they anticipate the future mating prospects of their offspring and bias production towards the sex with greater opportunities.

    • Andrew T. Kahn
    • , Hanna Kokko
    •  & Michael D. Jennions

  • Article |

    Biologists have struggled to explain the existence of sex-role reversal since Darwin first formulated his theory of evolution. Liker et al.show for the first time that sex roles are predicted by adult sex ratio in wild populations of birds: sex-role reversal emerges at male-biased adult sex ratios.

    • András Liker
    • , Robert P. Freckleton
    •  & Tamás Székely

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Xenoturbella is a simple marine worm recently suggested to be either a deuterostome or an early branching bilaterian. Nakano et al. report the first observations of naturally spawned eggs and embryos from Xenoturbella, and uncover new insights into the evolutionary history of metazoan development.

    • Hiroaki Nakano
    • , Kennet Lundin
    •  & Michael C. Thorndyke

  • Article |

    Although theory indicates that deception and punishment are successful social strategies, there is little evidence for either in the wild. This study presents the first systematic evidence of tactical deception and punishment of reproductive cheating in a wild primate, the gelada (Theropithecus gelada).

    • Aliza le Roux
    • , Noah Snyder-Mackler
    •  & Thore J. Bergman

  • Article |

    Free-ranging domestic cats cause wildlife extinctions on islands, but their impact on wildlife in mainland areas is unclear. This study presents an estimate of mortality caused by cats in the United States, suggesting that 1.4–3.7 billion birds and 6.9–20.7 billion mammals are killed annually.

    • Scott R. Loss
    • , Tom Will
    •  & Peter P. Marra

  • Article |

    Specimens of the Early Cretaceous bird C. sanctuswith ornamental tail feathers are commonly interpreted as male, and those without as female. In this study, in support of this theory, medullary bone—a tissue unique to reproductively active female birds—is found in a specimen without ornamental feathers.

    • Anusuya Chinsamy
    • , Luis M. Chiappe
    •  & Zhang Fengjiao

  • Article |

    In alloparental brood care, individuals help raise the offspring of others and it is thought that high relatedness between the helpers and recipients is needed. In contrast, Zöttlet al. find that, in cooperatively breeding cichlids, unrelated subordinate females provide more alloparental care than related ones.

    • Markus Zöttl
    • , Dik Heg
    •  & Michael Taborsky

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tuberous sclerosis complex is an autosomal dominant cognitive disorder caused by mutations affecting TSCgenes. Sato and colleagues examine tuberous sclerosis complex mutant mice and find that the behavioural and anatomical abnormalities can be reversed by inhibiting rapamycin-sensitive signalling pathways, even in adulthood.

    • Atsushi Sato
    • , Shinya Kasai
    •  & Masashi Mizuguchi

  • Article |

    Phylogenetic bat studies suggest that powered flight is evolutionarily conserved. Tokita et al.find that bat wing muscles are derived from multiple myogenic sources with different embryonic origins, and that spatiotemporal correlations exist between outgrowth of wing membranes and expansion of wing muscles.

    • Masayoshi Tokita
    • , Takaaki Abe
    •  & Kazuo Suzuki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Some social aphids have evolved to live inside completely closed galls, which presents a waste disposal problem of the honeydew that collects inside the gall. Here, Kutsukake et al.show that the gall inner surface is specialized for absorbing water, removing honeydew via the plant vascular system.

    • Mayako Kutsukake
    • , Xian-Ying Meng
    •  & Takema Fukatsu

  • Article |

    Our understanding of the evolutionary sequence of tetrapod characters is hindered by a limited fossil record of primitive finned tetrapods. This study reports a new stem-tetrapod from ~409 million years ago, which displays morphological features shared by tetrapods and lungfishes, and extends the earliest record of tetrapods by ~10 million years.

    • Jing Lu
    • , Min Zhu
    •  & Tuo Qiao

  • Article |

    Humans, with their opposable thumbs, are not the only species with tool-related morphological adaptations. This study shows that tool use in New Caledonian crows is facilitated by a straight bill, enabling a firm grip on tools, and an extremely wide binocular field, affording excellent visual feedback.

    • Jolyon Troscianko
    • , Auguste M.P. von Bayern
    •  & Graham R. Martin

Browse broader subjects

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Zoology across other nature.com journals