News & Views in 2018

Imaging of pterosaur skin reveals evidence of coloured feather-like structures, but whether these are homologous with true feathers is open to debate.

Economic analysis of a large-scale restoration project in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest finds that spatial prioritization efforts could provide an eightfold increase in conservation cost-effectiveness.

Analysis of fruit bat colonies reveals that, for members of the same colony, fur microbial communities change in concert.

Rapid evolution of morphological variations is shown to be linked to positions of coral reef fishes at trophic-web extremes. This finding suggests that current fishing practices on coral reefs that target top predators and seaweed-grazing fishes may undermine the potential for future species diversification.

An integration of 20 years of data on fisheries catch and reef habitat characteristics shows how bleaching-induced shifts in reefscapes change species abundances but may not impair total catch capacity.

The presence of Neanderthal DNA fragments in the genomes of modern humans from Europe and East Asia indicates multiple episodes of interbreeding between Neanderthals and the ancestors of both populations.

Statistical modelling from an impressively large genetic dataset traces the historical origins and spread of China’s modern tuberculosis (TB) epidemic. But there is more scope in the future to harness the potential of ancient TB genomes to model its evolution.

Characteristics shared by different plant species can be used to decipher where they are found in nature. A new global analysis indicates that using this code to understand what shapes plant communities must consider spatial scale.

Multiple lines of evidence reveal that annual maximum photosynthesis across the world has been increasing over the past 30 years, adding crucial new information on the processes influencing the land carbon sink and on vegetation’s key role in mitigating climate change.

A coordinated distributed experiment, replicated across multiple labs and multiple taxa, reveals that both resources and predators govern dispersal between habitats, affecting local and regional stability of biological communities.

An intraspecific plant diversity experiment uncovers the mechanistic basis of a positive effect of biodiversity on biomass production, pinpointing it to a single genetic region.

The identification of a set of conserved genes that has had stable expression patterns over 120 million years of ant evolution provides a glimpse into the mechanisms that generate queen and worker castes in ants.

Sponges are believed by many researchers to be the earliest living animal group, but there is conflicting evidence for the timing of their origin. A molecular fossil discovery supports the contention that sponges appeared very early, but starkly contradicts the body fossil record.

Genomic gigantism in amphibians originated through a single extraordinary jump overlying otherwise gradual change; genome size variation is related to both the external environment and life history in frogs, but may not be in salamanders.

When ecological and evolutionary dynamics occur on similar timescales, otherwise inaccessible stable and diverse communities can spontaneously assemble.

Analysis of data from weather radars across the continental United States shows that migratory birds flying further are more likely to survive the journey.

Asymptomatic wild populations of Arabidopsis thaliana have been found infected with genetically diverse pathogenic Pseudomonas strains. New research highlights how little we understand about the eco-evolutionary dynamics of bacterial pathogens in natural plant communities.

Encapsulated synthetic RNA molecules can cooperate to replicate while avoiding parasites.

In many fish stocks, older and larger fish are found in deeper waters compared with younger individuals. This concept of ontogenetic deepening is now proposed to be a result of harvesting rather than a natural phenomenon.

A synthesis of epidemiological, laboratory and economic data provides suggestions for optimal vaccination strategies against foot-and-mouth disease in east African livestock.