Research articles

The evolution of antibiotic resistance is expected to incur a cost. Here, the lack of an apparent cost during doxycycline resistance evolution is reconciled with evolutionary trade-off theory.

Secondary sexual traits influence reproductive success, but may also be sensitive to environmental change. Here, the authors show that selection on forehead patch size in male collared flycatchers switches from positive to negative depending on spring temperature at the breeding site.

Although marine protected areas are designed to conserve biodiversity, they typically do not account for the conservation status of species within them. Here, the authors identify hotspots of extinction risk among the world’s sharks and rays that require targeted conservation action.

The photosynthetic capacity of forest ecosystems is an important variable in the global carbon cycle. Here, it is shown that older, more diverse forests have less fluctuation between years in photosynthetic capacity.

Analysis of over 1,000 complete adaptive landscapes from 129 eukaryotic species suggests that landscape navigability contributed to the success of transcriptional regulation as a source of adaptation and innovation.

Changes in the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) protein in Drosophila melanogaster are a classic example of molecular adaptation. Here, the authors show that changes in the ADH sequence along the D. melanogaster lineage did not affect function and fitness, which refutes the adaptive role.

Demographic buffering is thought to reduce the impact of environmental variation on fitness. Here, the authors find little evidence that plant life histories tend to be buffered, with certain clades more likely to be demographically labile.

Standard phylogenetic methods produce conflicting results for several parts of the tree of life. Here, a new phylogenomic method is presented, which resolves controversial relationships within the Otophysi freshwater fish and several other recalcitrant groups.

As predators grow, they may occupy different trophic positions by moving up the food chain. Here, the authors identify long-lasting ‘legacy’ effects of younger predator stages that may exceed the impact of adults on community structure.

Laryngeal echolocation occurs in two separate groups of bats, so it is not clear if this is an example of convergent evolution or if those bats that cannot echolocate previously lost the ability. Here, a study of cochlear development in bats and other mammals supports a single origin of echolocation.

Humans and great apes show left-cradling bias but it is unclear how widespread this bias is. Here, the authors show lateralization in interactions between an infant and its mother in 11 marine and terrestrial mammals, which suggests that lateralization has an ancient evolutionary history.

By combining data on fossil and extant Caribbean bats, the authors confirm predictions that island biodiversity across this archipelago should reach an equilibrium value through time, but that this has been disrupted by recent anthropogenic extinctions.

Vegetation patterns may be a useful indicator of environmental gradients. Here, the authors use remote-sensing and field surveys to show that patch-size distribution in drylands is related to different ecosystem multifunctionality states.

One of the main drivers of human-induced biodiversity loss is exploitation of natural resources for trade. Here, the authors identify global ‘hotspots’ of threats to wildlife from international trade that directly link production of goods in one country with their consumption in another.

Phenotypic persistence allows yeast and other microorganisms to endure stress conditions. Here a link is shown between DNA damage and the onset of persistence, resulting in increased genetic diversity in persister cells that could facilitate evolutionary adaptation.