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An assessment of coral communities on more than 2,500 reefs across the Indo-Pacific identifies three categories of reef according to their functionality and vulnerability to ocean warming. This categorization reveals a sobering picture of today’s coral reefs, but also provides a foundation for their future management.
Analysis of single-cell gene expression data and genome assemblies of five diverse metazoan species shows a tight link between conserved gene order and its relationship with cell type-specific gene expression.
Life stages in Bacillus subtilis are controlled by regulatory blocks that can be kept or lost across species in response to selection in different environments.
Exposing wild-caught eggs to audio playbacks in the lab reveals that avian embryos can communicate predation risk to their siblings before hatching. This prenatal communication, which possibly occurs through vibrational cues, coordinates the developmental trajectories of the clutch.
A survey of more than 9,000 conservationists in 149 countries reveals that, despite broad diversity in people and ideas, the global conversation community is not divided. Conservation policy will benefit from drawing on this diversity as international negotiations around the post-2020 agenda for conservation proceed.
A novel technique based on isotope analysis shows that, compared to ecosystem type, evolutionary history explains more variation in bacterial growth traits along an elevation gradient. This knowledge could help move microbial ecologists toward improved predictive models of soil processes.
New research suggests that groups of ~130 modern humans at minimum undertook planned expeditions to colonise Sahul via a northern route. However, the necessity of more evidence to test this model reflects a need for change in the way we investigate the population history of this region.
Long-term data on sockeye salmon in Alaska show how warmer temperatures during the juvenile freshwater stage of this species can drive shifts in later life history patterns.
The authors of a new genomic study propose three distinct latitudinal clines of ancestry among modern Inner Eurasians, each built upon successive layers of admixture.
A global analysis of the relationship between photosynthesis and temperature identifies key similarities and differences when scaling from leaves to ecosystems and suggests that carbon uptake by vegetation may be able to adjust to a warming world.
When local crop failures in different regions occur simultaneously, the result can be an amplification of global food production shocks. Better understanding of the role of production synchronicity in historic food system stability is an important step towards anticipating possible future losses.
Three studies presenting genomes and transcriptomes from different life stages of nearly all major lineages of medusozoans present radically different gene expression profiles between life cycle stages and many medusa-specific genes.
The EAT-Lancet Commission proposes a universal healthy diet that could help to limit environmental changes within the planetary boundaries, but further work is needed to adapt this diet to local conditions and limit unintended environmental and health impacts of changing diets.
The reduction in biodiversity after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event did not instantaneously create evolutionary opportunities for planktonic protists. Survivors instead re-diversified in pulses that followed morphological innovations.
An assessment of the taxonomic composition of airborne pollen using targeted high-throughput sequencing may help in understanding environmental and human drivers of the grass pollen season and in allergy prevention and management.
Analysis of Phanerozoic vertebrate community richness suggests there have been constraints on tetrapod diversity dynamics over much of their evolutionary history.
Analysis of genomes, transcriptomes and proteomes from recently diverged rice species provides mechanistic insight into the process of de novo gene origination.
A study of habitat loss associated with global trade reveals growing impacts on bird biodiversity and carbon sequestration. Overall increases in impacts are driven by changing consumption patterns and human population increases — and may be even greater if land-use intensification is considered.
