Volume 8 Issue 1, January 2024

For the concept of nature positive to succeed as the lodestar for international action on biodiversity conservation, it must build upon lessons learned from the application of the mitigation hierarchy — or risk becoming mere greenwash.

Microbiomes show dynamic compositions and behaviours. The prediction of microbiome dynamics over time has proven difficult. Now, in an open system with relatively controlled environmental constraints, it is possible to correctly predict the future composition and dynamics of a resident microbial community.

Humans are considered to be altricial (strongly underdeveloped at birth) with respect to other primates, but this observation is driven by the strong postnatal enlargement of human brains. We inferred that the developmental stage of human brains at birth does not differ substantially from that of other fossil hominins.

Using deep learning to identify the assembly rules of microbial communities from different habitats, the authors develop a framework to quantify and predict the community-specific keystoneness of each species in any microbiome sample.

Using high-resolution multi-omic data from biological wastewater treatment plants, the authors develop a method to forecast microbial community composition and function; the forecasting is accurate for 3 yr into the future.

A compilation of survey data from pre- and post-2000 for 42 raptor species across parts of West, Central, East and southern Africa shows 88% of species in population decline and reveals trends across regions, protected areas and species size.

Nitrogen isotopic measurements from fossilized cycad leaves and ancestral state reconstructions suggest that N₂-fixing symbiosis arose independently in the lineages leading to extant cycads at some point during or after the Jurassic.

The authors use a long-term evolve-and-resequence experiment in the flour beetle Tribolium castaneum to identify the genetic basis for variation in development time, finding that a deletion upstream of the enzyme Cyp18a1 is a main target of selection, and this allele accelerates development but trades off with fecundity.

The authors investigate the genetic basis of inter-sexual mimicry in Ischnura elegans damselflies, where females are polymorphic and one female morph mimics males. By combining genomic, transcriptomic and phylogenetic evidence, they identify a causal locus and structural variants associated with the evolution of female polymorphism and male mimicry in this species.

The authors used multiple lines of evidence including behavioural assays, quantitative genetics and transcriptomics to explore schooling behaviour in guppies. Both genomic and transcriptomic analyses indicated that genes involved in neuron migration and synaptic function played key roles in the evolution of schooling behaviour.

A combination of phylogenetic analysis and functional assays reveals surprising diversity of taste receptors in the ancestors of vertebrates and their complex evolutionary history.

Using a new phylogeny of Pseudosuchia (crocodile-line archosaurs), the authors use diversification analyses and information theory to show that the interplay of abiotic and biotic processes over hundreds of millions of years shaped evolutionary history and diversification dynamics in this clade.

Humans have the highest evolutionary rate towards becoming more altricial across all placental mammals, but this results primarily from postnatal enlargement of brain size rather than neonatal changes.

Melanoma cell lines are used to identify the tumour characteristics that increase the chances of drug dependency, and mathematical modelling shows that this can be exploited for treatment using drug holidays with only measurements of total population size required for near optimality.

A spatial analysis of how transportation noise corresponds with ‘redlining’ categories of racial segregation in US cities is combined with a literature review of the effects of noise on urban wildlife.