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Understanding the crucial conditions for metabolism in early life is challenging. Using network-based analysis, the authors infer an organo-sulfur proto-metabolic network fuelled by a thioester- and redox-driven variant of the reductive tricarboxylic acid cycle that was capable of producing lipids and keto acids.
Analysing more than 22 million in situ phenological observations across two continents, the authors show that plants in areas with higher human population densities have more advanced flowering and leaf-out dates, but that this cannot be attributed solely to urban heat island effects.
Urbanization gradients do not make good field laboratories for predicting climate warming effects on phenology, according to the analysis of a 30 year dataset on plant phenology and temperature in different urbanized settings.
Inventory data from 90 lowland Amazonian forest plots and a phylogeny of 526 angiosperm genera were used to show that taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity are both predictive of wood productivity but not of biomass variation.
This study provides empirical evidence for the formation of vesicles from mixtures of single-chain amphiphiles under alkaline hydrothermal conditions, suggesting that such conditions favoured protocell formation at the origin of life.
An interdisciplinary investigation of the Dallol polyextreme environment reveals two physicochemical barriers to life in the presence of surface liquid water: high chaotropicity–low water activity and hyperacidity–salt combinations.
Analysing changes in grasslands and savannahs following agricultural abandonment, the authors show that even after more than 90 years, plant diversity and productivity recovered by only 73% and 53%, respectively.
A phylogenetically diverse dataset of birds reveals that eggshell pigmentation may have been shaped by thermoregulatory needs, with birds in colder habitats having darker eggs.
Analysis of the neo-Y chromosome of Drosophila miranda shows massive gene amplification in initial stages of Y-chromosome evolution and reveals signatures of sexual and meiotic conflict.
A theoretical framework is developed to show that interactions among organisms are limited by the availability of sensory information, and that the dynamical properties of a wide variety of interacting populations depend on responses to this information.
Genomic analysis of Saccharomyces hybrids shows complex hybridization in strains used in beer fermentation and genetic changes associated with adaptation to cold temperature and the crisp flavour of lager beer.
Genomes and phenotypes of interspecific yeast hybrids isolated from breweries reveal hybridization between Saccharomyces species followed by adaptation to specific beer styles.
Evolutionary theory predicts that trade-offs between traits are pervasive, yet they are rarely observed in experimental evolution. Dense sampling and precise measuring of performance of adaptive mutations in evolving yeast shows that while many such mutations result in modest improvements in multiple traits, the totality of the data reveals the existence of trade-offs even during initial adaptation.
Using a conceptual framework known as the integrative hypothesis of specialization, the authors suggest that phylogenetic constraints separate species into different layers and shape the modules of a Neotropical network composed of the frugivorous and nectarivorous interactions between bats and plants.
This study presents a method to identify divergent gene regulation between archaic hominin and anatomically modern human sequences, and shows differences in gene regulatory architecture between the two groups.
Conducting a series of removal experiments using synthetic leaf-inhabiting bacterial communities, the authors identify several keystone strains and show that priority effects drive phyllosphere community assembly.
Whereas vertebrate genomes are highly methylated at CpG positions, invertebrate genomes are typically sparsely methylated. Here, the authors report a highly methylated genome in a marine sponge and show striking similarities with vertebrates.
A Free Ocean Carbon Enrichment study on the Great Barrier Reef finds that elevated carbon dioxide impairs net calcification of living corals and may accelerate dissolution of dead corals.
Sampling plants and lichens from across boreal North America and Eurasia, the authors show that the composition and diversity of symbiotic fungal endophyte communities are controlled primarily by host associations, not environmental filtering.
Ascaroside pheromones reflect population density in Caenorhabditis elegans. Here, the authors show that variation in ascaroside receptor genes contributes to differences in pheromone responses in natural populations of C. elegans.