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A new species of fossil synapsid from the Pennsylvanian (323–298 million years ago) of Canada represents the earliest known evidence of parental care in the form of a larger individual preserved with a small conspecific in close association, interpreted as denning.
By analysing phenological shifts among > 2,000 insect pollinator species in Europe, the authors show that flight dates have become earlier and flight lengths shorter over the past 60 years, potentially altering continental-scale pollinator function.
Across large spatial scales, climate is more important than soil conditions for plant adaptation and variation in root-associated filamentous eukaryotic communities.
A new amniote phylogeny excludes varanopids as stem-line mammals, nests Parareptilia within Diapsida and suggests that temporal fenestration evolved fewer times than previously thought.
A projection of ocean surface isotherm deepening under emissions scenarios RCP8.5 and RCP4.5 reveals that the potential habitat of many marine organisms will rapidly become tightly compressed between depth levels imposed by isotherm deepening, the thickness of the photic layer and the seafloor.
By mapping piRNA genes in juvenile and adult human testes, the authors show that although synteny is conserved with other mammals, sequences are diverging rapidly even among modern humans.
The origin of life would have required enzymatic cooperation that was not susceptible to cheating replicators. The authors show theoretically that this does not require a cell membrane and instead can arise when enzymatic cooperation and physical association coevolve.
A new statistical method is introduced that can predict the outcomes of unobserved experiments in complex communities using only a limited subset of all possible experiments.
The evolutionary origin of eukaryotes is under debate. Here, the authors conduct phylogenetic analyses using >3,000 gene families in archaea and eukaryotes and find support for an origin of eukaryotes from within the archaea.
Multi-proxy palaeoecological methods reconstruct phases of land clearance, maize cultivation and forest regrowth in the High Andes centuries before European incursion, and do not support the idea that forest regrowth and peak carbon sequestration were coincident with European arrival.
The treehopper helmet represents a morphologic novelty. Comparison of body-region transcriptomes in a treehopper and a leafhopper supports co-option of the wing-patterning network for the origin of the helmet.
Analysing the population dynamics of 228 terrestrial and aquatic species, the authors show that nonlinearity is a ubiquitous feature of animal populations and is more prevalent among fast-reproducing species.
Comparing grassland ecosystem responses of 128 biotic and abiotic variables to geothermal warming, the authors find that short-term (5–8 years) responses are poor predictors of change over the long term (>50 years).
This study reveals sex-dependent dominance reversal across a large autosomal supergene in the rainbow trout, a mechanism for the resolution of sexual conflict in a species that lacks differentiated sex chromosomes.
Mammals with invasive placentation are more vulnerable to malignancy. Here, the authors propose that the evolution of invasibility of stromal tissue affects both placental and cancer invasion and present in vitro evidence in human and bovine fibroblasts consistent with this hypothesis.
By sequencing the genome of the seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus, the authors explore genomic signatures of selection and expression of sex-biased genes.
The authors suggest that increased dispersal of marine animals from the Middle Ordovician onwards enhanced α diversity, providing a possible mechanism for the shift from β to α diversity as the major component of global diversity.
Glaciers are retreating globally due to climate change. A meta-analysis identifies factors that determine biodiversity response to glacier loss and shows that local increases in biodiversity favour generalist species, whereas specialist species are likely to lose out.
Field studies of the bat-to-bat transfer and ingestion of fluorescent biomarkers as a proxy for an oral vaccine are combined with mathematical models to predict the efficacy of oral vaccines for reducing bat rabies outbreaks.
Whole genome sequencing and genome-wide association studies of ash trees affected by the invasive alien fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus are used to train a genomic prediction model, which could predict tree health with >65% accuracy.