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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 framework is presented for achieving global no net loss of biodiversity that accounts for inequity among countries in both pressures and ability to act.
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.
Analysing spatial association networks among >300 terrestrial and aquatic assemblages, the authors find that the majority of negative associations involve abundant species. In contrast, rare species form mostly positive associations, potentially explaining their persistence in natural communities.
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).
Analysing data from the world’s longest-running
insect population database, the authors find that recent declines in
UK moth biomass were preceded by a larger increase.
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.