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A focus on sea anemones throws the classic concept of germ layer homology on its head, as cnidarians are found to possess the gene expression programmes for three, rather than two, germ layers.
Trace fossils from the Ediacaran–Cambrian transition of Brazil point to the existence of bioengineering meiofaunal animals prior to the ‘Cambrian Explosion’.
Hunting in groups allows predators to forage more efficiently. Here, the authors outline a framework for evaluating social predation strategies according to five key behavioural dimensions.
Assessing development challenges for fisheries-dependent countries based on analyses of interactions and trade-offs between goals focusing on food, biodiversity and climate change.
Multiple interacting factors have contributed to the rapid decline of honeybee populations worldwide. Here, the authors review the impact of parasites and pathogens, and how ecological and evolutionary principles can guide management practices.
A randomized controlled trial of a ‘payments for ecosystem services’ scheme in Uganda finds a significant reduction in deforestation, with cost-of-carbon savings greater than the price of the payments.
Our understanding of how species diversity is maintained depends on spatial scale. Here, the coexistence–area relationship is developed to understand scale dependence and increase community ecology’s contribution to biodiversity conservation.
Bisulfite sequencing is widely used to study genome-scale DNA methylation. In this Review, the authors discuss methodological and statistical considerations related to bisulfite sequencing that are particularly relevant when studying non-model organisms.
The evolution of complex adaptations poses conceptual challenges. Here, the authors discuss adaptive and non-adaptive scenarios in the evolution of complex adaptations and propose molecular mechanisms that provide access to new adaptive paths.
Across land, air and water, larger animals are generally faster, but only up to a certain point. A new study provides a unifying explanation for why this might be so.
The remarkable diversity in sperm morphology and performance in zebra finches is generated by a supergene on a sex chromosome and maintained by a heterozygous advantage.
Feedbacks between biological and economic systems can lead to persistent poverty traps for the world’s rural poor. A combination of economic, ecological and epidemiological modelling helps unravel how these feedbacks and traps occur.
Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning relationships remain constant no matter how many functions are considered. Biodiversity affects the level of multifunctionality and the effect on multifunctionality equals the average effect on single functions.
A new approach is outlined for capturing multiple facets of biodiversity in near real-time by combining the latest advances in automated Earth observation recording, high-throughput sequencing and ecological modelling.