Islands off southern Australia once harboured three subspecies of the mainland emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae), the smaller Tasmanian emu (D. n. diemenensis), and two dwarf emus, King Island emu (D. n. minor) and Kangaroo Island emu (D. n. baudinianus), which all became extinct rapidly after discovery by human settlers. Little was recorded about their life histories and only a few historical museum specimens exist, including a number of complete eggs from Tasmania and a unique egg...

Larger and larger molecular phylogenies based on ever more genes are becoming commonplace with the advent of cheaper and more streamlined sequencing and bioinformatics pipelines. However, many groups of inconspicuous but no less evolutionarily or ecologically important marine invertebrates are still neglected in the quest for understanding species- and higher-level phylogenetic relationships using high-throughput sequencing approaches. Here, we alleviate this issue by presenting a 17 gene phylogeny of >200 newly sequenced cheilostome bryozoan species, mainly...

Disentangling the relative role of environmental filtering and spatial processes in driving metacommunity structure across mountainous regions remains challenging, as the way we quantify spatial connectivity in topographically and environmentally heterogeneous landscapes can influence our perception of which process predominates. More empirical datasets are required to account for taxon- and context-dependency but relevant research in understudied areas is often compromised by the taxonomic impediment. We here employed haplotype-level community DNA metabarcoding, enabled by stringent filtering...

Abstract Background The phylogenetic ecology of the Afro-Asian dragonfly genus Trithemis has been investigated previously by Damm et al. (in Mol Phylogenet Evol 54:870–882, 2010) and wing ecomorphology by Outomuro et al. (in J Evol Biol 26:1866–1874, 2013). However, the latter investigation employed a somewhat coarse sampling of forewing and hindwing outlines and reported results that were at odds in some ways with expectations given the mapping of landscape and water-body preference over the Trithemis...

How best can we summarise sets of phylogenetic trees? Systematists have relied heavily on consensus methods, but if tree distributions can be partitioned into distinct subsets it may be helpful to provide separate summaries of these rather than relying entirely upon a single consensus tree. How sets of trees can most helpfully be partitioned and represented leads to many open questions, but one natural partitioning is provided by the islands of trees found during tree...

Differences in jaw function experienced through ontogeny can have striking consequences for evolutionary outcomes, as has been suggested for the major clades of mammals. In contrast to placentals, marsupial newborns have an accelerated development of the head and forelimbs, allowing them to crawl to the mother’s teats to suckle within just a few weeks of conception. The different functional requirements that marsupial newborns experience in early postnatal development have been hypothesized to have constrained their...

The Western Ghats (WG) mountain chain in peninsular India is a global biodiversity hotspot, one in which patterns of phylogenetic diversity and endemism remain to be documented across taxa. We used a well-characterized community of ancient soil predatory arthropods from the WG to understand diversity gradients, identify hotspots of endemism and conservation importance, and highlight poorly-studied areas with unique biodiversity. We compiled an occurrence dataset for 19 species of scolopendrid centipedes, which was used to...

One of the key objectives in biological research is understanding how evolutionary processes have produced Earth's diversity. A critical step towards revealing these processes is an investigation of evolutionary tradeoffs – that is, the opposing pressures of multiple selective forces. For millennia, nocturnal moths have had to balance successful flight, as they search for mates or host plants, with evading bat predators. However, the potential for evolutionary trade-offs between wing shape and body size are...

Background: Understanding the processes that lead to hybridization of wolves and dogs is of scientific and management importance, particularly over large geographical scales, as wolves can disperse great distances. However, a method to efficiently detect hybrids in routine wolf monitoring is lacking. Microsatellites offer only limited resolution due to the low number of markers showing distinctive allele frequencies between wolves and dogs. Moreover, calibration across laboratories is time-consuming and costly. In this study, we selected...

Modular evolution, the relatively independent evolution of body parts, may promote high morphological disparity in a clade. Conversely, integrated evolution via the stronger covariation of parts may limit disparity. However, integration can also promote high disparity by channeling morphological evolution along lines of least resistance—a process that may be particularly important in the accumulation of disparity among organisms with accretionary growth, as in many invertebrate systems. We use a time-calibrated phylogenetic hypothesis and high-density, 3D...

This dataset contains genotypes (in three digit-format) for unique clones of the freshwater bryozoan species Cristatella mucedo and Fredericella sultana at microsatellite loci and representing sampling sites across the UK. Cristatella mucedo data additionally covers Northern Ireland.

Durophagy arose in the Cambrian and greatly influenced the diversification of biomineralised defensive structures throughout the Phanerozoic. Spinose gnathobases on protopodites of Cambrian euarthropod limbs are considered key innovations for shell-crushing, yet few studies have demonstrated their effectiveness with biomechanical models. Here we present finite element analysis models of two Cambrian trilobites with prominent gnathobases—Redlichia rex and Olenoides serratus—and compare these to the protopodites of the Cambrian euarthropod Sidneyia inexpectans and the modern American horseshoe...

The superfamily Platygastroidea (Hymenoptera: Proctotrupomorpha) is a diverse group of parasitoid wasps that attack nine orders of insects as well as spiders. They appear to show a clear pattern of host group specificity among genera. A robust phylogeny is essential to understanding the monophyly of and relationships among lower level groups and the pattern of the shifts among host groups. We conducted phylogenetic analyses of Platygastroidea based on four molecular markers (18S, 28S, COI, and...

Lepidosaurs include lizards, snakes, amphisbaenians and the tuatara, comprising a highly speciose evolutionary radiation with widely varying anatomical traits. Their stem-lineage originated by the late middle Permian 259 million years ago, but its early fossil record is poorly documented, obscuring the origins of key anatomical and functional traits of the group. Paliguana whitei, from the Early Triassic of South Africa, is an enigmatic fossil species with potential to provide information on this. However, its anatomy...

Data of manuscript A robust, semi-automated approach for counting cementum increments imaged with X-ray computed tomography in PloS One.

Analyses of evolutionary dynamics can be profoundly affected by age calibrations of phylogenetic nodes under different models of lineage branching. Most time-calibrated molecular phylogenies of extant taxa assume a purely bifurcating model, where nodes are calibrated using the daughter lineage with the older first occurrence in the fossil record. Lineages can also split via budding, in which a parent lineage persists following the origin of a daughter lineage, and nodes are calibrated using the age...

The Communication and Dissemination (C&D) Strategy for DiSSCo Prepare is a supporting instrument to facilitate efficient communication among project partners, strengthen coherence and enlighten the shared vision for external outreach whilst procures and empowers engagement of third parties. The C&D Strategy collates the tools, channels and mechanisms necessary to develop cross-cutting activities throughout the project’s duration and beyond. This document will aim to ensure the most effective information exchange both internally and externally towards external...

1. Global climate change is driving species’ distributions towards the poles and mountain tops during both non-breeding and breeding seasons, leading to changes in the composition of natural communities. However, the degree of season differences in climate-driven community shifts has not been thoroughly investigated at large spatial scales. 2. We compared the rates of change in the community composition during both winter (non-breeding season) and summer (breeding) and their relation to temperature changes. 3. Based...

These images were acquired using micro computed tomographic imaging of 4 sandstone plugs taken at various depths in the Glasgow UKGEOS borehole GGC01. GG496 (170.07 m), GG497 (168.66 m), GG498 (73.37 m) and GG499 (135.06 m). These samples are further detailed and analysed in the following article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/petgeo2020-092.

The inner ear of the two higher clades of modern cetaceans (Neoceti) is highly adapted for hearing infrasonic (mysticetes) or ultrasonic (odontocetes) frequencies. Within odontocetes, Platanistoidea comprises a single extant riverine representative, Platanista gangetica, and a diversity of mainly extinct marine species from the late Oligocene onward. Recent studies, drawing on features including the disparate tympanoperiotic, have not yet provided a consensus phylogenetic hypothesis for platanistoids. Further, cochlear morphology and evolutionary patterns have never been...

Sharks have a long and rich fossil record that consists predominantly of isolated teeth due to the poorly mineralized cartilaginous skeleton. Tiger sharks (Galeocerdo), which represent apex predators in modern oceans, have a known fossil record extending back into the early Eocene (ca. 56 Ma) and comprise 22 recognised extinct and one extant species to date. However, many of the fossil species remain dubious, resulting in a still unresolved evolutionary history of the tiger shark...