Reconstructing ecological niche evolution can provide insight into the biogeography and diversification of evolving lineages. However, comparative phylogenetic methods can infer the history of ecological niche evolution inaccurately because (1) species’ niches are often poorly characterized; and (2) phylogenetic comparative methods rely on niche summary statistics rather than full estimates of species’ environmental tolerances. Here we propose a new framework for coding ecological niches and reconstructing their evolution that explicitly acknowledges and incorporates the uncertainty...

Populations of the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) are in an impending risk of going extinct in the wild as a consequence of damaging anthropogenic impact on their natural habitat and illegal pet and bushmeat trade. Conservation management programmes for the chimpanzee have been established outside their natural range (ex situ), and chimpanzees from these programmes could potentially be used to supplement future conservation initiatives in the wild (in situ). However, these programmes have often suffered...

Current sustainability challenges demand approaches that acknowledge a plurality of human-nature interactions and worldviews, for which biocultural approaches are considered appropriate and timely. This systematic review analyses the application of biocultural approaches to sustainability in scientific journal articles published between 1990 and 2018 through a mixed methods approach combining qualitative content analysis and quantitative multivariate methods. The study identifies seven distinct biocultural lenses, i.e. different ways of understanding and applying biocultural approaches, which to different...

1. Functional traits are the essential phenotypes that underlie an organism’s life history and ecology. Although biologists have long recognized that intraspecific variation is consequential to an animals’ ecology, studies of functional variation are often restricted to species-level comparisons, ignoring critical variation within species. In birds, interspecific comparisons have been foundational in connecting flight muscle phenotypes to species-level ecology, but intraspecific variation has remained largely unexplored. 2. We asked how age- and sex-dependent demands on...

Aim: Ant communities are believed to be structured by competition, with dominant species competitively excluding subordinates (the dominance-impoverishment rule). However, a high number of seemingly similar species coexist, possibly due to interspecific trade-offs. Here, we examine the evidence for the dominance-impoverishment rule across a broad latitudinal gradient and explore whether trade-offs explain coexistence within and among ant communities. Location: 40 sites in 19 countries across Europe, western North America and northern South America. Taxon: Formicidae....

Genomic imprinting results in parent-of-origin dependent gene expression biased towards either the maternally- or paternally-derived allele at the imprinted locus. The kinship theory of genomic imprinting argues that this unusual expression pattern is a manifestation of intra-genomic conflict between the maternally- and paternally-derived halves of the genome that arises because they are not equally related to the genomes of social partners. The theory thus predicts that imprinting may evolve wherever there are close interactions among...

The leaf economics spectrum (LES) describes consistent correlations among a variety of leaf traits that reflect a gradient from conservative to acquisitive plant strategies. So far, whether the LES holds in wetland plants at a global scale has been unclear. Using data on 365 wetland species from 151 studies, we find that wetland plants in general show a shift within trait space along the same common slope as observed in non-wetland plants, with lower leaf...

Climate and litter quality drive litter decomposition, but there is currently little consensus on their relative importance, likely because studies differ in the duration, the climatic gradients, and variability in litter-trait values. Understanding these drivers is important because they determine the direct and indirect (via vegetation composition) effects of climate change on decomposition and thereby on carbon and nutrient cycling. We studied how microclimate (soil moisture and temperature) and litter traits interactively affect litter mass...

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are released from biogenic sources in a temperature-dependent manner. Consequently, Arctic ecosystems are expected to greatly increase their VOC emissions with ongoing climate warming, which is proceeding at twice the rate of global temperature rise. Here, we show that ongoing warming has strong, increasing effects on Arctic VOC emissions. Using a combination of statistical modelling on data from several warming experiments in the Arctic tundra and dynamic ecosystem modelling, we separate...

The upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea engages in symbiosis with photosynthetic microalgae that facilitate uptake and recycling of inorganic nutrients. In contrast to most other symbiotic cnidarians, algal endosymbionts in Cassiopea are not restricted to the gastroderm but are found in amoebocyte cells within the mesoglea. While symbiont-bearing amoebocytes are highly abundant, their role in nutrient uptake and cycling in Cassiopea remains unknown. By combining isotopic labelling experiments with correlated SEM and NanoSIMS imaging, we quantified the...

Evolutionary convergence of colour pattern in mimetic species is tightly linked with the evolution of chemical defences. Yet, the evolutionary forces involved in natural variations of chemical defences in aposematic species are still understudied. Herein, we focus on the evolution chemical defences in the butterfly tribe Heliconiini. These neo-tropical butterflies contain large concentrations of cyanogenic glucosides, cyanide-releasing compounds acting as predator deterrent. These compounds are either de novo synthesized or sequestered from their Passiflora host-plant,...

The ability to predict and/or identify MHC binding peptides is an essential component of T cell epitope discovery; something that ultimately should benefit the development of vaccines and immunotherapies. In particular, MHC class I (MHC-I) prediction tools have matured to a point where accurate selection of optimal peptide epitopes is possible for virtually all MHC-I allotypes; in comparison, current MHC class II (MHC-II) predictors are less mature. Since MHC-II restricted CD4+ T cells control and...

Understanding the origin of new species is a central goal in evolutionary biology. Diverging lineages often evolve highly heterogeneous patterns of genetic differentiation; however, the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. We investigated evolutionary processes governing genetic differentiation between the hybridizing campions Silene dioica (L.) Clairv. and S. latifolia Poiret. Demographic modeling indicated that the two species diverged with gene flow. The best-supported scenario with heterogeneity in both migration rate and effective population size suggested...

C4 photosynthesis evolved multiple times independently in angiosperms, but most origins are relatively old so that the early events linked to photosynthetic diversification are blurred. The grass Alloteropsis semialata is an exception, as this species encompasses C4 and non-C4 populations. Using phylogenomics and population genomics, we infer the history of dispersal and secondary gene flow before, during, and after photosynthetic divergence in A. semialata. We further analyse the genome composition of individuals with varied ploidy...

Theoretical and empirical studies have shown that species radiations are facilitated when a trait under divergent natural selection is also involved in sexual selection. It is yet unclear how quick and effective radiations are where assortative mating is unrelated to the ecological environment and primarily results from sexual selection. We address this question using sympatric grasshopper species of the genus Chorthippus, which have evolved strong behavioral isolation while lacking noticeable eco-morphological divergence. Mitochondrial genomes suggest...

Opportunistic pathogens are associated with a number of chronic human infections, yet the evolution of virulence in these organisms during chronic infection remains poorly understood. Here, we tested the evolution of virulence in the human opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa in a murine chronic wound model using a two-part serial passage and sepsis experiment, and found that virulence evolved in different directions in each line of evolution. We also assessed P. aeruginosa adaptation to a chronic...

We investigated how the evolution of host resistance could affect the infesting population of Varroa mites. We screened a Varroa-resistant honey bee population near Toulouse, France, for a Varroa resistance trait: the inhibition of Varroa's reproduction in drone pupae. We then genotyped Varroa which had co-infested a cell using microsatellites. Across all resistant honey bee colonies, Varroa's reproductive success was significantly higher in co-infested cells but the distribution of Varroa between singly and multiply infested...

Floral scent often intensifies during periods of pollinator activity, but the degree of this synchrony may vary among scent compounds depending on their function. Related plant species with the same pollinator may exhibit similar timing and composition of floral scent. We compared timing and composition of floral volatiles for two endemic Hawaiian plant species, Schiedea kaalae and S. hookeri (Caryophyllaceae). For S. kaalae, we also compared the daily timing of emission of floral volatiles to...

Aim: Forest soils contain large amounts of terrestrial organic carbon (C), but the formation pathway of soil organic C (SOC) remains unclear. Recent evidence suggests that microbial necromass is a significant source of SOC, yet a global quantitative assessment across the whole-soil profile is lacking. We aimed to assess the vertical distribution and control of microbial-derived SOC in forest soils. Location: Global forests. Time period: 1996-2019. Major taxa studied: Soil microbial necromass carbon. Methods: We...

Aim: Variation in species diversity among different geographic areas may result from differences in speciation and extinction rates, immigration and time for diversification. An area with high species diversity may be the result of a high net diversification rate, multiple immigration events from adjacent regions,anda long time available for the accumulation of species (know as the “time-for-speciation effect”). Here, we examine the relative importance of the three aforementionedprocesses in shaping the geographic diversity patterns of...

In social insects, cuticular hydrocarbons function in nestmate recognition and also provide a waxy barrier against desiccation, but basic evolutionary features, including the heritability of hydrocarbon profiles and how they are shaped by natural selection are largely unknown. We used a new pharaoh ant (Monomorium pharaonis) laboratory mapping population to estimate the heritability of individual cuticular hydrocarbons, genetic correlations between hydrocarbons, and fitness consequences of phenotypic variation in the hydrocarbons. Individual hydrocarbons had low to...

Intensity autocorrelation data collected with Dynamic Light Scattering Imaging system. Matlab file contains: One set of "whole cortex" imaging data, including intensity autocorrelation, spatial and temporal contrasts and best fit data (used to generate Figure 1,2 and S1-S4, S6-S8) A representitative set of stroke imaging: with baseline and after-stroke intensity autocorrelation, contrasts and best fits data (used to generate Figure 3 and S10) Recording parameters (sampling and exposure times).

Metapopulation theory assumes a balance between local decays/extinctions and local growth/new colonisations. Here we investigate whether recent population declines across part of the UK harbour seal range represent normal metapopulation dynamics or are indicative of perturbations potentially threatening the metapopulation viability, using 20 years of population trends, location tracking data ( n = 380), and UK-wide, multi-generational population genetic data ( n = 269). First, we use microsatellite data to show that two genetic groups...

Plants have developed a suite of traits to survive the anaerobic and anoxic soil conditions in wetlands. Previous studies on wetland plant adaptive traits have focused mainly on physiological aspects under experimental conditions, or compared the trait expression of the local species pool. Thus, a comprehensive analysis of potential factors driving wetland plant adaptive traits under natural environmental conditions is still missing. In this study, we analysed three important wetland adaptive traits, i.e. root porosity,...

Background: Research of many mammal species tends to focus on single habitats, reducing knowledge of ecological flexibility. The Javan lutung (Trachypithecus auratus) is considered a strict forest primate, and little is known about populations living in savannah. In 2017–2018, we investigated the density and distribution of Javan lutung in Baluran National Park, Indonesia. We conducted ad libitum follows and line transect distance sampling with habitat suitability analysis of Javan lutung. Results: Estimated density was 14.91...