Phasmatodea, more commonly known as stick insects, have been poorly studied at the molecular level for several key traits, such as components of the sensory system and regulators of reproduction and development, impeding a deeper understanding of their functional biology. Here, we employ de novo transcriptome analysis to identify genes with primary functions related to female odour reception, digestion, and male sexual traits in the New Zealand common stick insect Clitarchus hookeri (White). The female...

The total-evidence approach to divergence time dating uses molecular and morphological data from extant and fossil species to infer phylogenetic relationships, species divergence times, and macroevolutionary parameters in a single coherent framework. Current model-based implementations of this approach lack an appropriate model for the tree describing the diversification and fossilization process and can produce estimates that lead to erroneous conclusions. We address this shortcoming by providing a total-evidence method implemented in a Bayesian framework. This...

Infection may modify the behaviour of the host and of its conspecifics in a group, potentially altering social connectivity. Because many infectious diseases are transmitted through social contact, social connectivity changes can impact transmission dynamics. Previous approaches to understanding disease transmission dynamics in wild populations were limited in their ability to disentangle different factors that determine the outcome of disease outbreaks. Here we ask how social connectivity is affected by infection and how this relationship...

Anthropogenic environmental changes are considered critical drivers of the genetic structure of populations and communities through, for example, the facilitation of introgressive hybridization between syntopic species. However, the mechanisms by which environmental perturbations trigger changes in the genetic structure of populations and communities, such as the processes that determine the directionality of hybridization and patterns of mitochondrial introgression over many generations, remain largely unexplored. In this study, the changes in genetic structure of hybridizing members...

Modern industrial agriculture depends on high density cultivation of genetically similar crop plants, creating favorable conditions for the emergence of novel pathogens with increased fitness in managed compared to ecologically intact settings. Here, we present the genome sequence of six strains of the cucurbit bacterial wilt pathogen Erwinia tracheiphila (Enterobacteriaceae) isolated from infected squash plants in New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Michigan. These genomes exhibit a high proportion of recent horizontal gene acquisitions, invasion and...