Butterfly wing patterns and flight dynamics work in tandem to create powerful visual illusions that confuse predators, potentially representing one of the most successful visual defence strategies in ...

Abstract. Predicting phenotypes from genetic variation is a central challenge in biology. Here, machine learning (ML) offers great promise, but its use is

Abstract. IQ-TREE (https://iqtree.github.io/) is a widely used open-source software tool for efficiently inferring phylogenetic trees under maximum likelih

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Sociality has evolved several times and is a key strategy for overcoming environmental challenges and promoting ecological success. Yet, it remains...

As a first line of defence for the central nervous system (CNS), microglia play a critical role in maintaining homeostasis within the brain. Upon detection of d...

For anthropophilic mosquitoes such as Aedes aegypti, aligning host-seeking with human availability enhances foraging efficiency and reproductive success. Although time of day modulates mosquito activity and olfactory sensitivity, it remains unknown whether human hosts display rhythmic changes in odor cues and whether mosquitoes adjust their sensory responses accordingly. Here, we combine chemical, behavioral, genetic, and transcriptomic approaches to reveal that both mosquitoes and their human hosts in this interaction are temporally synchronized. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry showed systematic daily shifts in human body odor composition between morning and evening. Correspondingly, mosquitoes prefer host odors that match their own active phase, a time-specific preference abolished in timeless mutants and under constant darkness. Silencing the timeless gene further induced an aversion for the host scent under light-dark conditions. Transcriptomic analysis of mosquito heads and antennae uncovered rhythmic expression of sensory and neuromodulatory genes, driven by both circadian and light-dark cycles and which peaks during mosquitoes' active periods, with rhythmic co-expression networks collapsing in timeless knockouts. Together, these results show that mosquito attraction to humans is temporally tuned by the interplay of host odor rhythms and mosquito sensory rhythms, revealing a previously unrecognized form of interspecific temporal synchronization in vector-host interactions. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. National Institutes of Health, R01AI155785, R21AI166633, R01AI148551 National Institute of Food and Agriculture, VA-160212

For over a century, evolutionary biologists have been motivated to understand the mechanisms through which organisms adapt to their environments. Coloration and pigmentation are remarkably variable wi...

Caterpillars (larval Lepidoptera) are one of the most ecologically and evolutionarily significant taxa on Earth. As both feeders and food, they shape the dynamics of enumerate ecosystems on land. Key ...

Abstract. Mosquito-borne diseases pose a dire threat to humanity, claiming over 700,000 lives annually. At the local scale, the interplay between several e

A comprehensive single-nucleus RNA-seq atlas of >367,000 nuclei from male and female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes reveals sexual dimorphism in sensory systems and brain cell types and widespread co-expres...

Abstract. Understanding the drivers of biodiversity is a central goal in evolutionary biology. In particular, sexual selection has long been proposed as a

Journal of Comparative Physiology A - Mate preference learning, where individuals learn to prefer or avoid specific phenotypes during mate selection, is pervasive across animal taxa and influences...

Mulhair et al. uncover a functional bicoid in non-cyclorrhaphan flies, pushing the gene's origin back by ∼20 million years. Reassessing the Diptera phylogeny using the largest dataset to date permits ...

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Abstract. Mapping genotypes to phenotypes is a fundamental goal in biology. Phylogenetic Genotype to Phenotype mapping methods are a relatively new set of

Advances in sequencing technologies have enabled transcriptional profiling of previously understudied yet critical species, such as mosquitoes. Here, we present a protocol for multiplex whole-mount RNA fluorescence in situ hybridization combined with immunohistochemistry in the Anopheles gambiae brain. We describe steps for dissection, fixation, probe hybridization, hybridization chain reaction (HCR) probe detection, and primary antibody application. We then detail procedures for tissue preparat...

Molecular evolution studies often rely on single-copy orthologs. This study presents OrthoSNAP, an algorithm that identifies and extracts additional single-copy orthologs nested within larger gene fam...

Data and code are essential for ensuring the credibility of scientific results and facilitating reproducibility, areas in which journal sharing policies play a crucial role. However, in ecology and ev...

Abstract. Sensory adaptation is widely hypothesized to drive ecological speciation, yet empirical evidence from natural populations undergoing early stage

Background Variation within the prokaryotic pangenome is not random, and natural selection that favours particular combinations of genes appears to dominate over random drift. What is less clear is wh...

Single-cell RNA-sequencing revolutionized our approach of transcriptomic studies, enabling to analyze gene expression across cell type in a tissue. Here we introduce an optimized cell dissociation and...

Communication is crucial to social life, and in ants, it is mediated primarily through olfaction. Ants have more odorant receptor (OR) genes than any other group of insects, generated through tandem d...