Biodiversity research has long focused on the number and identity of species, but recent advances suggest that ecosystem functioning depends on how species are connected. Predicting the consequences of biodiversity loss in the Anthropocene will therefore require moving beyond inventories of species toward a predictive ecology of interaction networks.

PhD Project - What drives aggression? Linking Ecology, Evolution, and Genes at Durham University, listed on FindAPhD.com

Many animal species replace histones with protamines during spermatogenesis. Although essential for sperm function, protamines evolve rapidly for reasons that remain unknown. Using in vivo gene replac...

The protein composition of sperm and seminal fluid are key to male fitness. However, we currently lack an understanding of the factors that shape seminal proteome composition. The common bedbug (Cimex...

Abstract. Directional selection is often viewed as a transient force in macroevolution, with its signal eroded over time by stabilizing and fluctuating sel

Do bacterial biofilms show developmental evolutionary imprints similar to those of eukaryotic embryos? Using the uropathogenic Escherichia coli UTI89 strai

Wang et al. demonstrate that sensory feedback from the genitalia is critical for successful copulation. This study identifies three classes of male genital mechanosensory neurons with distinct response properties and defines downstream premotor and motor pathways that differentially contribute to copulation initiation, maintenance, and termination.

Professor Alexei Maklakov, School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia – contact me Professor Tracey Chapman, UEA/BIO Professor Simone Immler, UEA/BIO Why do some animals continue to live...

Over the course of evolution, many species have adapted to the environmental conditions found at higher latitudes. This is likely also true of the circadian system, which regulates daily behavior and helps measure day length to facilitate adaptation to the seasons, though how the circadian clock adapts to latitude remains largely unknown. Here, we investigated daily activity patterns under long photoperiods and in constant darkness, as well as the underlying circadian clock network, in 52 Drosophila species from around the world. We found a strong, significant positive correlation between the clock's plasticity, measured as the phase difference between morning and evening activity, and the average geographical latitude from which the species originate. The mechanisms underpinning this increase in plasticity differed between species: in the subgenus Siphlodora, the clock weakened with increasing latitude, accompanied by a reduction of the neuropeptide Pigment-Dispersing Factor in the small ventrolateral clock neurons (s-LNv), whereas in the subgenus Drosophila the opposite was true. The subgenus Sophophora, by contrast, showed a negative correlation between circadian plasticity and PDF levels in the s-LNv axons. These results suggest that Drosophila species have evolved diverse, independent strategies to adapt their circadian clock to higher latitudes.

Nature, Published online: 08 October 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-03199-5Study of almost 900 dogs from roughly 120 breeds finds that rapid ageing of large canines is linked to changes in the epigenome.

Lower-performing students benefited the most, but even higher-performing students expressed support for the policy

by Noora Poikela, Rhonda R. Snook, Jonna Kulmuni, Michael G. Ritchie As global temperatures rise and heat waves become more frequent, populations must adapt rapidly to avoid local extinctions. Adaptive introgression allows species to quickly acquire adaptive genetic material from close relatives. However, certain genomic regions, containing barrier loci, may resist introgression. We experimentally tested whether strong heat stress selection can overcome such barriers and facilitate the transfer of adaptive alleles to improve heat tolerance. We also examined whether chromosomal inversions, which can tightly link adaptive and barrier loci through reduced recombination, promote or prevent introgression. We conducted a hybridize, evolve, and re-sequence experiment by crossing the heat-sensitive D. flavomontana with the more heat-tolerant D. montana, exposing heat-selection lines to transient heat for three generations while maintaining control lines. We also mapped long-term barriers to gene flow between natural populations using a demographically explicit genome scan. The heat-selection lines exhibited approximately twice the introgression and higher male fertility under heat stress compared to control lines and the heat-sensitive parental D. flavomontana. This introgression was primarily located in colinear autosomal regions and correlated with improved heat tolerance. Some introgression occurred also in inverted autosomal regions in the heat-selection lines but not in the control lines. The X chromosome, with three overlapping inversions, resisted introgression in both heat-selection and control lines, thereby maintaining a strong species barrier. Finally, genetic barriers in the control lines significantly overlapped with long-term barriers, but this overlap was less pronounced in the heat-selection lines. Our study demonstrates that strong selection can lead to adaptive introgression despite long-standing genetic barriers. These findings highlight that introgression can serve as a rapid source of adaptive genetic material under stressful thermal conditions, potentially mitigating climate-induced population extinctions.

Most academics in the U.S., as well as activists resisting the genocide in Gaza, are familiar with the case of Professor Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, a renowned Global Studies scholar at the University ...

The writer joins a list of laureates that includes Toni Morrison, Samuel Beckett and Bob Dylan.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 40, October 2026. SignificanceCompound drought and heat wave (CDHW) events intensify risks to health, agriculture, energy systems, and local economies, often producing more severe impacts than isolated extremes. Their growing relevance was evident during the 2023 southern ...

For policy makers, regulators and industry professionals to understand environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding applications for biodiversity monitoring and environmental assessment.

YouTube video by McMaster University Health Sciences

It has long been recognized that male mating competition is responsible for the evolution of weaponry for mate acquisition. However, when females m...

Plant–pollinator networks vary tremendously across ecosystems. Here the authors use a global standardized dataset of plant–pollinator interactions to explore geographic patterns of specialization and ...

Do you want to conduct frontier research in an outstanding environment within evolutionary biology at Sweden’s largest faculty of science and technology? The Department of Ecology and Genetics at Up

Sex differences have traditionally been attributed to gonadal hormones, but accumulating evidence shows that sex chromosomes exert distinct, cell-autonomous effects on health, aging, and disease. XX and XY complements alter gene dosage, epigenetic ...

Changes in insect diversity and abundance can affect vertebrates but understanding these consequences relies on having rich information about vertebrate–insect interactions. This Review summarizes the...

Luciana Gatti, who studies carbon uptake in the Amazon, aims to join Brazil’s lower house in this week’s elections