Articles

Sequencing refractory regions in bird genomes are hotspots for accelerated protein evolution

Approximately 1000 protein encoding genes common for vertebrates are still unannotated in avian genomes. Are these genes evolutionary lost or are they not yet found for technical reasons? Using genome landscap...

Authors: R. Huttener, L. Thorrez, T. In’t Veld, M. Granvik, L. Van Lommel, E. Waelkens, R. Derua, K. Lemaire, L. Goyvaerts, S. De Coster, J. Buyse and F. Schuit

The significance of biomass allocation to population growth of the invasive species Ambrosia artemisiifolia and Ambrosia trifida with different densities

Ambrosia artemisiifolia and Ambrosia trifida are globally distributed harmful and invasive weeds. High density clusters play an important role in their invasion. For these two species, the early settled populatio...

Authors: Wenxuan Zhao, Tong Liu, Yan Liu, Hanyue Wang, Ruili Wang, Qianqian Ma, Hegan Dong and Xuyi Bi

Correction to: Inaugural BMC Ecology and Evolution image competition: the winning images

Authors: Jennifer L. Harman, Alison L. Cuff, Josef Settele, Luke M. Jacobus, David A. Liberles and Arne Traulsen

Structuring of plant communities across agricultural landscape mosaics: the importance of connectivity and the scale of effect

Plant communities of fragmented agricultural landscapes, are subject to patch isolation and scale-dependent effects. Variation in configuration, composition, and distance from one another affect biological pro...

Authors: Michael McLeish, Adrián Peláez, Israel Pagán, Rosario Gavilán, Aurora Fraile and Fernando García-Arenal

Meta-analysis of the impact of plant invasions on soil microbial communities

One of the ecological impacts of exotic plant invasions may be alteration of the soil microbial community, which may cause changes to the diversity, richness and function of these communities. In order to expl...

Authors: Nardi Torres, Ileana Herrera, Laurie Fajardo and Ramiro O. Bustamante

How the seed coat affects the mother’s oviposition preference and larval performance in the bean beetle (Acanthoscelides obtectus, Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae, Bruchinae) in leguminous species

The host specificity and host range of the dry bean beetle, Acanthoscelides obtectus (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae, Bruchinae), a seed predator of beans, is poorly known. In addition, the female oviposition preferen...

Authors: Árpád Szentesi

Multivariate analysis of morphology, behaviour, growth and developmental timing in hybrids brings new insights into the divergence of sympatric Arctic charr morphs

Studying the development of fitness related traits in hybrids from populations diverging in sympatry is a fundamental approach to understand the processes of speciation. However, such traits are often affected...

Authors: Quentin J.-B. Horta-Lacueva, Sigurður S. Snorrason, Michael B. Morrissey, Camille A.-L. Leblanc and Kalina H. Kapralova

Spatial distribution of Gasterophilus pecorum (Diptera) eggs in the desert steppe of the Kalamaili Nature Reserve (Xinjiang, China)

The dominant Gasterophilus species in the desert steppe (Xinjiang, China) Gasterophilus pecorum poses a serious threat to the reintroduced Przewalski’s horses. We investigated the distribution pattern of G. pecor...

Authors: Heqing Huang, Ke Zhang, Changliang Shao, Chen Wang, Make Ente, Zhenbiao Wang, Dong Zhang and Kai Li

Sexual selection on population-level mating opportunities drives morph ratios in a fig wasp with extreme male dimorphism

Alternative mating tactics are widespread in animals and associated with extreme morphological polymorphism in some insects. Some fig wasps have both highly modified wingless males and dispersing winged males....

Authors: James M. Cook

Genetic diversity and variation of seven Chinese grass shrimp (Palaemonetes sinensis) populations based on the mitochondrial COI gene

Chinese grass shrimp (Palaemonetes sinensis) is an important species widely distributed throughout China, which is ecologically relevant and possesses ornamental and economic value. These organisms have experienc...

Authors: Yingying Zhao, Xiaochen Zhu, Ye Jiang, Zhi Li, Xin Li, Weibin Xu, Hua Wei, Yingdong Li and Xiaodong Li

Seeing through sedimented waters: environmental DNA reduces the phantom diversity of sharks and rays in turbid marine habitats

Sharks and rays are some of the most threatened marine taxa due to the high levels of bycatch and significant demand for meat and fin-related products in many Asian communities. At least 25% of shark and ray s...

Authors: Yin Cheong Aden Ip, Jia Jin Marc Chang, Kelvin K. P. Lim, Zeehan Jaafar, Benjamin J. Wainwright and Danwei Huang

Positive selection of skeleton-related genes during duck domestication revealed by whole genome sequencing

Domestication alters several phenotypic, neurological, and physiological traits in domestic animals compared to those in their wild ancestors. Domestic ducks originated from mallards, and some studies have sho...

Authors: Tao Zhu, Xin Qi, Yu Chen, Liang Wang, Xueze Lv, Weifang Yang, Jianwei Zhang, Kaiyang Li, Zhonghua Ning, Zhihua Jiang and Lujiang Qu

Evolution of nuptial gifts and its coevolutionary dynamics with male-like persistence traits of females for multiple mating

Many male animals donate nutritive materials during courtship or mating to their female mates. Donation of large-sized gifts, though costly to prepare, can result in increased sperm transfer during mating and ...

Authors: Yoshitaka Kamimura, Kazunori Yoshizawa, Charles Lienhard, Rodrigo L. Ferreira and Jun Abe

Experimental increase of worker diversity benefits brood production in ants

The reproductive division of labor of eusocial insects, whereby one or several queens monopolize reproduction, evolved in a context of high genetic relatedness. However, many extant eusocial species have devel...

Authors: Marina N. Psalti, Dustin Gohlke and Romain Libbrecht

Genomic bases underlying the adaptive radiation of core landbirds

Core landbirds undergo adaptive radiation with different ecological niches, but the genomic bases that underlie their ecological diversification remain unclear.

Authors: Yonghua Wu, Yi Yan, Yuanqin Zhao, Li Gu, Songbo Wang and David H. Johnson

Staying in touch: how highly specialised moth pollinators track host plant phenology in unpredictable climates

For specialised pollinators, the synchrony of plant and pollinator life history is critical to the persistence of pollinator populations. This is even more critical in nursery pollination, where pollinators ar...

Authors: Jonathan T. D. Finch, Sally A. Power, Justin A. Welbergen and James M. Cook

Evolution of mechanisms controlling epithelial morphogenesis across animals: new insights from dissociation-reaggregation experiments in the sponge Oscarella lobularis

The ancestral presence of epithelia in Metazoa is no longer debated. Porifera seem to be one of the best candidates to be the sister group to all other Metazoa. This makes them a key taxon to explore cell-adhe...

Authors: Amélie Vernale, Maria Mandela Prünster, Fabio Marchianò, Henry Debost, Nicolas Brouilly, Caroline Rocher, Dominique Massey-Harroche, Emmanuelle Renard, André Le Bivic, Bianca H. Habermann and Carole Borchiellini

Inaugural BMC Ecology and Evolution image competition: the winning images

The inaugural BMC Ecology and Evolution image competition attracted entries from talented ecologists and evolutionary biologists worldwide. Together, these photos beautifully capture biodiversity, how it arose an...

Authors: Jennifer L. Harman, Alison L. Cuff, Josef Settele, Luke M. Jacobus, David A. Liberles and Arne Traulsen

The baculum affects paternity success of first but not second males in house mouse sperm competition

The vast variation observed in genital morphology is a longstanding puzzle in evolutionary biology. Studies showing that the morphology of the mammalian baculum (penis bone) can covary with a male’s paternity ...

Authors: Lennart Winkler, Anna K. Lindholm, Steven A. Ramm and Andreas Sutter

Correction to: Integrative taxonomy and molecular phylogeny of three poorly known tintinnine ciliates, with the establishment of a new genus (Protista; Ciliophora; Oligotrichea)

Authors: Rui Wang, Yang Bai, Tao Hu, Dapeng Xu, Toshikazu Suzuki and Xiaozhong Hu

A common gene drive language eases regulatory process and eco-evolutionary extensions

Synthetic gene drive technologies aim to spread transgenic constructs into wild populations even when they impose organismal fitness disadvantages. The extraordinary diversity of plausible drive mechanisms and...

Authors: Prateek Verma, R. Guy Reeves and Chaitanya S. Gokhale

Correction to: Phenotypic plasticity of natural Populus trichocarpa populations in response to temporally environmental change in a common garden

Authors: Yang Liu and Yousry A. El-Kassaby

Evolution and genomic organization of the insect sHSP gene cluster and coordinate regulation in phenotypic plasticity

Conserved syntenic gene complexes are rare in Arthropods and likely only retained due to functional constraint. Numerous sHSPs have been identified in the genomes of insects, some of which are located clustere...

Authors: Megan Leask, Mackenzie Lovegrove, Abigail Walker, Elizabeth Duncan and Peter Dearden

Regional effect on the molecular clock rate of protein evolution in Eutherian and Metatherian genomes

Different types of proteins diverge at vastly different rates. Moreover, the same type of protein has been observed to evolve with different rates in different phylogenetic lineages. In the present study we me...

Authors: Raf Huttener, Lieven Thorrez, Thomas in‘t Veld, Barney Potter, Guy Baele, Mikaela Granvik, Leentje Van Lommel and Frans Schuit

The characteristics of average abundance function with mutation of multi-player threshold public goods evolutionary game model under redistribution mechanism

In recent years, the average abundance function has attracted much attention as it reflects the degree of cooperation in the population. Then it is significant to analyse how average abundance functions can be...

Authors: Ke Xia

Generalist camouflage can be more successful than microhabitat specialisation in natural environments

Crypsis by background-matching is a critical form of anti-predator defence for animals exposed to visual predators, but achieving effective camouflage in patchy and variable natural environments is not straigh...

Authors: Emmanuelle Sophie Briolat, Lina María Arenas, Anna E. Hughes, Eric Liggins and Martin Stevens

Radiating pain: venom has contributed to the diversification of the largest radiations of vertebrate and invertebrate animals

Understanding drivers of animal biodiversity has been a longstanding aim in evolutionary biology. Insects and fishes represent the largest lineages of invertebrates and vertebrates respectively, and consequent...

Authors: Kevin Arbuckle and Richard J. Harris

How do lizard niches conserve, diverge or converge? Further exploration of saurian evolutionary ecology

Environmental conditions on Earth are repeated in non-random patterns that often coincide with species from different regions and time periods having consistent combinations of morphological, physiological and...

Authors: Nicolás Pelegrin, Kirk O. Winemiller, Laurie J. Vitt, Daniel B. Fitzgerald and Eric R. Pianka

Cospeciation of coronavirus and paramyxovirus with their bat hosts in the same geographical areas

Bat-borne viruses are relatively host specific. We hypothesize that this host specificity is due to coevolution of the viruses with their hosts. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the coevolution of coro...

Authors: Jie Liang, Chunchao Zhu and Libiao Zhang

Evolution of hes gene family in vertebrates: the hes5 cluster genes have specifically increased in frogs

hes genes are chordate homologs of Drosophila genes, hairy and enhancer of split, which encode a basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcriptional repressor with a WRPW motif. Various developmental functions of hes g...

Authors: Aya Kuretani, Takayoshi Yamamoto, Masanori Taira and Tatsuo Michiue

Correction to: Diversity and evolution of the transposable element repertoire in arthropods with particular reference to insects

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Authors: Malte Petersen, David Armisén, Richard A. Gibbs, Lars Hering, Abderrahman Khila, Georg Mayer, Stephen Richards, Oliver Niehuis and Bernhard Misof

Altered precipitation and root herbivory affect the productivity and composition of a mesic grassland

Climate change models predict changes in the amount, frequency and seasonality of precipitation events, all of which have the potential to affect the structure and function of grassland ecosystems. While previ...

Authors: Kirk L. Barnett, Scott N. Johnson, Sarah L. Facey, Eleanor V. J. Gibson-Forty, Raul Ochoa-Hueso and Sally A. Power

Lizards and snakes from the earliest Miocene of Saint-Gérand-le-Puy, France: an anatomical and histological approach of some of the oldest Neogene squamates from Europe

The earliest Miocene (Aquitanian) represents a crucial time interval in the evolution of European squamates (i.e., lizards and snakes), witnessing a high diversity of taxa, including an array of extinct forms ...

Authors: Georgios L. Georgalis and Torsten M. Scheyer

Long-term monitoring of a brown trout (Salmo trutta) population reveals kin-associated migration patterns and contributions by resident trout to the anadromous run

In species showing partial migration, as is the case for many salmonid fishes, it is important to assess how anthropogenic pressure experienced by migrating individuals affects the total population. We focused...

Authors: Eloïse Duval, Øystein Skaala, María Quintela, Geir Dahle, Aurélien Delaval, Vidar Wennevik, Kevin A. Glover and Michael M. Hansen

Correction to: Climatic and topographic changes since the Miocene influenced the diversification and biogeography of the tent tortoise (Psammobates tentorius) species complex in Southern Africa

Authors: Zhongning Zhao, Neil Heideman, Phillip Bester, Adriaan Jordaan and Margaretha D. Hofmeyr

Genome-wide characterization of MATE gene family and expression profiles in response to abiotic stresses in rice (Oryza sativa)

Multidrug and toxic compound extrusion (MATE) proteins are involved in many physiological functions of plant growth and development. Although an increasing number of MATE proteins have been identified, the un...

Authors: Zhixuan Du, Qitao Su, Zheng Wu, Zhou Huang, Jianzhong Bao, Jianbin Li, Hang Tu, Chuihai Zeng, Junru Fu and Haohua He

Differential allocation in a gift-giving spider: males adjust their reproductive investment in response to female condition

When males are selective, they can either reject low-quality females or adjust their reproductive investment in response to traits that indicate female quality (e.g., body size or condition). According to the dif...

Authors: Diego Solano-Brenes, Luiz Ernesto Costa-Schmidt, Maria Jose Albo and Glauco Machado

Evolution of transcriptional control of antigenic variation and virulence in human and ape malaria parasites

The most severe form of human malaria is caused by the protozoan parasite Plasmodium falciparum. This unicellular organism is a member of a subgenus of Plasmodium called the Laverania that infects apes, with P. f...

Authors: Mackensie R. Gross, Rosie Hsu and Kirk W. Deitsch

DeepHBV: a deep learning model to predict hepatitis B virus (HBV) integration sites

The hepatitis B virus (HBV) is one of the main causes of viral hepatitis and liver cancer. HBV integration is one of the key steps in the virus-promoted malignant transformation.

Authors: Canbiao Wu, Xiaofang Guo, Mengyuan Li, Jingxian Shen, Xiayu Fu, Qingyu Xie, Zeliang Hou, Manman Zhai, Xiaofan Qiu, Zifeng Cui, Hongxian Xie, Pengmin Qin, Xuchu Weng, Zheng Hu and Jiuxing Liang

Assessment of habitat change on bird diversity and bird–habitat network of a Coral Island, South China Sea

Understanding how island ecosystems change across habitats is a major challenge in ecological conservation under the conditions of habitat degradation. According to a 2-year investigation on Dong Island of the...

Authors: Yingcan Li, Zhiwen Chen, Chao Peng, Guangchuan Huang, Hongyu Niu and Hongmao Zhang

Dentition and feeding in Placodontia: tooth replacement in Henodus chelyops

Placodontia is a Triassic sauropterygian reptile group characterized by flat and enlarged crushing teeth adapted to a durophagous diet. The enigmatic placodont Henodus chelyops has numerous autapomorphic characte...

Authors: Yannick Pommery, Torsten M. Scheyer, James M. Neenan, Tobias Reich, Vincent Fernandez, Dennis F. A. E. Voeten, Adrian S. Losko and Ingmar Werneburg

Exposure to Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis affects chemical defences in two anuran amphibians, Rana dalmatina and Bufo bufo

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is the causative agent of chytridiomycosis, one of the major causes of worldwide amphibian biodiversity loss. Many amphibians exhibit skin-based chemical defences, which may pl...

Authors: János Ujszegi, Krisztina Ludányi, Ágnes M. Móricz, Dániel Krüzselyi, László Drahos, Tamás Drexler, Márk Z. Németh, Judit Vörös, Trenton W. J. Garner and Attila Hettyey

Independent pseudogenizations and losses of sox15 during amniote diversification following asymmetric ohnolog evolution

Four ohnologous genes (sox1, sox2, sox3, and sox15) were generated by two rounds of whole-genome duplication in a vertebrate ancestor. In eutherian mammals, Sox1, Sox2, and Sox3 participate in central nervous sys...

Authors: Yusaku Ogita, Kei Tamura, Shuuji Mawaribuchi, Nobuhiko Takamatsu and Michihiko Ito

Another lesson from beautiful monsters: the case of 'sex reversals' in the Ammonoidea and their significance

Expression of sexual dimorphism is recognised in various fossil groups of molluscs such as the Ammonoidea, an extinct group of shelled cephalopods. During the Mesozoic, the best-documented sexual dimorphic exa...

Authors: Camille Frau and Pierre-Yves Boursicot

Vertical clinging and leaping induced evolutionary rate shifts in postcranial evolution of tamarins and marmosets (Primates, Callitrichidae)

Callitrichids comprise a diverse group of platyrrhine monkeys that are present across South and Central America. Their secondarily evolved small size and pointed claws allow them to cling to vertical trunks of...

Authors: Léo Botton-Divet and John A. Nyakatura

Is mRNA decapping by ApaH like phosphatases present in eukaryotes beyond the Kinetoplastida?

ApaH like phosphatases (ALPHs) originate from the bacterial ApaH protein and have been identified in all eukaryotic super-groups. Only two of these proteins have been functionally characterised. We have shown ...

Authors: Paula Andrea Castañeda Londoño, Nicole Banholzer, Bridget Bannermann and Susanne Kramer

The legacy of Eastern Mediterranean mountain uplifts: rapid disparity of phylogenetic niche conservatism and divergence in mountain vipers

The orogeny of the eastern Mediterranean region has substantially affected ecological speciation patterns, particularly of mountain-dwelling species. Mountain vipers of the genus Montivipera are among the paramou...

Authors: Mohsen Ahmadi, Mahmoud-Reza Hemami, Mohammad Kaboli, Masoud Nazarizadeh, Mansoureh Malekian, Roozbeh Behrooz, Philippe Geniez, John Alroy and Niklaus E. Zimmermann

Niche partitioning between sympatric wild canids: the case of the golden jackal (Canis aureus) and the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) in north-eastern Italy

Two coexisting species with similar ecological requirements avoid or reduce competition by changing the extent of their use of a given resource. Numerous coexistence mechanisms have been proposed, but species ...

Authors: Elisa Torretta, Luca Riboldi, Elena Costa, Claudio Delfoco, Erica Frignani and Alberto Meriggi

Dispersal ability, habitat characteristics, and sea-surface circulation shape population structure of Cingula trifasciata (Gastropoda: Rissoidae) in the remote Azores Archipelago

In the marine realm, dispersal ability is among the major factors shaping the distribution of species. In the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, the Azores Archipelago is home to a multitude of marine invertebrates whi...

Authors: L. Baptista, H. Meimberg, S. P. Ávila, A. M. Santos and M. Curto

Intraspecific variation in the Cambrian: new observations on the morphology of the Chengjiang euarthropod Sinoburius lunaris

The Chengjiang biota from southwest China (518-million-years old, early Cambrian) has yielded nearly 300 species, of which more than 80 species represent early chelicerates, crustaceans and relatives. The appl...

Authors: Michel Schmidt, Yu Liu, Xianguang Hou, Joachim T. Haug, Carolin Haug, Huijan Mai and Roland R. Melzer