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Gene duplication is an important process for genome expansion, sometimes allowing for new gene functions to develop. Duplicate genes can be retained through multiple processes, either for intermediate periods ...
Plants have demonstrated tremendous resilience through past mass extinction events. However, anthropogenic pressures are rapidly threatening plant survival. To develop our understanding of the impact of enviro...
According to a longstanding paradigm, aquatic amniotes, including the Mesozoic marine reptile group Ichthyopterygia, give birth tail-first because head-first birth leads to increased asphyxiation risk of the f...
Kin and multilevel selection provide explanations for the existence of altruism based on traits or processes that enhance the inclusive fitness of an altruist individual. Kin selection is often based on indivi...
The shape of the semicircular canals of the inner ear of living squamate reptiles has been used to infer phylogenetic relationships, body size, and life habits. Often these inferences are made without controll...
Pesticides are identified as one of the major reasons for the global pollinator decline. However, the sublethal effects of pesticide residue levels found in pollen and nectar on pollinators have been studied l...
The original article was published in BMC Ecology and Evolution 2023 23:3
BLAST searches against the human genome showed that of the 93 keratin-associated proteins (KRTAPs) of Homo sapiens, 53 can be linked by sequence similarity to an H. sapiens metallothionein and 16 others can be li...
Sex ratios of animal populations are important factors of population demographics. In pond-breeding amphibians, the operational sex ratio (OSR) among the breeding population is usually male-biased. Also, in Eu...
Group II introns are common in the two endosymbiotic organelle genomes of the plant lineage. Chloroplasts harbor 22 positionally conserved group II introns whereas their occurrence in land plant (embryophyte) ...
Diatoms are present in all waters and are highly sensitive to pollution gradients. Therefore, they are ideal bioindicators for water quality assessment. Current indices used in these applications are based on ...
Functional diversity is vital for forest ecosystem resilience in times of climate-induced forest diebacks. Admixing drought resistant non-native Douglas fir, as a partial replacement of climate-sensitive Norwa...
The Correction to this article has been published in BMC Ecology and Evolution 2023 23:8
Reconstructing phylogenetic relationships with genomic data remains a challenging endeavor. Numerous phylogenomic studies have reported incongruent gene trees when analyzing different genomic regions, complica...
Functional traits are phenotypic traits that affect an organism’s performance and shape ecosystem-level processes. The main challenge when using functional traits to quantify biodiversity is to choose which on...
Assemblages of mummified and preserved animals in necropoleis of Ptolemaic Period Egypt (ca. 332–30 BC) document some aspects of the ceremonial and religious practices of the ancient Egyptians, but study of th...
The tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier) is a large iconic marine predator inhabiting worldwide tropical and subtropical waters. So far, only mitochondrial markers and microsatellites studies have investigated its wor...
For social insects such as ants, the internal organs are likely important in understanding their eusocial behavior and evolution. Such organs, however, are rarely preserved on fossils. In each of the few cases...
The relict genus Rehderodendron (Styracaceae), the species of which are restricted to mostly warm temperate to tropical climate in East Asia today, is known from fossil fruits and pollen in Europe during warmer p...
In the last decades, Southeast Asia has experienced massive conversion of rainforest into rubber and oil palm monoculture plantations. The effects of this land-use change on canopy arthropods are still largely...
Neoplasms are common across the animal kingdom and seem to be a feature plesiomorphic for metazoans, related with an increase in somatic complexity. The fossil record of cancer complements our knowledge of the...
Carcinogenesis is one of the leading health concerns afflicting presumably every single animal species, including humans. Currently, cancer research expands considerably beyond medicine, becoming a focus in ot...
Social defectors may meet diverse cooperators. Genotype-by-genotype interactions may constrain the ranges of cooperators upon which particular defectors can cheat, limiting cheater spread. Upon starvation, the...
The number of interactions between a transferable gene or its protein product and genes or gene products native to its microbial host is referred to as connectivity. Such interactions impact the tendency of th...
Fleshy fruits evolved to be attractive to seed dispersers through various signals such as color and scent. Signals can evolve through different trajectories and have various degrees of reliability. The stronge...
Brood parasites can exert strong selection pressure on their hosts. Many brood parasites escape their detection by mimicking sensory cues of their hosts. However, there is little evidence whether or not the ho...
Allegheny woodrats (Neotoma magister) are found in metapopulations distributed throughout the Interior Highlands and Appalachia. Historically these metapopulations persisted as relatively fluid networks, enabling...
Climate change is expected to lead to warming in ocean surface temperatures which will have unequal effects on the rates of photosynthesis and heterotrophy. As a result of this changing metabolic landscape, di...
Land-use is a major driver of changes in biodiversity worldwide, but studies have overwhelmingly focused on above-ground taxa: the effects on soil biodiversity are less well known, despite the importance of so...
Hybridization can be a conservation concern if genomic introgression leads to the loss of an endangered species’ unique genome, or when hybrid offspring are sterile or less fit than their parental species. Yet...
Divergent selection on host-plants is one of the main evolutionary forces driving ecological speciation in phytophagous insects. The ecological speciation might be challenging in the presence of gene flow and ...
The arms race between humans and pathogens drives the evolution of the human genome. It is thus expected that genes from the interferon-regulatory factors family (IRFs), a critical family for anti-viral immune...
Hotspots of intraspecific genetic diversity represent invaluable resources for species to cope with environmental changes, and their identification is increasingly recognized as a major goal of conservation ec...
Fairy rings occur in diverse global biomes; however, there is a critical knowledge gap regarding drivers of fairy rings in grassland ecosystems. Grassland fairy rings are characterized belowground by an expand...
Detecting genomic variants and their accumulation processes during species diversification and adaptive radiation is important for understanding the molecular and genetic basis of evolution. Anolis lizards in the...
As in most bryozoans, taxonomy and systematics of species in the genus Reteporella Busk, 1884 (family Phidoloporidae) has hitherto almost exclusively been based on morphological characters. From the central North...
The hydrogeological history of Lake Tanganyika paints a complex image of several colonization and adaptive radiation events. The initial basin was formed around 9–12 million years ago (MYA) from the predecesso...
Ancient DNA studies suggest that Late Pleistocene climatic changes had a significant effect on population dynamics in Arctic species. The Eurasian collared lemming (Dicrostonyx torquatus) is a keystone species in...
Species- and genetic diversity can change in parallel, resulting in a species-genetic diversity correlation (SGDC) and raising the question if the same drivers influence both biological levels of diversity. Th...
Colour expression is highly variable in animals. In fishes, rapid colour change, i.e. physiological colour change, can be observed in multiple contexts, e.g. in camouflage or communication, and is affected by ...
The genome of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) contains many insertions/deletions (indels) from the genomes of other SARS-related coronaviruses. Some of the identified indels have r...
Na,K-ATPase is a key protein in maintaining membrane potential that has numerous additional cellular functions. Its catalytic subunit (α), found in a wide range of organisms from prokaryotes to complex eukaryo...
Anadromous rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax) have experienced a large range reduction in recent decades and the status of remnant spawning populations is poorly known in Maine, where these fish have significant ecol...
The Correction to this article has been published in BMC Ecology and Evolution 2023 23:22
The metabolic cold-climate adaption hypothesis predicts that animals from cold environments have relatively high metabolic rates compared with their warm-climate counterparts. However, studies testing this hyp...
Phylogenetic analyses for plant pathogenic fungi explore many questions on diversities, relationships, origins, and divergences of populations from different sources such as species, host, and geography. This ...
The solely freshwater inhabiting Phylactolaemata is a sister taxon to all other bryozoans. Among phylactolaemates, Lophopodidae represents an early branching clade that is therefore crucial for ground pattern ...
The successful establishment of a species population following a single introduction of a few individuals to a non-native area has been limited. Nevertheless, the oriental fire-bellied toad (Bombina orientalis) p...
Aggression is observed across the animal kingdom, and benefits animals in a number of ways to increase fitness and promote survival. While aggressive behaviors vary widely across populations and can evolve as ...
In general, reproductive performance exhibits nonlinear changes with age. Specifically, reproductive performance increases early in life, reaches a peak, and then declines later in life. Reproductive ageing pa...
Various haemosporidian parasites infect raptors, especially captive hosts who may be more exposed. Diagnosis of threatening factors such as infectious diseases indirectly has a significant role in protecting e...
Sharing of space by humans and wildlife at a time may ignite apparent conflict. Populations of many species are declining due to the degradation of wildlife habitats caused by agricultural activities. Addition...
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