https://phys.org/biology-news/evolution en-us The latest science news on evolution Urbanization and human activities have transformed a significant proportion of the land on Earth, resulting in the formation of urban environments. These urban environments are man-made habitats that often impose several selective pressures on their inhabitants. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-urbanization-trigger-evolution.html Plants & Animals Evolution Fri, 20 Oct 2023 14:00:01 EDT news617009730 Why are so few species able to regenerate damaged or missing body parts, even though regeneration might seem an obvious survival advantage? Researchers at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen, Germany, and colleagues have now found a possible explanation in planarian flatworms. Analyzing head regeneration abilities in a large collection of planarian species, they found that these capacities vary greatly and depend on how the different species reproduce. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-worms-regenerate.html Evolution Cell & Microbiology Fri, 20 Oct 2023 11:27:04 EDT news617020021 Scientists have discovered flagella in an unexpected place: hot spring-dwelling bacteria from the phylum Chloroflexota. Research shows that flagella were lost in other forms of Chloroflexota that adapted to marine environments hundreds of millions of years ago. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-marine-bacteria-ditched-flagella-traits.html Evolution Cell & Microbiology Fri, 20 Oct 2023 09:45:48 EDT news617013944 In an ancient hot spring haunt of Incan rulers, researchers discovered a new species of tiny, shrimp-like scavengers known as amphipods thriving at record temperatures that can cook other crustaceans to death. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-ancient-hot-inca-rulers-scientists.html Evolution Ecology Thu, 19 Oct 2023 16:23:04 EDT news616951381 A team led by Tappei Mishina at the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (BDR) has discovered that parasites manipulate their hosts using stolen genes that they likely acquired through a phenomenon called horizontal gene transfer. The study was published in Current Biology on October 19. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-stolen-genes-parasitic-behavior-host.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 19 Oct 2023 11:00:01 EDT news616924497 Researchers are studying the dramatic physical transformation that some insects undergo to give birth to live young. This includes suppressing their immune systems to accommodate babies, which is something some insects and people have in common. Understanding how these systems work can help improve treatments for fibromyalgia and other immune disorders. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-roaches-suppress-immune-birth.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 19 Oct 2023 10:56:04 EDT news616931762 An international team of biologists, public health specialists and infectious disease experts reports that the current near-global bird flu epidemic has its roots in Europe and Africa. In their study, published in the journal Nature, the group analyzed bird flu data from multiple animal health databases. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-current-bird-flu-epidemic-europe.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 19 Oct 2023 10:46:11 EDT news616931166 Of all the mammals, bats have one of the poorest fossil records, with paleontologists estimating that about 80% of it is missing. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-fossilized-skull-vital-piece-evolution.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 19 Oct 2023 10:04:04 EDT news616928641 Octopuses are fascinating animals—and serve as important model organisms in neuroscience, cognition research and developmental biology. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-insights-genetics-common-octopus-genome.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 18 Oct 2023 15:18:04 EDT news616861082 About 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals, who had lived for hundreds of thousands of years in the western part of the Eurasian continent, gave way to Homo sapiens, who had arrived from Africa. This replacement was not sudden, and the two species coexisted for a few millennia, resulting in the integration of Neanderthal DNA into the genome of Homo sapiens. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-encounter-neanderthals-homo-sapiens-told.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 18 Oct 2023 14:00:02 EDT news616844870 Since the work of Charles Darwin, it is relatively clear from an evolutionary perspective where we come from: aquatic ancestors gave rise to terrestrial vertebrates, from among which humans developed. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-modern-salamanders-clues-behavior-early.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 18 Oct 2023 12:47:03 EDT news616852021 Researchers at North Carolina State University and global collaborators have mapped the mosquito's tree of life, a major step toward understanding important traits, such as how the insects choose their hosts, feed on blood and spread disease. The findings will help researchers make better predictions to model disease transmission and understand what makes some mosquitoes better disease carriers than others. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-elucidates-evolution-mosquitoes-hosts.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 18 Oct 2023 12:44:02 EDT news616851841 A team of paleontologists from Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld, Adenauerplatz, the Polish Academy of Sciences, Natural History Museum Luxembourg and The Museum of Evolution at Uppsala University has found through study of a Lorrainosaurus fossil residing at Luxembourg's National Museum of Natural History (MNHN) that the clade it belonged to, Plesiosauria, evolved earlier than previously thought. Their paper is published in the journal Scientific Reports. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-lorrainosaurus-museum-plesiosaurs-evolved-earlier.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 18 Oct 2023 11:10:01 EDT news616844176 Because the bumblebee that an orchid relies on for pollination does not exist on a remote island, the plant gets pollinated by an island wasp. Kobe University researchers found that this came at the cost of being hybridized with another orchid species adapted to being pollinated by the wasp. The finding showcases how plants in ecological relationships adapt to changing circumstances. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-orchid-pollinating-bumblebee-island-wasp.html Evolution Ecology Tue, 17 Oct 2023 11:00:01 EDT news616756190 A new study has provided evidence that young chimpanzees are capable of vocal functional flexibility; a known building block in human language development. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-reveals-similarities-language-chimpanzees-humans.html Plants & Animals Evolution Tue, 17 Oct 2023 09:49:03 EDT news616754941 In the world of threatened and endangered species conservation, the genomic revolution has raised some complicated questions: How can scientists justify assessing species genetic diversity without consulting entire genomes now that they can be sequenced? But then again, how can scientists justify the time and expense of genome sequencing when age-old measures of neutral genetic diversity are much cheaper and easier to obtain? https://phys.org/news/2023-10-genomic-analysis-snakes-link-neutral.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 16 Oct 2023 15:39:05 EDT news616689541 A new study led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History, Brooklyn College, and the Catalan Institute of Paleontology Miquel Crusafont has reconstructed the well-preserved but damaged skull of a great ape species that lived about 12 million years ago. The species, Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, may be crucial to understanding great ape and human evolution. The researchers describe their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-scientists-reconstruct-extinct-ape-skull.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 16 Oct 2023 15:00:01 EDT news616665736 A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes "a missing law of nature," recognizing for the first time an important norm within the natural world's workings. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-scientists-philosophers-nature-evolutionary-law.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 16 Oct 2023 15:00:01 EDT news616665755 A new publication from a Montana State University scientist deepens existing knowledge of an ancient life-form and how it continues unique ecological processes today. The paper, titled "Methanogens acquire and bioaccumulate nickel during reductive dissolution of nickelian pyrite," was published Oct. 13 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-ancient-microbes-important-metals-environment.html Evolution Cell & Microbiology Mon, 16 Oct 2023 14:15:03 EDT news616684501 Modern humans migrated to Eurasia 75,000 years ago, where they encountered and interbred with Neanderthals. A new study published in the journal Current Biology shows that at this time Neanderthals were already carrying human DNA from a much older encounter with modern humans. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-neanderthals-inherited-genome-now-extinct-lineage.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 16 Oct 2023 09:57:04 EDT news616669021 Because literature and film so often depict nature as inherently unfair, people assume that animals live in a "dog-eat-dog world." Inequality might seem like an inevitable fact of life, but a new analysis of data for 66 species of mammals reveals enormous flexibility of their social systems and many routes toward inequality. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-inequality-inevitable-mammals.html Evolution Ecology Mon, 16 Oct 2023 09:21:01 EDT news616666856 Researchers from China studying soybean genome evolution have focused on the phenomenon of centromere repositioning, which involves the formation of new centromeres at different chromosomal locations without altering the underlying DNA sequences. This process has been widely observed in mammalian species and is thought to play a crucial role in genome evolution and speciation. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-scientists-reveal-centromere-repositioning-soybean.html Evolution Cell & Microbiology Fri, 13 Oct 2023 11:13:03 EDT news616414382 Adult insects, including butterflies and moths, typically have only three pairs of legs. But the existence of extra legs in caterpillars—chubby abdominal appendages also known as "prolegs"—has long posed an evolutionary mystery to biologists. A recent study by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) linked this novel trait to crustaceans. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-caterpillars-chubby-legs-scientists-genetic.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Fri, 13 Oct 2023 09:58:09 EDT news616409886 When Carl Fredrik Fallén, for one—and later Johan Wilhelm Zetterstedt—were collecting insects for what would become Lund University's entomological collections, they wondered exactly what was that buzzing coming from their can of raisins. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-year-old-dna-tiny-fly-genetic.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 12 Oct 2023 15:46:04 EDT news616344361 Apoptosis, often referred to as programmed cell death, is a fundamental process crucial to the growth and development of multicellular organisms. This process, or a primordial form of it, is also observed in single-celled eukaryotes like yeast and other microeukaryotes (aka protists). https://phys.org/news/2023-10-cell-death-billion-years.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 12 Oct 2023 11:10:01 EDT news616327193 Maeva Perez is fascinated by marine worms. Her first encounter with these cold-blooded invertebrates dates back to her time at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, where she was completing a master's in biology. Her thesis was on the symbiotic relationship between a species of marine worm and the bacteria in its environment that helped the worm adapt to a seemingly inhospitable ecosystem at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-dna-sequencing-marine-worms-deep-sea.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 12 Oct 2023 10:17:04 EDT news616324622 A team of Earth scientists affiliated with several institutions in France, working with a colleague from Norway, has developed a model to help explain the advent of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification—the largest surge in marine biology in Earth's history. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes the factors that went into their model. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-fall-ancient-sea-surface-temperatures.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 11 Oct 2023 11:20:01 EDT news616239868 People who carry three gene variants inherited from Neanderthals are more sensitive to some types of pain, according to a new study co-led by UCL researchers. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-neanderthal-gene-variants-greater-pain.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Tue, 10 Oct 2023 16:43:30 EDT news616175007 Charles Darwin said that evolution was constantly happening, causing animals to adapt for survival. But many of his contemporaries disagreed. If evolution is always causing things to change, they asked, then how is it that two fossils from the same species, found in the same location, can look identical despite being 50 million years apart in age? https://phys.org/news/2023-10-long-term-lizard-evolutionary-biology.html Evolution Ecology Mon, 09 Oct 2023 15:00:01 EDT news616064546 Maize plants form special compounds derived from indole, the so-called benzoxazinoids. They are considered ecologically important because they act against a wide range of herbivores and reduce their feeding. Benzoxazinoids also exhibit antimicrobial properties and are thought to be involved in mediating plant-plant interactions. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-nature-inventivethe-substance-differently.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 09 Oct 2023 15:00:01 EDT news616064249