Journal Club

Highlighting recent, timely papers selected by Academy member labs

Category Archives: Evolution

Social leverage makes great apes share more

Posted on November 12, 2021 by David Adam

Sharing is caring. But how much sharing seems fair? In a classical economics test of fairness called the Ultimatum Game, two individuals must agree on how to divide a pot of money. If I propose a split and you accept, … Continue reading →

Using helpers, desert birds hedge their bets to weather variable conditions

Posted on October 8, 2021 by David Adam

Unpredictable environments can help explain the evolution of cooperative behavior, according to a decade-long study of birds in the Kalahari Desert. The research showed that white-browed sparrow-weavers (Plocepasser mahali) work to raise the offspring of other birds as a strategy … Continue reading →

Digital reconstruction gets to the root of 400-million-year-old plant

Posted on September 3, 2021 by David Adam

Researchers have managed to reconstruct the detailed 3-D structure of a fossilized plant more than 400 million years old. The ancient leafy organism, a relative of today’s clubmosses, grew in the Early Devonian era—a crucial time for the development of … Continue reading →

Categories: Evolution | Journal Club | Plant Biology | Tagged Asteroxylon mackiei, digital reconstruction, evolution, paleontology, plant roots | Leave a comment

A popular household fern may be the first known eusocial plant

Posted on June 4, 2021 by Amy McDermott

Staghorn ferns are popular houseplants, sporting long, antler-like fronds that poke out from a brown, tissue-papery base. They may also be the first known example of a plant that exhibits a type of social organization—that is, the first plant thought … Continue reading →

Categories: Ecology | Evolution | Journal Club | Tagged behavioral ecology, eusociality, social behavior, social insects, staghorn fern, tropical dry forest | 6 Comments

Massive study suggests chimp populations mixed more recently than previously reported

Posted on March 19, 2021 by David Adam

A recent study in Communications Biology reports results from the largest such survey of chimpanzee genetics so far. It suggests that animals from the different groups have mixed more recently than many researchers in the field previously believed. The findings … Continue reading →

Study reveals evolutionary origins of fold-switching protein

Posted on January 8, 2021 by Amy McDermott

Most proteins are thought to fold into a single active shape. But the human immune protein XCL1 is a rare breed that can switch back and forth between two different structures, each with its own function. A recent study in … Continue reading →

Smaller salamander species associated with smaller genomes

Posted on October 30, 2020 by Carolyn Beans

The world’s tiniest salamanders are so small that some body parts appear to get short shrift. Those in the genus Thorius, for example, have heads that are “mind bogglingly small, maybe half the size of a pencil eraser,” says herpetologist … Continue reading →

Model suggests how evolution shapes ecological networks among species

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Carolyn Beans

The natural world is filled with networks. Predator and prey, flower and pollinator—each interacting pair forms a link in a networked community of organisms. Now, a French research team has developed a model that explores how evolution may help shape … Continue reading →

Insects, not just wind, offer an ancient mechanism of orchid seed dispersal

Posted on August 21, 2020 by Amy McDermott

On Yakushima Island, at the southern tip of Japan, an orchid employs a very unusual strategy to disperse its seeds. Crickets visit the orchid at night, eat its fruits, and defecate the seeds in the vicinity. The discovery, reported recently … Continue reading →

Categories: Ecology | Evolution | Tagged botany, camel cricket, cricket, dispersal, insects, mutualism, orchid, seeds | Leave a comment

Seasonality shapes coevolution of parasites and hosts

Posted on June 12, 2020 by Amy McDermott

Parasites and their hosts coevolve in an arms race influenced by environmental conditions. Seasonal change, for example, can shape the course of evolution, but precisely how has been something of a mystery. A recent study used lab experiments and mathematical … Continue reading →

Snake venom evolved in fits and spurts

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Amy McDermott

The cocktail of toxins in snake venom experienced constant change with pulses of rapid evolution over the last 60 million years, according to a recent study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Venom, the researchers report, has changed … Continue reading →

Categories: Evolution | Genetics | Journal Club | Tagged diversification, phylogenetics, RNA expression, snake, speciation, toxin, venom | Leave a comment