Simon Tragust, Claudia Herrmann ... Heike Feldhaar
Poison acidified crops sanitize food and limit disease transmission while at the same time structuring the gut microbiota and thus contribute to the ecological and evolutionary success of formicine ants.
Comparing maize to its wild ancestor teosinte advances our understanding of how it and other cereal crops evolved, and also identifies the genetic variation that can contribute to important agricultural traits.
Case Vincent Miller, Jen A Bright ... Michael Pittman
Enantiornithine birds reached similar dietary diversity to modern birds in a similar amount of time many millions of years earlier, but how exactly they did that requires further research.
Lucie Crhak Khaitova, Pavlina Mikulkova ... Karel Riha
The sensitivity of Arabidopsis meiotic centromeres to heat stress suggests that centromere function is one of the key determinants of plant reproduction under rising temperatures.
A better understanding of the natural history of model organisms will increase their value as model systems and also keep them at the forefront of research.
Increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide reduce the mineral content but increase the levels of starch and sugars found in crop plants; which could exacerbate both obesity and malnutrition in some human populations.
Fernando Racimo, Elia Valentini ... Julia B Halder
The ever-worsening climate and ecological crises calls for life scientists to engage in advocacy and activism to galvanise governments and the public into action.
