Browse our latest Evolutionary Biology articles

Analyzing how mutations affect the main protease of SARS-CoV-2 may help researchers develop drugs that are effective against current and future variants of the virus.

Prokaryotic and eukaryotic flagella follow a common trend in swimming cost-effectiveness, but eukaryotic flagella are too large for cells with prokaryote volumes, yielding insight into flagellar dissimilarity between taxa.

The primitive state of vertebrate lungs is unpaired, evolving to be truly paired in the lineage towards the tetrapods, increasing the pulmonary efficiency during the water-to-land transition.

Genetic variation influencing the gut microbiome is abundant among incipient mammalian host species, and cospeciating bacterial taxa display a unique genetic architecture.

Development of a genomic dating method that leverages ancestry covariance patterns in a single diploid individual reveals the timing of major admixture events during the European Holocene.

A detailed discussion of the broad range of immediate, delayed, cumulative, and third-party fitness consequences arising from outgroup conflict showcases the importance of this neglected aspect of sociality as a powerful and widespread evolutionary force.

Mammals evolved an invasive placenta early in the origins of pregnancy.

Cranial endocasts of fossil and extant lungfish, analysed via tomography and novel principle component analyses designed for use with missing data, show that lungfish forebrain and inner ear regions show the most variation in brain shape evolution through time.

Analyses of spindle genes with missense changes in modern humans reveal evidence for positive selection since the split with archaic humans and show that modern humans interacted with Neandertals more than once in the past 200,000 years.

An interdisciplinary approach combining high throughput genotype-to-phenotype mapping, population genetic simulations, and experimental evolution provides an answer to the question of how populations evolve new functions by providing tests of the role antagonistic coevolution plays in pressuring populations to innovate.