Homology of vertebrate skull structures should be based on evolutionary continuity and an appreciation of germ layer origins and inductive signaling in the embryonic head.
In-planta ancestral protein resurrection of the female determinant of self-incompatibility specificity in Arabidopsis halleri demonstrates that two allelic variants currently segregating as distinct receptor-ligand combinations diverged through an asymmetrical process.
Christian Damsgaard, Henrik Lauridsen ... Mark Bayley
Multiple respiratory and vascular mechanisms have recurrently evolved across the vertebrates to alleviate the oxygen diffusion limitations inherent to the morphology of the retina.
Evolutionary trade-offs enhance efficacy of antibiotic therapy by constraining bacterial adaptation in dependence of drug order and trade-off effect size.
Torsten M Scheyer, John R Hutchinson ... Marcelo R Sánchez-Villagra
The giant caiman Purussaurus from the Miocene of Venezuela is the first recorded member of crown Crocodylia having three sacrals, thus breaking the otherwise strict vertebral constraint of the group.
Jessica E Thomas, Gary R Carvalho ... Michael Knapp
Reconstruction of great auk population dynamics suggests that hunting pressure alone could have been responsible for their extinction, demonstrating that even abundant, widespread species can be vulnerable to intense exploitation.
In Thermoplasma acidophilum, an archaeon without histones, a DNA-binding protein acquired from bacteria via horizontal gene transfer mediates histone-like chromatin architecture.
Phenotypic evolution can originate from variations in very precocious developmental events, starting even before fecundation, during the fabrication of the egg in the mother's gonad.
