Browse our latest Evolutionary Biology articles

Page 88 of 112
    1. Evolutionary Biology
    2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

    The presence and absence of periplasmic rings in bacterial flagellar motors correlates with stator type

    Mohammed Kaplan, Debnath Ghosal ... Grant J Jensen
    A correlation between the periplasmic embellishment of the flagellar motor and its stator system type is described, motors with dual H+-dependent stator systems have one periplasmic ring formed by MotY.
    1. Ecology
    2. Evolutionary Biology

    Quorums enable optimal pooling of independent judgements in biological systems

    James AR Marshall, Ralf HJM Kurvers ... Max Wolf
    Consideration of signal detection theory shows how decision ecology relates to optimal collective decisions, helping explain the prevalence of quorum-sensing in even the simplest collective systems, such as bacterial communities.
    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Evolutionary Biology

    Cryptic genetic variation shapes the adaptive evolutionary potential of enzymes

    Florian Baier, Nansook Hong ... Nobuhiko Tokuriki
    Genetic change among enzyme orthologous with similar phenotypic properties can cause substantial differences in evolutionary response to a new enzyme function in terms of their molecular and fitness outcomes.
    1. Ecology
    2. Evolutionary Biology

    Emergence of trait variability through the lens of nitrogen assimilation in Prochlorococcus

    Paul M Berube, Anna Rasmussen ... Sallie W Chisholm
    In the context of an organism's ecology, physiology, and macroevolutionary history, inheritance and gene loss can yield emergent patterns of trait variability that give the appearance of gene acquisition.
    1. Evolutionary Biology

    Expansion of the fatty acyl reductase gene family shaped pheromone communication in Hymenoptera

    Michal Tupec, Aleš Buček ... Iva Pichová
    A fatty acyl reductase gene family expansion in the Hymenoptera crown group led to recruitment of novel pheromone-biosynthetic enzymes and is linked to evolution of pheromone marking behavior.
    1. Ecology
    2. Evolutionary Biology

    Molecular basis of wax-based color change and UV reflection in dragonflies

    Ryo Futahashi, Yumi Yamahama ... Takema Fukatsu
    UV-reflective dragonfly wax is shown to consist of very long-chain methyl ketones and aldehydes, and a synthetic dragonfly wax spontaneously forms light-scattering fine structures with strong UV reflection.
    1. Evolutionary Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Evolutionary pathways of repeat protein topology in bacterial outer membrane proteins

    Meghan Whitney Franklin, Sergey Nepomnyachyi ... Joanna SG Slusky
    There is a strand-based evolutionary mechanism for the diversification of outer membrane proteins, which has implications for how repeat proteins are created and for how outer membrane proteins fold.
    1. Evolutionary Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

    Protein Evolution: Building bigger beta-barrels

    Vikas Nanda
    The range of barrel-shaped proteins found in the outer membrane of certain bacteria evolved through multiple pathways.
    Version of Record
    Insight
    1. Evolutionary Biology
    2. Genetics and Genomics

    Immune genes are hotspots of shared positive selection across birds and mammals

    Allison J Shultz, Timothy B Sackton
    Pathogens, particularly viruses, target the same genes over deep evolutionary time, resulting in shared signatures of positive selection and transcriptional responses at the same genes.
    1. Evolutionary Biology
    2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease

    Symbiont location, host fitness, and possible coadaptation in a symbiosis between social amoebae and bacteria

    Longfei Shu, Debra A Brock ... Susanne DiSalvo
    Morphological and fitness defects imposed on amoebae hosts by Burkholderia symbionts demonstrates symbiont species-specific effects and provides evidence of host adaptation to naturally acquired symbionts.