Browse our latest Evolutionary Biology articles

Upon detecting a fatal infection using chemical cues, ants puncture the cuticle of sick brood and inject antimicrobial poison that disrupts the pathogen's life cycle and prevents it from reproducing, thus protecting the colony from disease.

A gene duplication event has permitted the functional specialization of a homeodomain transcription factor through changes in exon-intron organization and these changes have supported the evolution of a major, phylum-level morphological novelty.

A transcription factor that regulates skeleton formation in sea urchin embryos has evolved a new domain that is essential for this process.

The conserved biochemical activity of the duplicate Bab transcription factors were integrated into the regulatory hierarchy of an evolving gene regulatory network by binding site gains in a target gene's cis-regulatory region.

Human cell lines regress to become ‘de-sexualized’ by reconfiguring to a 2:3 X/A ratio of high fitness, thus shedding light on the evolution of mammalian sex chromosomes.

Many different human cell lines, including both normal and cancer cells, appear to converge to a state that contains an unusual number of chromosomes when they are grown in culture.

Experiments and mathematical modelling show that rare nitrogen fixing symbionts invade a population dominated by non-fixing bacteria across plant generations, above a threshold of a combination of ecological factors.

A change in social status can quickly lead to a change in the quality of the seminal fluid produced by a male Chinook salmon as he responds to increased reproductive competition from higher-status males.

Seminal fluid harbours the as yet unknown mechanism that facilitates rapid adjustment of sperm velocity in response to changing sperm competition risk.

Repeated evolution of eye regression in subterranean mammals helps identify genes and regulatory elements involved in visual perception and development of the eye, and predicts candidate sequences with a potential role in ocular disorders.