Browse our latest Evolutionary Biology articles

Deep mutational scanning of Env proteins from two transmitted-founder strains of HIV shows how the accessible evolutionary space changes as the virus evolves.

The system that controls gene expression by the plant signaling molecule auxin has deep evolutionary roots, and stepwise increases in system complexity shaped the highly diverse auxin response in land plants.

Evolutionary reduction in tissue number involves the simplification of the seaming process but not signaling during epithelial fusion.

Different developmental stages of a venomous animal (e.g. Nematostella vectensis) with a complex life cycle produce vastly different venoms that can serve in different antagonistic interactions with other species.

The biology of sponges provides clues about how early animals may have dealt with low levels of oxygen.

Sponges and ctenophores lack hypoxia-inducible factors, suggesting that the metazoan last common ancestor could have lived aerobically under severe hypoxia and did not need to regulate its transcription in response to oxygen availability.

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.