Browse our latest Evolutionary Biology articles

Experimental evolution shows that when selection acts on two traits constrained by a trade-off, the direction of phenotypic evolution depends on the environment.

Heritable mutations tend to occur within different DNA sequence contexts in different human populations, suggesting that DNA replication and repair often change in efficacy over only a few hundred generations of evolution.

An analysis of worldwide human genetic variation reveals the footprints of ancient changes in genomic mutation processes.

The coding sequences of a very highly conserved family of neurogenic transcription factors from different species have evolved to generate proteins that have different life times causing them to display quantitatively different neural induction potentials.

The complex chromatin-based genomic regulatory system controlling developmental gene expression in complex bilaterians predates the evolution of morphological complexity and may have been a prerequisite for the evolution of the first simple multicellular animals.

The gene regulation mechanisms necessary for the development of complex multicellular animals have been found in sponges.

Independent dating techniques have established that the H. naledi fossils are between 236 and 335 thousand years old, indicating that small-brained hominins with relatively primitive body shapes co-existed with our early ancestors in Africa.

The discovery of new skeletal remains of Homo naledi in the Lesedi Chamber, South Africa, adds more evidence to our understanding of the morphology and behavior of this recently discovered species.

More fossil specimens and an eagerly awaited age for Homo naledi raise new questions and open new opportunities for paleoanthropologists.

A late Middle Pleistocene age for Homo naledi demonstrates a diversity of hominin species in Africa at this critical time in the archaeological record.