295 papers
Evolutionary biology explores the dynamic history of life on Earth, tracing how species change, adapt, and diversify over time. This field investigates the mechanisms driving everything from the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria to the complex social behaviors of primates, revealing the deep connections that bind all living organisms together.
On Gist.Science, we ensure these groundbreaking discoveries remain accessible by processing every new preprint uploaded to bioRxiv in this category. Our team generates both plain-language overviews and detailed technical summaries for each paper, bridging the gap between raw research and public understanding without requiring a specialized background.
Below are the latest studies in evolutionary biology, offering fresh insights into the ongoing story of life.
This study reveals that while Asgard archaea genomes are shaped by widespread prokaryotic-like horizontal gene transfer, their significantly larger size is primarily driven by eukaryotic-like gene duplications, offering new insights into the genomic transitions underlying eukaryogenesis.
A large common-garden experiment demonstrates that in the dioecious plant *Mercurialis annua*, selection during range expansion has favored increased leaky sex expression and reproductive effort at the colonization edge to ensure reproductive assurance and successful establishment.
This study demonstrates that the V protein region in Human parainfluenza virus type 1 (HPIV-1) has undergone specific pseudogenization characterized by a significant excess of stop codons, confirming that the loss of RNA editing led to the functional decay of this ancestral reading frame rather than maintaining it under overlapping coding constraints.
By integrating single-nucleus RNA sequencing and whole-genome sequencing of backcrossing experiments, this study identifies a specific 8-megabase region on the Z chromosome containing two differentially expressed oogenesis genes, *ITPR* and *USP8*, as the likely genetic basis for the switch from sexual to asexual reproduction in *Artemia* brine shrimp.
By sequencing 273 modern and 25 ancient genomes, this study reveals that the Ryukyu Jomon population diverged from mainland Jomon groups around 6,900 years ago, experienced severe bottlenecks, and later admixed with mainland migrants approximately 1,000 years ago, thereby shaping the distinct genetic structure of contemporary Ryukyu populations.
This manuscript has been withdrawn by the author due to a critical methodological error in the analysis of X-chromosomal diversity, rendering its results and conclusions invalid.
By combining micro-tomographic imaging with genomic analysis of cichlid hybrids, this study reveals that brain morphology evolves through largely structure-specific genetic loci rather than global factors, suggesting a modular genetic architecture that allows individual brain components to evolve independently despite their phenotypic integration.
This study uses an NKC model to demonstrate that intergenomic epistasis in coevolving species drives highly repeatable adaptation patterns that diverge from intragenomic expectations due to fitness trade-offs, often resulting in evolutionary cycling and increased fitness loads.
This paper derives a saddle-point approximation revealing that the genotypic density of additive fitness landscapes near maximal fitness follows a power law rather than a Gaussian distribution, demonstrating that the peaks of these "Mount Fuji" landscapes are significantly broader and "stubbier" than previously understood.
By analyzing the distribution of derived alleles, this study provides evidence that human ancestors interbred with two distinct superarchaic populations: an earlier-diverging group that contributed to Neanderthals and Denisovans, and a later-diverging group that contributed to early modern humans in Africa.