337 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.
By integrating ancient DNA selection signals with modern genomic data, this study reveals that natural selection over the last 10,000 years has upregulated the human immune system to better combat infectious diseases, resulting in a protective effect against infections but an increased risk for certain autoimmune and inflammatory conditions.
This study establishes a new experimental framework to demonstrate that cave-dwelling *Astyanax mexicanus* exhibit evolved microglial differences, including increased cell numbers, distinct inflammatory responses, and enhanced lysosomal activity, which likely underpin their unique neuroimmune adaptations compared to surface populations.
This study characterizes *Candidatus* Centrionella anaeramoebae, a rare anaerobic Legionellales symbiont of *Anaeramoeba pumila* that has undergone genome reduction, acquired host-derived GTPase genes via horizontal transfer, and lost the symbiosome structure, thereby offering a unique model for the evolutionary transition from aerobic pathogenesis to anaerobic mutualism.
This study introduces phylogenetic comparative interaction methods to demonstrate that competition with darter clades likely drove the repeated colonization of caves by North American blind cavefishes, offering a new framework for testing macroevolutionary ecological interactions using living taxa.
By analyzing near-complete mitochondrial genomes and nuclear loci, this study resolves the previously conflicting phylogenetic placement of the bat-restricted genera *Nycteria* and *Polychromophilus* as a strongly supported monophyletic clade, demonstrating that expanded genomic data is essential for accurately reconstructing the evolutionary history of Haemosporida.
This study demonstrates that freshwater sponges acquired the microbial rhodoquinone biosynthesis gene *rquA* via lateral gene transfer, enabling them to synthesize rhodoquinone and potentially enhancing their tolerance to low-oxygen environments.
This study provides robust experimental evidence that a subset of random sequence clones genuinely confers fitness advantages to *E. coli* under specific growth conditions, thereby validating the capacity of non-coding sequences to generate adaptive functions and supporting the mechanism of *de novo* gene evolution.
This paper proposes a single epidemiological model explaining how the composition of a pathogen environment drives the evolution of divergent lifespan strategies in eusocial species, where chronic parasites favor caste-specific aging and altruistic worker death, while benign pathogens lead to negligible senescence across all castes.
This study demonstrates that in the fungus gnat *Bradysia coprophila*, a maternal genetic sex-determining region drives the adaptive divergence of female reproductive morphs into distinct life history and gene expression profiles, thereby extending core principles of sexual dimorphism and sex chromosome evolution to maternal sex-determination systems.
This study demonstrates that analyzing convergent evolution in large phylogenies can predict major antigenic shifts in H3N2 influenza viruses over a year in advance by identifying specific receptor-binding site substitutions under positive selection before they become dominant.