389 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 characterizes the fragmented, multipartite mitochondrial genomes of five newly sequenced chewing-louse species, revealing conserved gene arrangements, extensive interchromosomal recombination, and a phylogenetic pattern that supports an ancient host switch between rodents and carnivorans.
This study provides direct experimental evidence that over 100 generations of selection against hybridization in *Drosophila melanogaster* strengthens reproductive isolation and limits gene flow, demonstrating that reinforcement can effectively drive speciation even under continuous gene flow.
This paper presents a population-genetics model demonstrating that host-associated microbes can facilitate evolutionary rescue by either immediately boosting host growth or accelerating adaptation through positive interactions, though imperfect microbial inheritance can undermine this process via a mechanism termed "selection-amplified dilution."
Using high-resolution landscape genomics in Los Angeles, this study reveals that while urban coyote populations function as demographic sinks with asymmetric gene flow from exurban sources, they simultaneously act as permeable "leaky sinks" that facilitate regional gene flow and buffer biodiversity against genetic erosion, thereby challenging the notion that urbanization solely fragments genetic connectivity.
This study demonstrates that cholinergic and monoaminergic signaling systems originated in pre-bilaterian ancestors through generalist, broad-specificity machinery shared across neuronal and non-neuronal cells, with the later evolution of specialized, dedicated components occurring specifically within Bilateria.
By integrating seven years of field data and genomic analysis in *Drosophila melanogaster*, this study reveals that natural populations adapt to seasonal environmental changes through two independent temporal modes—concurrent and lagged selection—that target distinct genomic variants but converge on pleiotropic genes within neural and developmental pathways to reshape organismal responses to recurring environmental variation.
This paper presents theoretical results and probability calculations for the multispecies coalescent with duplication and loss (MSC-DL) model, demonstrating that the unrestricted interaction of these evolutionary processes generates a vast number of gene tree topologies and highlighting the significant implications for the accuracy of existing reconciliation and ortholog identification methods.
This study analyzes mitochondrial ribosomes across 85 eukaryotes to reconstruct their ancestral proteome, identify lineage-specific evolutionary remodeling and new protein homologies, and demonstrate remarkable intercompartmental structural compatibility, thereby establishing a comprehensive framework for understanding mitoribosomal evolution.
Controlled experiments on two sea urchin species demonstrate that sperm competition exerts antagonistic effects by reducing fertilization success and increasing the sperm concentration required for half-maximal fertilization, thereby potentially compromising reproductive outcomes under sperm-limited conditions in external fertilizers.
This study demonstrates that while combined coastal acidification and sewage effluent stressors on eastern oyster larvae produce additive effects on survival and the magnitude of allele-frequency changes, they elicit a synergistic genomic response by selecting for unique sets of loci and biological functions not detected under either stressor alone.