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.
By employing a novel phylogenetic approach to model latency, this study provides evidence that Ebola virus persists in its reservoir through extended periods of quiescence lasting potentially decades, fundamentally reshaping our understanding of its evolutionary history and geographic spread in Central Africa.
This study demonstrates that nitrogen-fixing rhizobia harbor genetic variation influencing host resistance and mutualism robustness against parasitic nematodes, suggesting that nutritional mutualists can significantly shape the evolutionary potential of host defense traits.
This paper establishes a theoretical framework demonstrating that while phylogenetic signal and bias accumulate linearly with data size, stochastic noise accumulates nonlinearly, revealing that genome-scale datasets may still fail to resolve deep or rapid divergences when noise overwhelms signal or when systematic bias continuously outpaces signal accumulation.
This study reconstructs the most comprehensive plastid-based phylogenomic framework for the hyperdiverse orchid genus *Bulbophyllum* using 63 genes from 355 specimens, revealing five major evolutionary lineages and resolving previously unclear relationships within the Asian clade to provide a foundation for future taxonomic revision.
By simulating seasonally fluctuating selection in *Drosophila* populations using realistic genomic and demographic parameters, this study demonstrates that such temporal selection can reduce the genome-wide effective population size by approximately 50%, with the magnitude of reduction primarily driven by the allele frequency amplitude of the most strongly fluctuating loci.
This study utilizes single-cell sequencing across the entire life cycle of the larvacean *Oikopleura dioica* to map its cellular diversity and characterize the molecular signatures of the specialized house-producing epithelium, thereby providing a critical resource for understanding chordate evolution and organ morphogenesis.
By analyzing high-quality genome assemblies and population data across the *Mercurialis* genus, this study reveals that the *M. annua* Y chromosome evolved through two distinct stages of recombination suppression involving a recent inversion and an older degenerated stratum, while identifying *APRR7* as a conserved candidate master sex-determination gene.
This study demonstrates that structural selection in ecological networks is only detectable when analyzing meso-structural domains via order-2 egonets, as aggregated network representations obscure the hierarchical heterogeneity necessary for evolutionary gradients to emerge.
This study resolves a long-standing question in mitochondrial evolution by identifying the bacterial inner membrane transporters CysZ and YihY as the evolutionary ancestors of the mitochondrial ATP/ADP carrier (AAC), thereby establishing a bacterial origin for this critical eukaryotic protein.
This study reveals that global invasions of the ambrosia beetle *Euwallacea fornicatus* are structured by a dominant, genetically depauperate lineage derived from a bridgehead population, while subsequent hybridization with local lineages in regions like South Africa facilitates the purging of deleterious mutations, thereby enhancing the biosecurity threat posed by these invasive beetles.