https://phys.org/biology-news/evolution en-us The latest science news on evolution Bumblebees and chimpanzees can learn skills from their peers so complicated that they could never have mastered them on their own, an ability previously thought to be unique to humans, two studies said on Wednesday. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-humans-bees-chimps-skills.html Plants & Animals Evolution Wed, 06 Mar 2024 14:40:01 EST news628958079 Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum explain how it is possible for the small brains of pigeons, parrots and corvids to perform equally well as those of mammals, despite their significant differences. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-birds-smart.html Plants & Animals Evolution Wed, 06 Mar 2024 11:26:03 EST news628946761 "Random DNA" is naturally active in the one-celled fungi yeast, while such DNA is turned off as its natural state in mammalian cells, despite their having a common ancestor a billion years ago and the same basic molecular machinery, a new study finds. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-synthetic-dna-mysterious-difference-cells.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 11:00:01 EST news628942902 Some of our genes can be expressed or silenced depending on whether we inherited them from our mother or our father. The mechanism behind this phenomenon, known as genomic imprinting, is determined by DNA modifications during egg and sperm production. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-revealing-evolutionary-genomic-imprinting.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 11:00:01 EST news628942517 Stingless bees in the Colombian Andes are adapting to a derivative of the ubiquitous insecticide ivermectin, which the bees ingest along with pollen from pasture flowers, according to a new study. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-wild-bees-tolerance-veterinary-drugs.html Evolution Ecology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 10:08:17 EST news628942095 Paleontologists have discovered a strange new species of marine lizard with dagger-like teeth that lived near the end of the age of dinosaurs. Their findings, published in Cretaceous Research, show a dramatically different ocean ecosystem to what we see today, with numerous giant top predators eating large prey, unlike modern ecosystems where a few apex predators—such as great white sharks, orca and leopard seals—dominate. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-fossils-giant-sea-lizard-dagger.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Tue, 05 Mar 2024 15:06:04 EST news628873562 In 1859, Charles Darwin coined the term "living fossils" to describe organisms that show little species diversity or physical differences from their ancestors in the fossil record. In a new study, Yale researchers provide the first evidence of a biological mechanism that explains how living fossils occur in nature. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-slowly-evolving-fossils-reveals-key.html Plants & Animals Evolution Mon, 04 Mar 2024 15:57:43 EST news628790260 Charles Darwin described evolution as "descent with modification." Genetic information in the form of DNA sequences is copied and passed down from one generation to the next. But this process must also be somewhat flexible, allowing slight variations of genes to arise over time and introduce new traits into the population. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-life-evidence-rna-world.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 04 Mar 2024 15:00:01 EST news628757739 You'd probably walk past a chiton without even seeing it. These creatures often look like nothing more than another speck of seaweed on the crusty intertidal rocks. But it sees you. At least, if it's one of the species with eyes dotting its plate mail shell. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-unraveling-mystery-chiton-visual.html Plants & Animals Evolution Mon, 04 Mar 2024 11:54:35 EST news628775671 Put the word "evolution" into Google images and the results are largely variations on one theme: Ralph Zallinger's illustration, March of Progress. Running left to right, we see a chimp-like knuckle walker gradually becoming taller and standing erect. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-tails-ape-ancestors-evolutionary-advantage.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Sun, 03 Mar 2024 10:50:02 EST news628429534 The vocalizations of humans, bats, whales, seals and songbirds vastly differ from each other. Humans and birds, for example, are separated by some 300 million years of evolution. But scientists studying how these animals learn to "speak" have time and again seen surprising similarities in the connections in brain regions that support this vocal learning. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-similar-genetic-elements-underlie-vocal.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 29 Feb 2024 16:08:12 EST news628445281 What is the origin of genetic diversity in plants? Can new mutations acquired during growth be passed on to seeds? INRAE scientists, in collaboration with CIRAD and the CNRS, have used the French Guiana forest as the setting for their research, leading to a series of discoveries on this fundamental question in biology. The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-unveiling-rare-diversity-heritable-mutations.html Plants & Animals Evolution Thu, 29 Feb 2024 15:52:29 EST news628444347 For more than a decade, invasive Asian honeybees have defied evolutionary expectations and established a thriving population in North Queensland, much to the annoyance of the honey industry and biosecurity officials. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-bottlenecks-beehives-invasive-bee-colony.html Evolution Ecology Thu, 29 Feb 2024 11:00:01 EST news628421319 Writing a commentary in the 50th anniversary issue of Cell, Fu Qiaomei and E. Andrew Bennett, both of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, explored the contribution of paleogenomics to our understanding of the evolution of modern humans. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-human-ancient-genome-perspective.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 29 Feb 2024 11:00:01 EST news628421346 While some people may first associate daddy longlegs with, well, their long legs, researchers Guilherme Gainett and Prashant Sharma have been especially focused on the arachnids' eyes. In their paper published last week in the journal Current Biology, the researchers found that a living species of daddy longlegs has two additional sets of underdeveloped eyes as embryos, implying that the species diversified earlier in the evolutionary tree than scientists believed. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-species-daddy-longlegs-additional-underdeveloped.html Plants & Animals Evolution Thu, 29 Feb 2024 09:57:01 EST news628423016 The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 has adapted to spread between birds and marine mammals, posing an immediate threat to wildlife conservation, according to a study from the University of California, Davis, and the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) in Argentina. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-avian-influenza-virus-marine-mammals.html Evolution Veterinary medicine Wed, 28 Feb 2024 14:34:04 EST news628353242 Imagine you find the dried-up remains of a once green and lush philodendron on your bookshelf and realize you can't remember the last time you watered your houseplants. You soak the soil with water, hoping you can breathe life back into its desiccated husk, but it is futile. The plant has been too dehydrated for too long, and irreparable damage has been done. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-drying-dying-scarcity-coping-mechanisms.html Plants & Animals Evolution Wed, 28 Feb 2024 14:19:04 EST news628352341 When certain species of wild birds and primates discover new ways of finding food in the wild, it can serve to measure their flexibility and intelligence. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-ability-food-puzzles-predictor-brain.html Plants & Animals Evolution Wed, 28 Feb 2024 11:05:56 EST news628340754 A genetic change in our ancient ancestors may partly explain why humans don't have tails like monkeys, finds a new study led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-gene-code-human-ancestors-lost.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 28 Feb 2024 11:00:01 EST news628323982 An international group of researchers leveraged open-access digital collections to validate an age-old hypothesis in evolutionary ecology. The classic hypothesis proposes that predators select for a great variety of camouflage and a limited variety of warning signals, but the idea has never been tested on natural prey. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-moth-evolutionary-ecology-hypothesis-predator.html Evolution Ecology Wed, 28 Feb 2024 07:38:03 EST news628328281 Researchers have shown that inedible species of butterfly that mimic each others' color patterns have also evolved similar flight behaviors to warn predators and avoid being eaten. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-butterflies-mimic-flight-behavior-predators.html Evolution Ecology Mon, 26 Feb 2024 15:00:02 EST news628161038 The evolutionary success of the first large predators on land was driven by their need to improve as killers, researchers at the University of Bristol and the Open University suggest. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-killer-instinct-drove-evolution-mammals.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Fri, 23 Feb 2024 10:24:03 EST news627906241 A small international team of animal behavior researchers has found that species of glass frogs whose males help care for offspring tend to have smaller testes than species whose males do not help care for offspring. In their study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group went into the tropical rain forests in Ecuador and Brazil to study the behavior of glass frogs over the course of several months. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-male-glass-frogs-offspring-smaller.html Plants & Animals Evolution Fri, 23 Feb 2024 08:56:40 EST news627900997 In a new study published in New Phytologist, scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, along with partners in Latin America, Asia and Australia, present an updated family tree of orchids, tracing their origins to the northern hemisphere some 85 million years ago. Not only does the study shed new light on their complex and fascinating evolutionary history, but the study's authors hope their findings will help inform future orchid conservation planning. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-orchid-family-emerged-northern-hemisphere.html Plants & Animals Evolution Thu, 22 Feb 2024 16:08:04 EST news627840481 Biomedical engineers at Duke University have uncovered a key link between the spread of antibiotic resistance genes and the evolution of resistance to new drugs in certain pathogens. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-gun-evolution-antibiotic-resistance.html Evolution Cell & Microbiology Thu, 22 Feb 2024 15:39:04 EST news627838742 More than 100 million years ago, the ancestors of the first snakes were small lizards that lived alongside other small, nondescript lizards in the shadow of the dinosaurs. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-reveals-snakes-evolution-reptiles.html Evolution Ecology Thu, 22 Feb 2024 14:00:01 EST news627575596 The Australian continent is now geologically stable. But volcanic rocks, lava flows and a contemporary landscape dotted with extinct volcanoes show this wasn't always the case. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-botanical-pompeii-spectacular-australian-fossils.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 21 Feb 2024 12:13:52 EST news627740026 Baleen whales are the largest animals to have ever roamed our planet and as top predators play a vital role in marine ecosystems. To communicate across vast distances and find each other, baleen whales depend critically on the production of sounds that travels far in murky and dark oceans. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-baleen-whales-evolved-unique-larynx.html Evolution Ecology Wed, 21 Feb 2024 11:00:01 EST news627728629 The sea lamprey, a 500-million-year-old animal with a sharp-toothed suction cup for a mouth, is the thing of nightmares. A new study from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research discovered that the hindbrain—the part of the brain controlling vital functions like blood pressure and heart rate—of both sea lampreys and humans is built using an extraordinarily similar molecular and genetic toolkit. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-sea-lamprey-clues-brains-vertebrates.html Evolution Wed, 21 Feb 2024 10:30:43 EST news627733840 New research of northern elephant seals has revealed their reproductive and foraging success has been affected by a population bottleneck which nearly caused their extinction and could make them vulnerable as the environment changes in the future. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-scientists-real-life-impacts-northern.html Evolution Ecology Wed, 21 Feb 2024 09:40:03 EST news627730801