Nature Ecology & Evolution, May 2020
Volume 4 Issue 5, May 2020
Trophic rewilding
A sunrise silhouette of waterbuck on the Urema floodplain of Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park. Gorongosa’s wildlife was devastated by civil war in the 1980s and 1990s, but has lately been flourishing under a pioneering rewilding programme. The recovery of waterbuck and other large herbivores has dramatically reduced the abundance of invasive shrubs, which suggests that restoring large mammal populations can revive lost ecosystem functions.
See…
Image: Jen Guyton. Cover Design: Lauren Heslop.
Editorial
Editorial | 24 April 2020
Science in the time of corona
The COVID-19 crisis could change the way we conduct our scientific lives, for better and for worse.
Collection:
- Coronavirus
- Abel Barral
- Rosetta C. Blackman,
- Andreas Bruder
- & Florian Altermatt
- Jason M. Tylianakis
- & Lais F. Maia
- Konstantin Khalturin
- David Moreno-Mateos,
- Antton Alberdi
- & Daniel Montoya
- Marek Stibal,
- James A. Bradley
- & Alexandre M. Anesio
- Sophie Cauvy-Fraunié
- & Olivier Dangles
- Nicholas J. Conard,
- Jordi Serangeli
- & Veerle Rots
- Natalie Mason,
- Michelle Ward
- & Rebecca K. Runting
- Anthony R. Ives,
- Brandon T. Barton
- & Volker C. Radeloff
- Jennifer A. Guyton,
- Johan Pansu
- & Robert M. Pringle
- Jing Wang,
- Lingling Zhang
- & Shi Wang
- Julian Baur
- & David Berger
- Mitchel J. Daniel
- & Robert J. Williamson
- Hui Liu,
- Qing Ye
- & John J. Wiens
- Daniel M. Fernandes,
- Alissa Mittnik,
- & David Reich
- Bernardo B. N. Strassburg,
- Hawthorne L. Beyer
- & Maria Uriarte
- Jing Wang,
- Lingling Zhang,
- & Shi Wang
Comment & Opinion
Q&A | 14 March 2020
Virtual conferences are the future
The 2nd Palaeontological Virtual Congress will take place on 1–15 May 2020. We talked to the chairs of this event, Vicente D. Crespo Roures and Esther Manzanares Ubeda, who were also organizers of the inaugural conference.
Comment | 24 April 2020
A meeting framework for inclusive and sustainable science
The ABCD conference format (All continents, Balanced gender, low Carbon transport, Diverse backgrounds) mixes live-streamed and pre-recorded talks with in-person ones to reflect a diverse range of viewpoints and reduce the environmental footprint of meetings while also lowering barriers to inclusiveness.
News & Views
News & Views | 14 April 2020
The patchwork of evolutionary landscapes
A large-scale field experiment in a prey–enemy system demonstrates that spatial and temporal variation in population dynamics can both drive and respond to evolution. This is a crucial step in scaling up our understanding of how ecology and evolution are intertwined in mosaic landscapes.
News & Views | 27 April 2020
The origin of metazoan larvae
A comparative analysis of developmental transcriptomes across Metazoa provides a quantitative approach to test scenarios of life-cycle evolution and supports an ancestral adult form with later intercalation of larval stages.
Reviews
Perspective | 13 April 2020
The long-term restoration of ecosystem complexity
Ecosystem restoration needs to incorporate network and evolutionary approaches to focus on long-term recovery of the complexity of ecosystems.
Research
Matters Arising | 30 March 2020
Glacial ecosystems are essential to understanding biodiversity responses to glacier retreat
Matters Arising | 30 March 2020
Reply to: Glacial ecosystems are essential to understanding biodiversity responses to glacier retreat
Brief Communication | 20 April 2020
A 300,000-year-old throwing stick from Schöningen, northern Germany, documents the evolution of human hunting
The German site of Schöningen preserves rare examples of Palaeolithic wooden artefacts. Here, a 300,000-year-old spruce wood implement is interpreted as a throwing stick on the basis of microscopic use-wear analysis.
Article | 23 March 2020
Global opportunities and challenges for transboundary conservation
Species with ranges that span international borders pose particular challenges for conservation management. Here, the authors develop an index of transboundary feasibility, and identify regions of the world with high conservation potential across national borders.
Article | 23 March 2020
Self-perpetuating ecological–evolutionary dynamics in an agricultural host–parasite system
Combining a large-scale manipulative field experiment with long-term genetic assays and modelling, the authors document evidence of ecological–evolutionary feedbacks between aphids and parasitoids through resistance conferred by heritable bacterial symbionts.
Article | 13 January 2020
Trophic rewilding revives biotic resistance to shrub invasion
The civil war in Mozambique led to the collapse of large-mammal populations and the spread of the invasive plant Mimosa pigra. Experimental exclosures and DNA metabarcoding are used to show how trophic rewilding since the end of the war has reduced the invasive population.
Article | 16 March 2020
Evolutionary transcriptomics of metazoan biphasic life cycle supports a single intercalation origin of metazoan larvae
Evolutionary analysis of transcriptomes across Metazoa supports a scenario of ancestral adult stages and a single intercalation event at the origin of larvae.
Article | 16 March 2020
Experimental evidence for effects of sexual selection on condition-dependent mutation rates
Experimental evolution in male seed beetles subjected to different levels of natural and sexual selection reveals that trade-offs between naturally and sexually selected fitness components can increase mutation rate.
Article | 16 March 2020
Males optimally balance selfish and kin-selected strategies of sexual competition in the guppy
It is unclear whether between-male relatedness modulates the intensity of intrasexual competition. A combination of modelling and empirical testing supports a kin-selected strategy of male–male competition in Trinidadian guppies.
Article | 23 March 2020
Climatic-niche evolution follows similar rules in plants and animals
Phylogenetic and climatic data for 19 plant and 17 vertebrate clades suggest there are general ‘rules’ for climatic-niche evolution.
Amendments & Corrections
Author Correction | 15 April 2020
Author Correction: The spread of steppe and Iranian-related ancestry in the islands of the western Mediterranean
Author Correction | 23 April 2020
Author Correction: Strategic approaches to restoring ecosystems can triple conservation gains and halve costs
Publisher Correction | 20 April 2020
Publisher Correction: Evolutionary transcriptomics of metazoan biphasic life cycle supports a single intercalation origin of metazoan larvae
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