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Recent advances in heteromorph ammonoid palaeobiology Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2021-01-13 René Hoffmann; Joshua S. Slattery; Isabelle Kruta; Benjamin J. Linzmeier; Robert E. Lemanis; Aleksandr Mironenko; Stijn Goolaerts; Kenneth De Baets; David J. Peterman; Christian Klug
Heteromorphs are ammonoids forming a conch with detached whorls (open coiling) or non‐planispiral coiling. Such aberrant forms appeared convergently four times within this extinct group of cephalopods. Since Wiedmann's seminal paper in this journal, the palaeobiology of heteromorphs has advanced substantially. Combining direct evidence from their fossil record, indirect insights from phylogenetic bracketing
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Intentional communication: solving methodological issues to assigning first‐order intentional signalling Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2021-01-13 Yitzchak Ben Mocha; Judith M. Burkart
Intentional signalling plays a fundamental role in human communication. Mapping the taxonomic distribution of comparable capacities may thus shed light on the selective pressures that enabled the evolution of human communication. Nonetheless, severe methodological issues undermine comparisons among studies, species and communicative modalities. Here, we discuss three main obstacles that hinder comparative
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Evolution and patterning of the ovule in seed plants Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2021-01-11 Paula J. Rudall
The ovule and its developmental successor, the seed, together represent a highly characteristic feature of seed plants that has strongly enhanced the reproductive and dispersal potential of this diverse group of taxa. Ovules encompass multiple tissues that perform various roles within a highly constrained space, requiring a complex cascade of genes that generate localized cell proliferation and programmed
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Invasion of temperate deciduous broadleaf forests by N‐fixing tree species – consequences for stream ecosystems Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2021-01-10 Verónica Ferreira; Albano Figueiredo; Manuel A. S. Graça; Elizabete Marchante; Ana Pereira
Biological invasions are a major threat to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Forest invasion by alien woody species can have cross‐ecosystem effects. This is especially relevant in the case of stream–riparian forest meta‐ecosystems as forest streams depend strongly on riparian vegetation for carbon, nutrients and energy. Forest invasion by woody species with dissimilar characteristics from native
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Meiosis and beyond – understanding the mechanistic and evolutionary processes shaping the germline genome Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2021-01-01 Roberta Bergero; Peter Ellis; Wilfried Haerty; Lee Larcombe; Iain Macaulay; Tarang Mehta; Mette Mogensen; David Murray; Will Nash; Matthew J. Neale; Rebecca O'Connor; Christian Ottolini; Ned Peel; Luke Ramsey; Ben Skinner; Alexander Suh; Michael Summers; Yu Sun; Alison Tidy; Raheleh Rahbari; Claudia Rathje; Simone Immler
The separation of germ cell populations from the soma is part of the evolutionary transition to multicellularity. Only genetic information present in the germ cells will be inherited by future generations, and any molecular processes affecting the germline genome are therefore likely to be passed on. Despite its prevalence across taxonomic kingdoms, we are only starting to understand details of the
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A phylogenetic and functional perspective on the origin and evolutionary shifts of growth ring anatomical markers in seed plants Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-12-31 Marcelo dos S. Silva; Ligia S. Funch; Lazaro B. da Silva; Domingos Cardoso
We reconstruct the evolutionary changes in different anatomical markers in order to understand the evolution and functional aspects of growth rings during the diversification of seed plants (spermatophytes), one of the largest and most diverse lineages of the tree of life. We carried out a wide revision of the anatomy of secondary xylem in spermatophytes and reconstructed the evolution of the different
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A paradigm shift in our view of species drives current trends in biological classification Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-12-23 José M. Padial; Ignacio De la Riva
Discontent about changes in species classifications has grown in recent years. Many of these changes are seen as arbitrary, stemming from unjustified conceptual and methodological grounds, or leading to species that are less distinct than those recognised in the past. We argue that current trends in species classification are the result of a paradigm shift toward which systematics and population genetics
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Antarctic ecosystems in transition – life between stresses and opportunities Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-12-22 Julian Gutt; Enrique Isla; José C. Xavier; Byron J. Adams; In‐Young Ahn; C.‐H. Christina Cheng; Claudia Colesie; Vonda J. Cummings; Guido di Prisco; Huw Griffiths; Ian Hawes; Ian Hogg; Trevor McIntyre; Klaus M. Meiners; David A. Pearce; Lloyd Peck; Dieter Piepenburg; Ryan R. Reisinger; Grace K. Saba; Irene R. Schloss; Camila N. Signori; Craig R. Smith; Marino Vacchi; Cinzia Verde; Diana H. Wall
Important findings from the second decade of the 21st century on the impact of environmental change on biological processes in the Antarctic were synthesised by 26 international experts. Ten key messages emerged that have stakeholder‐relevance and/or a high impact for the scientific community. They address (i) altered biogeochemical cycles, (ii) ocean acidification, (iii) climate change hotspots, (iv)
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Motor function recovery: deciphering a regenerative niche at the neuromuscular synaps Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-12-17 Diego Zelada; Francisca Bermedo‐García; Nicolás Collao; Juan P. Henríquez
The coordinated movement of many organisms relies on efficient nerve–muscle communication at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ), a peripheral synapse composed of a presynaptic motor axon terminal, a postsynaptic muscle specialization, and non‐myelinating terminal Schwann cells. NMJ dysfunctions are caused by traumatic spinal cord or peripheral nerve injuries as well as by severe motor pathologies. Compared
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Circadian rhythms in zebrafish (Danio rerio) behaviour and the sources of their variability Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-12-17 Viacheslav V. Krylov; Evgeny I. Izvekov; Vera V. Pavlova; Natalia A. Pankova; Elena A. Osipova
Over recent decades, changes in zebrafish (Danio rerio) behaviour have become popular quantitative indicators in biomedical studies. The circadian rhythms of behavioural processes in zebrafish are known to enable effective utilization of energy and resources, therefore attracting interest in zebrafish as a research model. This review covers a variety of circadian behaviours in this species, including
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Experimental nitrogen and phosphorus enrichment stimulates multiple trophic levels of algal and detrital‐based food webs: a global meta‐analysis from streams and rivers Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-12-17 Marcelo Ardón; Lydia H. Zeglin; Ryan M. Utz; Scott D. Cooper; Walter K. Dodds; Rebecca J. Bixby; Ayesha S. Burdett; Jennifer Follstad Shah; Natalie A. Griffiths; Tamara K. Harms; Sherri L. Johnson; Jeremy B. Jones; John S. Kominoski; William H. McDowell; Amy D. Rosemond; Matt T. Trentman; David Van Horn; Amelia Ward
Anthropogenic increases in nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations can strongly influence the structure and function of ecosystems. Even though lotic ecosystems receive cumulative inputs of nutrients applied to and deposited on land, no comprehensive assessment has quantified nutrient‐enrichment effects within streams and rivers. We conducted a meta‐analysis of published studies that experimentally
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When more is more: taking advantage of species diversity to move towards sustainable aquaculture Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-12-15 Marielle Thomas; Alain Pasquet; Joël Aubin; Sarah Nahon; Thomas Lecocq
Human population growth has increased demand for food products, which is expected to double in coming decades. Until recently, this demand has been met by expanding agricultural area and intensifying agrochemical‐based monoculture of a few species. However, this development pathway has been criticised due to its negative impacts on the environment and other human activities. Therefore, new production
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Human torpor: translating insights from nature into manned deep space expedition Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-12-14 Zhe Shi; Meng Qin; Lu Huang; Tao Xu; Ying Chen; Qin Hu; Sha Peng; Zhuang Peng; Li‐Na Qu; Shan‐Guang Chen; Qin‐Hui Tuo; Duan‐Fang Liao; Xiao‐Ping Wang; Ren‐Rong Wu; Ti‐Fei Yuan; Ying‐Hui Li; Xin‐Min Liu
During a long‐duration manned spaceflight mission, such as flying to Mars and beyond, all crew members will spend a long period in an independent spacecraft with closed‐loop bioregenerative life‐support systems. Saving resources and reducing medical risks, particularly in mental heath, are key technology gaps hampering human expedition into deep space. In the 1960s, several scientists proposed that
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Multi‐level convergence of complex traits and the evolution of bioluminescence Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-12-11 Emily S. Lau; Todd H. Oakley
Evolutionary convergence provides natural opportunities to investigate how, when, and why novel traits evolve. Many convergent traits are complex, highlighting the importance of explicitly considering convergence at different levels of biological organization, or ‘multi‐level convergent evolution’. To investigate multi‐level convergent evolution, we propose a holistic and hierarchical framework that
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The hallmarks of myotonic dystrophy type 1 muscle dysfunction Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-12-02 Lauren L. Ozimski; Maria Sabater‐Arcis; Ariadna Bargiela; Ruben Artero
Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) is the most prevalent form of muscular dystrophy in adults and yet there are currently no treatment options. Although this disease causes multisystemic symptoms, it is mainly characterised by myopathy or diseased muscles, which includes muscle weakness, atrophy, and myotonia, severely affecting the lives of patients worldwide. On a molecular level, DM1 is caused by an
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Assessing ontogenetic maturity in extinct saurian reptiles Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-12-02 Christopher T. Griffin; Michelle R. Stocker; Caitlin Colleary; Candice M. Stefanic; Emily J. Lessner; Mitchell Riegler; Kiersten Formoso; Krista Koeller; Sterling J. Nesbitt
Morphology forms the most fundamental level of data in vertebrate palaeontology because it is through interpretations of morphology that taxa are identified, creating the basis for broad evolutionary and palaeobiological hypotheses. Assessing maturity is one of the most basic aspects of morphological interpretation and provides the means to study the evolution of ontogenetic changes, population structure
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Towards an ecology of protective coloration Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-12-01 Tim Caro; Manisha Koneru
The strategies underlying different forms of protective coloration are well understood but little attention has been paid to the ecological, life‐history and behavioural circumstances under which they evolve. While some comparative studies have investigated the ecological correlates of aposematism, and background matching, the latter particularly in mammals, few have examined the ecological correlates
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What is the status of metabolic theory one century after Pütter invented the von Bertalanffy growth curve? Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-11-17 Michael R. Kearney
Metabolic theory aims to tackle ecological and evolutionary problems by explicitly including physical principles of energy and mass exchange, thereby increasing generality and deductive power. Individual growth models (IGMs) are the fundamental basis of metabolic theory because they represent the organisational level at which energy and mass exchange processes are most tightly integrated and from which
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The ecological significance of time sense in animals Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-11-08 Leslie Ng; Jair E. Garcia; Adrian G. Dyer; Devi Stuart‐Fox
Time is a fundamental dimension of all biological events and it is often assumed that animals have the capacity to track the duration of experienced events (known as interval timing). Animals can potentially use temporal information as a cue during foraging, communication, predator avoidance, or navigation. Interval timing has been traditionally investigated in controlled laboratory conditions but
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Evaluating endoplasmic reticulum stress and unfolded protein response through the lens of ecology and evolution Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-11-08 Kang Nian Yap; KayLene Yamada; Shelby Zikeli; Hippokratis Kiaris; Wendy R. Hood
Considerable progress has been made in understanding the physiological basis for variation in the life‐history patterns of animals, particularly with regard to the roles of oxidative stress and hormonal regulation. However, an underappreciated and understudied area that could play a role in mediating inter‐ and intraspecific variation of life history is endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, and the resulting
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Why are there so many bee-orchid species? Adaptive radiation by intra-specific competition for mnesic pollinators. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-09-21 Michel Baguette,Joris A M Bertrand,Virginie M Stevens,Bertrand Schatz
Adaptive radiations occur mostly in response to environmental variation through the evolution of key innovations that allow emerging species to occupy new ecological niches. Such biological innovations may play a major role in niche divergence when emerging species are engaged in reciprocal ecological interactions. To demonstrate coevolution is a difficult task; only a few studies have confirmed coevolution
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The accuracy and precision of body mass estimation in non-avian dinosaurs. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-09-01 Nicolás E Campione,David C Evans
Inferring the body mass of fossil taxa, such as non‐avian dinosaurs, provides a powerful tool for interpreting physiological and ecological properties, as well as the ability to study these traits through deep time and within a macroevolutionary context. As a result, over the past 100 years a number of studies advanced methods for estimating mass in dinosaurs and other extinct taxa. These methods can
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Vertical stratification of seed‐dispersing vertebrate communities and their interactions with plants in tropical forests Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-11-02 Sarina Thiel; Marco Tschapka; Eckhard W. Heymann; Katrin Heer
Vertical stratification (VS) is a widespread phenomenon in plant and animal communities in forests and a key factor for structuring their species richness and biodiversity, particularly in tropical forests. The organisms composing forest communities adjust and shape the complex three‐dimensional structure of their environment and inhabit a large variety of niches along the vertical gradient of the
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Coastal peat‐beds and peatlands of the southern North Sea: their past, present and future Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-11-02 Martyn Waller; Jason Kirby
Peat layers are well represented in the Holocene coastal deposits of the southern North Sea and provide evidence as to the extent and nature of the fens and bogs that occupied the region in the mid and late Holocene. While natural processes contributed to their demise, without human interference extensive areas of peatland would remain. We review the characteristics of the vegetation of these peatlands
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Wolbachia host shifts: routes, mechanisms, constraints and evolutionary consequences Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-10-30 Ehsan Sanaei; Sylvain Charlat; Jan Engelstädter
Wolbachia is one of the most abundant endosymbionts on earth, with a wide distribution especially in arthropods. Effective maternal transmission and the induction of various phenotypes in their hosts are two key features of this bacterium. Here, we review our current understanding of another central aspect of Wolbachia's success: their ability to switch from one host species to another. We build on
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Surprisingly long survival of premature conclusions about naked mole‐rat biology Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-10-30 Stan Braude; Susanne Holtze; Sabine Begall; Julia Brenmoehl; Hynek Burda; Philip Dammann; Delphine del Marmol; Ekaterina Gorshkova; Yoshiyuki Henning; Andreas Hoeflich; Annika Höhn; Tobias Jung; Dania Hamo; Arne Sahm; Yury Shebzukhov; Radim Šumbera; Satomi Miwa; Mikhail Y. Vyssokikh; Thomas von Zglinicki; Olga Averina; Thomas B. Hildebrandt
Naked mole‐rats express many unusual traits for such a small rodent. Their morphology, social behaviour, physiology, and ageing have been well studied over the past half‐century. Many early findings and speculations about this subterranean species persist in the literature, although some have been repeatedly questioned or refuted. While the popularity of this species as a natural‐history curiosity
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Molecular regulatory mechanisms underlying the adaptability of polyploid plants Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-10-24 Margaret Scarrow; Yiling Wang; Genlou Sun
Polyploidization influences the genetic composition and gene expression of an organism. This multi‐level genetic change allows the formation of new regulatory pathways leading to increased adaptability. Although both forms of polyploidization provide advantages, autopolyploids were long thought to have little impact on plant divergence compared to allopolyploids due to their formation through genome
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Deciphering the molecular mechanism of stop codon readthrough Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-10-22 Martine Palma; Fabrice Lejeune
Recognition of the stop codon by the translation machinery is essential to terminating translation at the right position and to synthesizing a protein of the correct size. Under certain conditions, the stop codon can be recognized as a coding codon promoting translation, which then terminates at a later stop codon. This event, called stop codon readthrough, occurs either by error, due to a dedicated
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Learning in non‐avian reptiles 40 years on: advances and promising new directions Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-10-19 Birgit Szabo; Daniel W. A. Noble; Martin J. Whiting
Recently, there has been a surge in cognition research using non‐avian reptile systems. As a diverse group of animals, non‐avian reptiles [turtles, the tuatara, crocodylians, and squamates (lizards, snakes and amphisbaenids)] are good model systems for answering questions related to cognitive ecology, from the role of the environment on the brain, behaviour and learning, to how social and life‐history
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New insights on the reparative cells in bone regeneration and repair Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-10-13 Shuo Huang; Min Jin; Nan Su; Lin Chen
Bone possesses a remarkable repair capacity to regenerate completely without scar tissue formation. This unique characteristic, expressed during bone development, maintenance and injury (fracture) healing, is performed by the reparative cells including skeletal stem cells (SSCs) and their descendants. However, the identity and functional roles of SSCs remain controversial due to technological difficulties
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Convergence and divergence in lizard colour polymorphisms Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-10-08 Devi Stuart‐Fox; Anne Aulsebrook; Katrina J. Rankin; Caroline M. Dong; Claire A. McLean
Colour polymorphic species are model systems for examining the evolutionary processes that generate and maintain discrete phenotypic variation in natural populations. Lizards have repeatedly evolved strikingly similar polymorphic sexual signals in distantly related lineages, providing an opportunity to examine convergence and divergence in colour polymorphism, correlated traits and associated evolutionary
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Poor nutritional condition promotes high‐risk behaviours: a systematic review and meta‐analysis Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-10-05 Nicholas P. Moran; Alfredo Sánchez‐Tójar; Holger Schielzeth; Klaus Reinhold
Animal behaviour can lead to varying levels of risk, and an individual's physical condition can alter the potential costs and benefits of undertaking risky behaviours. How risk‐taking behaviour depends on condition is subject to contrasting hypotheses. The asset protection principle proposes that individuals in better condition should be more risk averse, as they have higher future reproductive potential
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The science and engineering of stem cell‐derived organoids‐examples from hepatic, biliary, and pancreatic tissues Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-10-01 Ogechi Ogoke; Mitchell Maloy; Natesh Parashurama
The field of organoid engineering promises to revolutionize medicine with wide‐ranging applications of scientific, engineering, and clinical interest, including precision and personalized medicine, gene editing, drug development, disease modelling, cellular therapy, and human development. Organoids are a three‐dimensional (3D) miniature representation of a target organ, are initiated with stem/progenitor
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The biology of human hair greying. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-09-23 James D B O'Sullivan,Carina Nicu,Martin Picard,Jérémy Chéret,Barbara Bedogni,Desmond J Tobin,Ralf Paus
Hair greying (canities) is one of the earliest, most visible ageing‐associated phenomena, whose modulation by genetic, psychoemotional, oxidative, senescence‐associated, metabolic and nutritional factors has long attracted skin biologists, dermatologists, and industry. Greying is of profound psychological and commercial relevance in increasingly ageing populations. In addition, the onset and perpetuation
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Ancient life and moving fluids. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-09-22 Brandt M Gibson,David J Furbish,Imran A Rahman,Mark W Schmeeckle,Marc Laflamme,Simon A F Darroch
Over 3.7 billion years of Earth history, life has evolved complex adaptations to help navigate and interact with the fluid environment. Consequently, fluid dynamics has become a powerful tool for studying ancient fossils, providing insights into the palaeobiology and palaeoecology of extinct organisms from across the tree of life. In recent years, this approach has been extended to the Ediacara biota
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Shrinking body sizes in response to warming: explanations for the temperature-size rule with special emphasis on the role of oxygen. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-09-22 Wilco C E P Verberk,David Atkinson,K Natan Hoefnagel,Andrew G Hirst,Curtis R Horne,Henk Siepel
Body size is central to ecology at levels ranging from organismal fecundity to the functioning of communities and ecosystems. Understanding temperature‐induced variations in body size is therefore of fundamental and applied interest, yet thermal responses of body size remain poorly understood. Temperature–size (T–S) responses tend to be negative (e.g. smaller body size at maturity when reared under
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Spatial inference without a cognitive map: the role of higher-order path integration. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-09-16 Youcef Bouchekioua,Aaron P Blaisdell,Yutaka Kosaki,Iku Tsutsui-Kimura,Paul Craddock,Masaru Mimura,Shigeru Watanabe
The cognitive map has been taken as the standard model for how agents infer the most efficient route to a goal location. Alternatively, path integration – maintaining a homing vector during navigation – constitutes a primitive and presumably less‐flexible strategy than cognitive mapping because path integration relies primarily on vestibular stimuli and pace counting. The historical debate as to whether
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Reproductive seasonality in primates: patterns, concepts and unsolved questions. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-09-16 Sandra A Heldstab,Carel P van Schaik,Dennis W H Müller,Eberhard Rensch,Laurie Bingaman Lackey,Philipp Zerbe,Jean-Michel Hatt,Marcus Clauss,Ikki Matsuda
Primates, like other mammals, exhibit an annual reproductive pattern that ranges from strictly seasonal breeding to giving birth in all months of the year, but factors mediating this variation are not fully understood. We applied both a categorical description and quantitative measures of the birth peak breadth based on daily observations in zoos to characterise reproductive seasonality in 141 primate
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Phoresy in animals: review and synthesis of a common but understudied mode of dispersal. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-09-13 Andrew W Bartlow,Salvatore J Agosta
Phoresy is a type of interaction in which one species, the phoront, uses another species, the dispersal host, for transportation to new habitats or resources. Despite being a widespread behaviour, little is known about the ecology and evolution of phoresy. Our goal is to provide a comprehensive review of phoretic dispersal in animals and to bring renewed attention to this subject. We surveyed literature
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Tectonics, climate and the diversification of the tropical African terrestrial flora and fauna. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-09-13 Thomas L P Couvreur,Gilles Dauby,Anne Blach-Overgaard,Vincent Deblauwe,Steven Dessein,Vincent Droissart,Oliver J Hardy,David J Harris,Steven B Janssens,Alexandra C Ley,Barbara A Mackinder,Bonaventure Sonké,Marc S M Sosef,Tariq Stévart,Jens-Christian Svenning,Jan J Wieringa,Adama Faye,Alain D Missoup,Krystal A Tolley,Violaine Nicolas,Stéphan Ntie,Frédiéric Fluteau,Cécile Robin,Francois Guillocheau,Doris
Tropical Africa is home to an astonishing biodiversity occurring in a variety of ecosystems. Past climatic change and geological events have impacted the evolution and diversification of this biodiversity. During the last two decades, around 90 dated molecular phylogenies of different clades across animals and plants have been published leading to an increased understanding of the diversification and
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Drugs, host proteins and viral proteins: how their promiscuities shape antiviral design. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-09-11 Munishwar Nath Gupta,Ipsita Roy
The reciprocal nature of drug specificity and target specificity implies that the same is true for their respective promiscuities. Protein promiscuity has two broadly different types of footprint in drug design. The first is relaxed specificity of binding sites for substrates, inhibitors, effectors or cofactors. The second involves protein–protein interactions of regulatory processes such as signal
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How intelligent is a cephalopod? Lessons from comparative cognition. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-09-06 Alexandra K Schnell,Piero Amodio,Markus Boeckle,Nicola S Clayton
The soft‐bodied cephalopods including octopus, cuttlefish, and squid are broadly considered to be the most cognitively advanced group of invertebrates. Previous research has demonstrated that these large‐brained molluscs possess a suite of cognitive attributes that are comparable to those found in some vertebrates, including highly developed perception, learning, and memory abilities. Cephalopods are
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Lakes in the era of global change: moving beyond single-lake thinking in maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-09-01 Jani Heino,Janne Alahuhta,Luis Mauricio Bini,Yongjiu Cai,Anna-Stiina Heiskanen,Seppo Hellsten,Pirkko Kortelainen,Niina Kotamäki,Kimmo T Tolonen,Petteri Vihervaara,Annika Vilmi,David G Angeler
The Anthropocene presents formidable threats to freshwater ecosystems. Lakes are especially vulnerable and important at the same time. They cover only a small area worldwide but harbour high levels of biodiversity and contribute disproportionately to ecosystem services. Lakes differ with respect to their general type (e.g. land‐locked, drainage, floodplain and large lakes) and position in the landscape
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A conceptual framework of evolutionary novelty and innovation. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-08-31 Douglas H Erwin
Since 1990 the recognition of deep homologies among metazoan developmental processes and the spread of more mechanistic approaches to developmental biology have led to a resurgence of interest in evolutionary novelty and innovation. Other evolutionary biologists have proposed central roles for behaviour and phenotypic plasticity in generating the conditions for the construction of novel morphologies
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Fundamental research questions in subterranean biology. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-08-25 Stefano Mammola,Isabel R Amorim,Maria E Bichuette,Paulo A V Borges,Naowarat Cheeptham,Steven J B Cooper,David C Culver,Louis Deharveng,David Eme,Rodrigo Lopes Ferreira,Cene Fišer,Žiga Fišer,Daniel W Fong,Christian Griebler,William R Jeffery,Jure Jugovic,Johanna E Kowalko,Thomas M Lilley,Florian Malard,Raoul Manenti,Alejandro Martínez,Melissa B Meierhofer,Matthew L Niemiller,Diana E Northup,Thais G
Five decades ago, a landmark paper in Science titled The Cave Environment heralded caves as ideal natural experimental laboratories in which to develop and address general questions in geology, ecology, biogeography, and evolutionary biology. Although the ‘caves as laboratory’ paradigm has since been advocated by subterranean biologists, there are few examples of studies that successfully translated
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Interocean patterns in shallow water sponge assemblage structure and function. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-08-19 James J Bell,Emily McGrath,Nora M Kandler,Joseph Marlow,Sandeep S Beepat,Ramadian Bachtiar,Megan R Shaffer,Charlotte Mortimer,Valerio Micaroni,Valeria Mobilia,Alberto Rovellini,Benjamin Harris,Elizabeth Farnham,Francesca Strano,José Luis Carballo
Sponges are a major component of benthic ecosystems across the world and fulfil a number of important functional roles. However, despite their importance, there have been few attempts to compare sponge assemblage structure and ecological functions across large spatial scales. In this review, we examine commonalities and differences between shallow water (<100 m) sponges at bioregional (15 bioregions)
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Next-generation biological control: the need for integrating genetics and genomics. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-08-14 Kelley Leung,Erica Ras,Kim B Ferguson,Simone Ariëns,Dirk Babendreier,Piter Bijma,Kostas Bourtzis,Jacques Brodeur,Margreet A Bruins,Alejandra Centurión,Sophie R Chattington,Milena Chinchilla-Ramírez,Marcel Dicke,Nina E Fatouros,Joel González-Cabrera,Thomas V M Groot,Tim Haye,Markus Knapp,Panagiota Koskinioti,Sophie Le Hesran,Manolis Lyrakis,Angeliki Paspati,Meritxell Pérez-Hedo,Wouter N Plouvier,Christian
Biological control is widely successful at controlling pests, but effective biocontrol agents are now more difficult to import from countries of origin due to more restrictive international trade laws (the Nagoya Protocol). Coupled with increasing demand, the efficacy of existing and new biocontrol agents needs to be improved with genetic and genomic approaches. Although they have been underutilised
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Rate of environmental change across scales in ecology. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-08-05 Liliana Pinek,India Mansour,Milica Lakovic,Masahiro Ryo,Matthias C Rillig
The rate of change (RoC) of environmental drivers matters: biotic and abiotic components respond differently when faced with a fast or slow change in their environment. This phenomenon occurs across spatial scales and thus levels of ecological organization. We investigated the RoC of environmental drivers in the ecological literature and examined publication trends across ecological levels, including
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Deciphering mollusc shell production: the roles of genetic mechanisms through to ecology, aquaculture and biomimetics. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-07-31 Melody S Clark,Lloyd S Peck,Jaison Arivalagan,Thierry Backeljau,Sophie Berland,Joao C R Cardoso,Carlos Caurcel,Gauthier Chapelle,Michele De Noia,Sam Dupont,Karim Gharbi,Joseph I Hoffman,Kim S Last,Arul Marie,Frank Melzner,Kati Michalek,James Morris,Deborah M Power,Kirti Ramesh,Trystan Sanders,Kirsikka Sillanpää,Victoria A Sleight,Phoebe J Stewart-Sinclair,Kristina Sundell,Luca Telesca,David L J Vendrami
Most molluscs possess shells, constructed from a vast array of microstructures and architectures. The fully formed shell is composed of calcite or aragonite. These CaCO3 crystals form complex biocomposites with proteins, which although typically less than 5% of total shell mass, play significant roles in determining shell microstructure. Despite much research effort, large knowledge gaps remain in
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Impacts of exclusion fencing on target and non-target fauna: a global review. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-07-28 Deane Smith,Rachel King,Benjamin L Allen
Exclusion fencing is a common tool used to mitigate a variety of unwanted economic losses caused by problematic wildlife. While the potential for agricultural, ecological and economic benefits of pest animal exclusion are often apparent, what is less clear are the costs and benefits to sympatric non‐target wildlife. This review examines the use of exclusion fencing in a variety of situations around
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Temperature as a modulator of sexual selection. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-07-20 Roberto García-Roa,Francisco Garcia-Gonzalez,Daniel W A Noble,Pau Carazo
A central question in ecology and evolution is to understand why sexual selection varies so much in strength across taxa; it has long been known that ecological factors are crucial to this. Temperature is a particularly salient abiotic ecological factor that modulates a wide range of physiological, morphological and behavioural traits, impacting individuals and populations at a global taxonomic scale
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The topology and drivers of ant-symbiont networks across Europe. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-07-20 Thomas Parmentier,Frederik De Laender,Dries Bonte
Intimate associations between different species drive community composition across ecosystems. Understanding the ecological and evolutionary drivers of these symbiotic associations is challenging because their structure eventually determines stability and resilience of the entire species network. Here, we compiled a detailed database on naturally occurring ant–symbiont networks in Europe to identify
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Human disturbance has contrasting effects on niche partitioning within carnivore communities. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-07-14 Anthony Sévêque,Louise K Gentle,José V López-Bao,Richard W Yarnell,Antonio Uzal
Among species, coexistence is driven partly by the partitioning of available resources. The mechanisms of coexistence and competition among species have been a central topic within community ecology, with particular focus on mammalian carnivore community research. However, despite growing concern regarding the impact of humans on the behaviour of species, very little is known about the effect of humans
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Ant-induced evolutionary patterns in aphids. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-07-12 Łukasz Depa,Natalia Kaszyca-Taszakowska,Artur Taszakowski,Mariusz Kanturski
This review investigates ant–aphid mutualism (trophobiosis), in particular focusing on evolutionary processes in aphids resulting from this interaction. This broad literature review allows us to revise existing views on certain aspects of this mutualism and provide the first timeline of its possible development over a geological timescale. We propose a new classification of ant–aphid mutualism with
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Effective ecosystem monitoring requires a multi-scaled approach. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-07-09 Ben D Sparrow,Will Edwards,Samantha E M Munroe,Glenda M Wardle,Greg R Guerin,Jean-Francois Bastin,Beryl Morris,Rebekah Christensen,Stuart Phinn,Andrew J Lowe
Ecosystem monitoring is fundamental to our understanding of how ecosystem change is impacting our natural resources and is vital for developing evidence‐based policy and management. However, the different types of ecosystem monitoring, along with their recommended applications, are often poorly understood and contentious. Varying definitions and strict adherence to a specific monitoring type can inhibit
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Adaptations to thermal stress in social insects: recent advances and future directions Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-07-06 Rémy Perez; Serge Aron
Thermal stress is a major driver of population declines and extinctions. Shifts in thermal regimes create new environmental conditions, leading to trait adaptation, population migration, and/or species extinction. Extensive research has examined thermal adaptations in terrestrial arthropods. However, little is known about social insects, despite their major role in ecosystems. It is only within the
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Sublethal effects of contaminants on marine habitat-forming species: a review and meta-analysis. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-07-02 Mariana Mayer-Pinto,Janine Ledet,Tasman P Crowe,Emma L Johnston
Contaminants may affect ecosystem functioning by reducing the fitness of organisms and these impacts may cascade through ecosystems, particularly if the sensitive organisms are also habitat‐forming species. Understanding how sub‐lethal effects of toxicants can affect the quality and functions of biogenic habitats is critical if we are to establish effective guidelines for protecting ecosystems. We
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Scientists' warning on invasive alien species. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-06-25 Petr Pyšek,Philip E Hulme,Dan Simberloff,Sven Bacher,Tim M Blackburn,James T Carlton,Wayne Dawson,Franz Essl,Llewellyn C Foxcroft,Piero Genovesi,Jonathan M Jeschke,Ingolf Kühn,Andrew M Liebhold,Nicholas E Mandrak,Laura A Meyerson,Aníbal Pauchard,Jan Pergl,Helen E Roy,Hanno Seebens,Mark van Kleunen,Montserrat Vilà,Michael J Wingfield,David M Richardson
Biological invasions are a global consequence of an increasingly connected world and the rise in human population size. The numbers of invasive alien species – the subset of alien species that spread widely in areas where they are not native, affecting the environment or human livelihoods – are increasing. Synergies with other global changes are exacerbating current invasions and facilitating new ones
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When one tail isn't enough: abnormal caudal regeneration in lepidosaurs and its potential ecological impacts. Biol. Rev. (IF 10.701) Pub Date : 2020-06-25 James I Barr,Ruchira Somaweera,Stephanie S Godfrey,Michael G Gardner,Philip W Bateman
Abnormal caudal regeneration, the production of additional tails through regeneration events, occurs in lepidosaurs as a result of incomplete autotomy or sufficient caudal wound. Despite being widely known to occur, documented events generally are limited to opportunistic single observations – hindering the understanding of the ecological importance of caudal regeneration. Here we compiled and reviewed