phylogenetics

Aridity appears to configure landscapes with a greater diversity of plant species that rely on symbiotic bacteria for nitrogen.

Despite recent advances in the study of eukaryogenesis, much remains unresolved about the origin and evolution of the most complex domain of life.

A lot happened in the hundreds of millions years separating the first and last eukaryotic common ancestors, but when and how most features arose remains a mystery.

A team proposes that the addition of a small accessory subunit to the carbon-fixing enzyme was key to improving its catalytic properties and specificity to CO₂.

Frogs invest in cognitive capacity to avoid predators—up until there are too many hungry snakes around for the evolutionary strategy to pay off.

A fossil analysis suggests that the yunnanozoan, a wormlike fish that flourished around 520 million years ago, sported structures that were the precursors of the head and jaws of modern vertebrates.

A new study using fairly complete genetic datasets of two phyla of small suspension feeders (Ectoprocta and Entoprocta) reopens the debate on the phylogenetic relationships between them and other animals.

Genetic studies have made it clear that eukaryotic horizontal gene transfer can and does happen. Exactly how, though, remains speculative.

Horizontally transferred genes play significant roles in eukaryotic genomes

DNA passed to and from all kinds of organisms, even across kingdoms, has helped shape the tree of life, to a large and undisputed degree in microbes and also unexpectedly in multicellular fungi, plants, and animals.

Genetic testing of people who died in Kyrgyzstan eight years before plague reached Europe reveals an ancient strain of the bacterium Yersinia pestis.

Once thought to be silent, fish turn out to produce a range of vocalizations—so polluting the oceans with noise could pose a danger to them.

A handful of new studies moves the needle toward a consensus on the long-disputed question of whether insect wings evolved from legs or from the body wall, but the devil is in the details.

The glossy shell of some beetles, it has long been speculated, helps hide the insects from predators. A recent paper put the hypothesis to the test—and found it wanting.

A genomics study reveals the parentage of a long-mysterious creature called a kunga, the earliest-known hybrid animal bred by humans.

Studies The Scientist covered this year illustrate the expanding importance of genetic and genomic research in all aspects of life science, from ecology to medicine.

Shared features, such as thick, slimy skin and a throat filled with teeth, suggest that medusafishes are all related.

The first chromosome-level genome assembly for a ctenophore may allow scientists to finally resolve the roots of the animal family tree.

Phylogenomics data place the enigmatic plankton in the middle of the algal family tree, despite their apparent lack of plastids—an organelle characteristic of all other algae.