In a landmark study based on one of the most comprehensive genomic datasets ever assembled, a team led by scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Vanderbilt University offer a possible answer to one of the oldest questions about evolution: why some species are generalists and others specialists ..read more

Cichlid fishes exhibit differing degrees of curiosity. The cause for this lies in their genes, as reported by researchers from the University of Basel in the journal Science. This trait influences the cichlids' ability to adapt to new habitats ..read more

Competition and cooperation are fundamental forces that govern the evolutionary and ecological dynamics among species. The balance between these forces varies across ecological contexts, with some environments favoring cooperative behaviors that promote mutual benefit, while others reward competitive strategies that maximize individual fitness ..read more

When we think of evolution, we think of a process that happens over hundreds or thousands of years. In research published in Ecology and Evolution a team led by Rick Relyea, Ph.D., professor of biological sciences and David M. Darrin Senior Endowed Chair at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, found a species of frog that has evolved over the course of merely 25 years. The adaptation was spurred on by something many assume is innocuous: salt ..read more

Every cuckoo is an adopted child—raised by foster parents, into whose nest the cuckoo mother smuggled her egg. The cuckoo mother is aided in this subterfuge by her resemblance to a bird of prey. There are two variants of female cuckoos: a gray morph that looks like a sparrowhawk, and a rufous morph. Male cuckoos are always gray ..read more

Migratory birds are able to navigate and orientate with astonishing accuracy using various mechanisms, including a magnetic compass. A team led by biologists Dr. Corinna Langebrake and Prof. Dr. Miriam Liedvogel from the University of Oldenburg and the Institute of Avian Research "Vogelwarte Helgoland" in Wilhelmshaven has now compared the genomes of several hundred bird species and found further evidence that a specific protein in the birds' eyes is the magnetoreceptor which underlies this process ..read more

People say "When pigs fly" to describe the impossible. But even if most mammals are landlubbers, the ability to glide or fly has evolved again and again during mammalian evolution, in species ranging from bats to flying squirrels. How did that come about ..read more

Bioluminescence first evolved in animals at least 540 million years ago in a group of marine invertebrates called octocorals, according to the results of a new study from scientists with the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History ..read more

Dogs come in all shapes and sizes. We've molded some of them to have large protruding eyes, sloping backs and shortened legs through selective breeding ..read more

Living beings can evolve to lose biological structures due to potential survival benefits from such losses. For example, certain groups of ray-finned fishes show such regressive evolution—medakas, minnows, puffera, and wrasses do not have a stomach in the gastrointestinal tract, making them agastric or stomachless fishes. However, the specific evolutionary mechanisms underlying the evolution of agastric fishes remain unclear ..read more