Evolution - Latest research and news (2025)

Conference report of the 2024 Antimicrobial Resistance Meeting

The Antimicrobial Resistance - Genomes, Big Data and Emerging Technologies Conference explored key topics including measuring the burden of AMR, global public health pathogen genomics infrastructure and surveillance, translation and implementation of genomics for AMR control, use of techniques such as wastewater surveillance, mathematical and statistical modelling, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to aid understanding of AMR. This report describes research presented during plenary sessions and discussions, keynote presentations and posters.

• Charlotte E. Chong
• Thi Mui Pham
• Kate S. Baker

Wastes of time — faeces and vomit track how dinosaurs rose to prominence

The earliest known dinosaur fossils are at least 230 million years old, and by 200 million years ago, dinosaurs dominated global ecosystems. Reconstructing food webs using fossil evidence of feeding activity helps to explain this ascendency.

• Lawrence H. Tanner

Unlocking Amborella’s ZW sex chromosome system

The most widespread chromosomal sex determination systems in plants and animals with separate sexes are the XY system, in which males are heterogametic, and the ZW system, in which females are heterogametic. Figuring out which species has which system has become easier with fully phased, chromosome-scale genome assemblies. A new study now provides such a genome for Amborella trichopoda, with its Z and W sex chromosomes nearly completely assembled.

• Susanne S. Renner

The near-complete genome assembly of hexaploid wild oat reveals its genome evolution and divergence with cultivated oats

The near-complete genome of hexaploid wild oat, along with 117 global wild and cultivated accessions, reveals genome divergence between wild and cultivated oats and a large fragment duplication event from chromosomes 4A to 4D during oat domestication.

• Qiang He
• Wei Li
• Huilong Du

Intraspecific variability of rice root knot nematodes across diverse agroecosystems for sustainable management

• Sandip Mondal
• Arnab Purohit
• Abhishek Mukherjee

Frequent transitions in self-assembly across the evolution of a central metabolic enzyme

Many enzymes form homo-oligomers, but it is often not clear why. This study follows the evolution self-assembly in citrate synthases across their phylogeny and finds it to be variable and not obviously related to enzyme function.

• Franziska L. Sendker
• Tabea Schlotthauer
• Georg K. A. Hochberg

A DNA barcode reference of Asian ferns with expert-identified voucher specimens and DNA samples

• Li-Yaung Kuo
• Sheng-Kai Tang
• Yong Kien Thai

Assessment of breeding nuclei contributions to the genetic diversity and population structure of the Cyprus Chios sheep

• Andreas C. Dimitriou
• Giannis Maimaris
• Georgia Hadjipavlou

African bat database: curated data of occurrences, distributions and conservation metrics for sub-Saharan bats

• Ara Monadjem
• Cecilia Montauban
• Peter J. Taylor

Conference report of the 2024 Antimicrobial Resistance Meeting

The Antimicrobial Resistance - Genomes, Big Data and Emerging Technologies Conference explored key topics including measuring the burden of AMR, global public health pathogen genomics infrastructure and surveillance, translation and implementation of genomics for AMR control, use of techniques such as wastewater surveillance, mathematical and statistical modelling, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to aid understanding of AMR. This report describes research presented during plenary sessions and discussions, keynote presentations and posters.

• Charlotte E. Chong
• Thi Mui Pham
• Kate S. Baker

These two ancient human relatives crossed paths 1.5 million years ago

Remarkably preserved footprints of Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei offer direct evidence that extinct hominin species coexisted.

• Miryam Naddaf

Wastes of time — faeces and vomit track how dinosaurs rose to prominence

The earliest known dinosaur fossils are at least 230 million years old, and by 200 million years ago, dinosaurs dominated global ecosystems. Reconstructing food webs using fossil evidence of feeding activity helps to explain this ascendency.

• Lawrence H. Tanner

Fossilized poo and vomit show how dinosaurs rose to rule Earth

Analysis of 200-million-year-old digested foods reveals how the animals became dominant.

• Helena Kudiabor

Unlocking Amborella’s ZW sex chromosome system

The most widespread chromosomal sex determination systems in plants and animals with separate sexes are the XY system, in which males are heterogametic, and the ZW system, in which females are heterogametic. Figuring out which species has which system has become easier with fully phased, chromosome-scale genome assemblies. A new study now provides such a genome for Amborella trichopoda, with its Z and W sex chromosomes nearly completely assembled.

• Susanne S. Renner

Menopause, medicine and human evolution

• Melissa Emery Thompson