Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences

Abstract The marine plankton record offers a unique archive of deep-time ecological and evolutionary dynamics in the open ocean. With distinct biomineral compositions, trophic modes and other diverse ecological and geographic preferences, fossilized marine unicellular plankton groups (diatoms, calcareous nannofossils/coccolithophores, radiolarians, planktonic foraminifera and dinoflagellates) all…

Abstract Local seasonal adaptation across latitudes is ubiquitous, but its fitness consequences are rarely estimated in the field. Using a common-garden field experiment at the northern range margin of the butterfly Lasiommata megera, we show that fitness consequences of among-population genetic differences in photoperiodism for diapause (dormancy) timing depend on when during the adult flight pe…

Abstract Genomic regions of reduced recombination can preserve linkage among co-adapted alleles, facilitating local adaptation despite high connectivity. Such regions—often generated by chromosomal inversions—may be especially important in highly dispersive marine taxa yet remain poorly documented in echinoderms. Here, we combined a chromosome-level reference genome with genome-wide ddRAD-seq fro…

Abstract Major radiations have given rise to huge swathes of life on Earth, and understanding their dynamics reveals the process of biodiversity generation itself. The rise of dinosaurs and other archosaurs during the Triassic was a spectacular example of such a radiation; it set the stage for Mesozoic faunas and gave rise to the largest land animals on Earth. Previous attempts to understand its …

Abstract Dehnel's phenomenon—a reversible seasonal reduction and regrowth of body size, skull, brain and visceral organs—is an extreme adaptive strategy, enabling small mammals to survive winter energetic constraints. First described in the common shrew Sorex araneus, similar seasonal remodelling has since been reported in other shrews and even in distantly related taxa, indicating convergent ada…

Abstract Apple snails (Ampullariidae) are freshwater gastropods of ecological and economic importance, but their digital representation remains uneven across taxa, regions and data types. Using a 171-species taxonomic reference, we integrated global occurrence and molecular data to assess repository coverage, spatial usability, threshold-based visibility and sampling completeness. The public occu…

Abstract How can a small group of committed cooperators shape collective outcomes in social dilemmas? Previous studies have shown that zealots—individuals who always cooperate—can promote cooperation in prisoner's dilemmas. Yet real-world cooperation also involves multiplayer coordination problems, where their role remains less understood. Here, we examine the role of zealots in N-person stag-hun…

Abstract Social status regulates influence and well-being in most social animals. In humans, social status can be attained via distinct routes: prestige (tracking the ability of individuals to confer benefits) and dominance (tracking the ability of individuals to inflict costs). Although prestige and dominance are well studied from a psychological perspective, their influence on social behaviours…

Echolocating bats navigate complex environments with remarkable agility, yet it remains unclear whether their flight trajectories are governed by reproducible internal policies shared within a species and across the controlled environments examined. To address this question, we recorded flight paths and pulse emissions of two bat species with contrasting sensing strategies (Rhinolophus nippon and…

Reproduction is a key life-history trait but often comes at the expense of somatic maintenance, including ageing and susceptibility to disease. While reproduction-immunity trade-offs have been experimentally demonstrated in the context of infectious diseases, whether reproduction similarly undermines susceptibility to tumours has remained unclear. Using the freshwater cnidarian Hydra oligactis, i…

Disjunct distributions have long fascinated biologists, particularly those found in the Southern Hemisphere. Gondwanan vicariance has been invoked to explain these patterns, with relatively limited studies having phylogenetically tested this hypothesis. Another intriguing pattern of disjunction involving South America is the American amphitropical distribution, where Western Hemisphere taxa have …

Movement ecology-the study of how and why animals move within their environments-stands to offer transformative insights into our rapidly changing world, with benefits for both nature and people. Here, we present the first global horizon scan for movement ecology, engaging leading experts to identify innovations likely to shape the field over the next two decades. These include: engineering break…

The ecological and selective processes acting on cognitive traits have received recent attention because of the potentially key role of cognition in rapid behavioural adjustments in response to environmental variation. Innovation, a cognitive process involved in the development of new behaviour, has been linked to fitness in several species but the proximate mechanisms explaining such links are s…

Genetic diversity is critical to long-term survival of species but can be eroded by population declines driven by human pressures. Temporal genetic monitoring of threatened species can reveal changes in genetic diversity over time, providing key data for conservation. Specimens from natural history collections were used to assess changes in genetic diversity in the Critically Endangered largetoot…

Compound eyes display high morphological diversity across arthropods, including rare cone-shaped forms whose visual function is puzzling because their unusual shape seems to defy expectations of how eyes sample visual space. Species in which eye shape changes through development offer a valuable opportunity to investigate how cone-shaped morphology affects visual sampling and acuity. In this stud…

Faecal odours attract cockroaches to aggregations, where conspecific faeces provide nutrients and seed the gut microbiota. Because these odours arise from the gut and faecal microbial communities, which are shaped by coprophagy and diet, discrete aggregations within a heterogeneous landscape can produce distinct faecal odour profiles. How such odour diversity influences recognition, group affilia…

The lower carnassial tooth (m1) is a key innovation underlying the ecological diversification of Carnivora. However, their exceptionally diverse phenotypes result from both functional adaptation and phylogenetic inertia which challenges ecomorphological inferences. We investigate patterns of morphological convergence in the carnassial teeth of 142 extant carnivoran species spanning all terrestria…

Non-native predators profoundly restructure island biological communities worldwide, yet their management is hindered by limited empirical understanding of the dynamics of predator spread and prey extirpation. Here, we integrate two decades of field surveys, citizen-science records and standardized transects to reconstruct the invasion of the snake Hemorrhois hippocrepis on Ibiza and its impact o…

ABSTRACT Sleep disorders are rising globally, but their lifestyle causes remain unclear. We recorded sleep-wake patterns via actigraphy from 1036 Orang Asli adults across 12 communities in Peninsular Malaysia undergoing market integration, marked by changes in permanent infrastructure (electricity and housing), digital technologies (smartphones), and labor practices (i.e., wage labor). We evaluat…

Tool use is known among many taxa but its frequency in the animal kingdom is rare. The socio-ecological conditions through which tool use is acquired, transmitted and maintained are the subject of extensive study. Understanding these dynamics offers valuable insight into the evolution of tool use in our species. A fundamental requirement of tool use is the ability to select materials suitable for…