Species

The spate of furious wildfires around the world during the past decade has revealed to ecologists how much biodiversity and “pyrodiversity” go hand in hand.

While the study of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was the most urgent priority, biologists also learned more about how brains process information, how to define individuality and why sleep deprivation kills.

The simple insight that most changes are random had a profound effect on genetics, evolution and ecology.

In three bursts of adaptive change, one species of cichlid fish in Lake Tanganyika gave rise to hundreds.

The physicist Jeff Gore tests theories about microbe communities experimentally and finds new rules governing ecological stability.

The unintentional creation of “sturddlefish” hybrids may illuminate the genomic mechanisms that govern whether species can interbreed.

Clues from fish diversity suggest that interbreeding between species could be a major mechanism of fast speciation.

Researchers agree it’s a long shot, but transmissible cancers could theoretically evolve into independent species. Certain weird parasites might be living proof.

Researchers struggle to incorporate ongoing evolutionary discoveries into an animal classification scheme older than Darwin.