Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

Acoustic adaptation to city noise through vocal learning by a songbird
Anthropogenic noise imposes novel selection pressures, especially on species that communicate acoustically. Many animals—including insects, frogs, whales and birds—produce sounds at higher frequencies in areas with low-frequency noise pollution. Although there is support for animals changing their vocalizations in real time in response to noise (i.e. immediate flexibility), other evolutionary mechanisms for animals that learn their vocalizations remain largely unexplored. We hypothesize that cultural selection for signal structures less masked by noise is a mechanism of acoustic adaptation to anthropogenic nois...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 10, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Moseley, D. L., Derryberry, G. E., Phillips, J. N., Danner, J. E., Danner, R. M., Luther, D. A., Derryberry, E. P. Tags: behaviour Source Type: research

How many faces do people know?
Over our species history, humans have typically lived in small groups of under a hundred individuals. However, our face recognition abilities appear to equip us to recognize very many individuals, perhaps thousands. Modern society provides access to huge numbers of faces, but no one has established how many faces people actually know. Here, we describe a method for estimating this number. By combining separate measures of recall and recognition, we show that people know about 5000 faces on average and that individual differences are large. Our findings offer a possible explanation for large variation in identification perf...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 10, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Jenkins, R., Dowsett, A. J., Burton, A. M. Tags: cognition Neuroscience and cognition Source Type: research

Explaining the ocean's richest biodiversity hotspot and global patterns of fish diversity
For most marine organisms, species richness peaks in the Central Indo-Pacific region and declines longitudinally, a striking pattern that remains poorly understood. Here, we used phylogenetic approaches to address the causes of richness patterns among global marine regions, comparing the relative importance of colonization time, number of colonization events, and diversification rates (speciation minus extinction). We estimated regional richness using distributional data for almost all percomorph fishes (17 435 species total, including approximately 72% of all marine fishes and approximately 33% of all freshwater fishes). ...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 10, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Miller, E. C., Hayashi, K. T., Song, D., Wiens, J. J. Tags: evolution Source Type: research

Two pulses of morphological diversification in Pacific pelagic fishes following the Cretaceous-Palaeogene mass extinction
Molecular phylogenies suggest some major radiations of open-ocean fish clades occurred roughly coincident with the Cretaceous–Palaeogene (K/Pg) boundary, however the timing and nature of this diversification is poorly constrained. Here, we investigate evolutionary patterns in ray-finned fishes across the K/Pg mass extinction 66 million years ago (Ma), using microfossils (isolated teeth) preserved in a South Pacific sediment core spanning 72–43 Ma. Our record does not show significant turnover of fish tooth morphotypes at the K/Pg boundary: only two of 48 Cretaceous tooth morphotypes disappear at the event in th...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 10, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Sibert, E., Friedman, M., Hull, P., Hunt, G., Norris, R. Tags: palaeontology, evolution Palaeobiology Source Type: research

Adaptive periodicity in the infectivity of malaria gametocytes to mosquitoes
Daily rhythms in behaviour, physiology and molecular processes are expected to enable organisms to appropriately schedule activities according to consequences of the daily rotation of the Earth. For parasites, this includes capitalizing on periodicity in transmission opportunities and for hosts/vectors, this may select for rhythms in immune defence. We examine rhythms in the density and infectivity of transmission forms (gametocytes) of rodent malaria parasites in the host's blood, parasite development inside mosquito vectors and potential for onwards transmission. Furthermore, we simultaneously test whether mosquitoes exh...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 3, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Schneider, P., Rund, S. S. C., Smith, N. L., Prior, K. F., O'Donnell, A. J., Reece, S. E. Tags: behaviour, ecology, evolution Source Type: research

A non-coding region near Follistatin controls head colour polymorphism in the Gouldian finch
Discrete colour morphs coexisting within a single population are common in nature. In a broad range of organisms, sympatric colour morphs often display major differences in other traits, including morphology, physiology or behaviour. Despite the repeated occurrence of this phenomenon, our understanding of the genetics that underlie multi-trait differences and the factors that promote the long-term maintenance of phenotypic variability within a freely interbreeding population are incomplete. Here, we investigated the genetic basis of red and black head colour in the Gouldian finch (Erythrura gouldiae), a classic polymorphic...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 3, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Toomey, M. B., Marques, C. I., Andrade, P., Araujo, P. M., Sabatino, S., Gazda, M. A., Afonso, S., Lopes, R. J., Corbo, J. C., Carneiro, M. Tags: genetics, genomics, evolution Genetics and genomics Source Type: research

Rhythmic motor behaviour influences perception of visual time
Temporal processing is fundamental for an accurate synchronization between motor behaviour and sensory processing. Here, we investigate how motor timing during rhythmic tapping influences perception of visual time. Participants listen to a sequence of four auditory tones played at 1 Hz and continue the sequence (without auditory stimulation) by tapping four times with their finger. During finger tapping, they are presented with an empty visual interval and are asked to judge its length compared to a previously internalized interval of 150 ms. The visual temporal estimates show non-monotonic changes locked to the finger tap...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 3, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Tomassini, A., Vercillo, T., Torricelli, F., Morrone, M. C. Tags: neuroscience, behaviour, cognition Neuroscience and cognition Source Type: research

Expression of a novel surfactant protein gene is associated with sites of extrapulmonary respiration in a lungless salamander
Numerous physiological and morphological adaptations were achieved during the transition to lungless respiration that accompanied evolutionary lung loss in plethodontid salamanders, including those that enable efficient gas exchange across extrapulmonary tissue. However, the molecular basis of these adaptations is unknown. Here, we show that lungless salamanders express in the larval integument and the adult buccopharynx—principal sites of respiratory gas exchange in these species—a novel paralogue of the gene surfactant-associated protein C (SFTPC), which is a critical component of pulmonary surfactant express...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 3, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Lewis, Z. R., Dorantes, J. A., Hanken, J. Tags: physiology, evolution Development and physiology Source Type: research

Delayed trait development and the convergent evolution of shell kinesis in turtles
Understanding developmental processes is foundational to clarifying the mechanisms by which convergent evolution occurs. Here, we show how a key convergently evolving trait is slowly ‘acquired’ in growing turtles. Many functionally relevant traits emerge late in turtle ontogeny, owing to design constraints imposed by the shell. We investigated this trend by examining derived patterns of shell formation associated with the multiple (at least 8) origins of shell kinesis in small-bodied turtles. Using box turtles as a model, we demonstrate that the flexible hinge joint required for shell kinesis differentiates gra...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 3, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Cordero, G. A., Quinteros, K., Janzen, F. J. Tags: biomechanics, developmental biology, evolution Source Type: research

Female control over multiple matings increases the opportunity for postcopulatory sexual selection
It is widely acknowledged that in most species sexual selection continues after mating. Although it is generally accepted that females play an important role in generating paternity biases (i.e. cryptic female choice, CFC), we lack a quantitative understanding of the relative importance of female-controlled processes in influencing variance in male reproductive fitness. Here, we address this question experimentally using the guppy Poecilia reticulata, a polyandrous fish in which pre- and postcopulatory sexual selection jointly determine male reproductive fitness. We used a paired design to quantify patterns of paternity fo...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 3, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Gasparini, C., Evans, J. P. Tags: behaviour, evolution Source Type: research

Carrying a selfish genetic element predicts increased migration propensity in free-living wild house mice
Life is built on cooperation between genes, which makes it vulnerable to parasitism. Selfish genetic elements that exploit this cooperation can achieve large fitness gains by increasing their transmission relative to the rest of the genome. This leads to counter-adaptations that generate unique selection pressures on the selfish genetic element. This arms race is similar to host–parasite coevolution, as some multi-host parasites alter the host’s behaviour to increase the chance of transmission to the next host. Here, we ask if, similarly to these parasites, a selfish genetic element in house mice, the t haploty...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 3, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Runge, J.-N., Lindholm, A. K. Tags: behaviour, ecology, evolution Source Type: research

Comparative demography elucidates the longevity of parasitic and symbiotic relationships
Parasitic and symbiotic relationships govern vast nutrient and energy flows, yet controversy surrounds their longevity. Enduring relationships may engender parallel phylogenies among hosts and parasites, but so may ephemeral relationships when parasites colonize related hosts. An understanding of whether symbiont and host populations have grown and contracted in concert would be useful when considering the temporal durability of these relationships. Here, we devised methods to compare demographic histories derived from genomic data. We compared the historical growth of the agent of severe human malaria, Plasmodium falcipar...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 3, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Hecht, L. B. B., Thompson, P. C., Rosenthal, B. M. Tags: genomics, evolution Source Type: research

Molecular archaeoparasitology identifies cultural changes in the Medieval Hanseatic trading centre of Lübeck
This study integrated parasitological and ancient DNA methods with a large sample set dating between Neolithic and Early Modern periods to explore the utility of molecular archaeoparasitology as a new approach to study the past. Molecular analyses provided unequivocal species-level parasite identification and revealed location-specific epidemiological signatures. Faecal–oral transmitted nematodes (Ascaris lumbricoides and Trichuris trichiura) were ubiquitous across time and space. By contrast, high numbers of food-associated cestodes (Diphyllobothrium latum and Taenia saginata) were restricted to medieval Lüb...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 3, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Flammer, P. G., Dellicour, S., Preston, S. G., Rieger, D., Warren, S., Tan, C. K. W., Nicholson, R., Prichystalova, R., Bleicher, N., Wahl, J., Faria, N. R., Pybus, O. G., Pollard, M., Smith, A. L. Tags: palaeontology, genetics, health and disease and epidemiology Palaeobiology Source Type: research

Spatial heterogeneity contributes more to portfolio effects than species variability in bottom-associated marine fishes
Variance of community abundance will be reduced relative to its theoretical maximum whenever population densities fluctuate asynchronously. Fishing communities and mobile predators can switch among fish species and/or fishing locations with asynchronous dynamics, thereby buffering against variable resource densities (termed ‘portfolio effects’, PEs). However, whether variation among species or locations represent the dominant contributor to PE remains relatively unexplored. Here, we apply a spatio-temporal model to multidecadal time series (1982–2015) for 20 bottom-associated fishes in seven marine ecosys...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 3, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Thorson, J. T., Scheuerell, M. D., Olden, J. D., Schindler, D. E. Tags: ecology, environmental science Source Type: research

The socially mediated recovery of a fearful fish paired with periodically replaced calm models
Social learning is an important mechanism for acquiring knowledge about environmental risk. However, little work has explored the learning of safety and how such learning outcomes are shaped by the social environment. Here, we exposed minnows, Pimephales promelas, to a high-risk environment to induce behavioural responses associated with fear (e.g. neophobia). We then used the presence of calm conspecific models (low-risk individuals) to weaken these responses. When observers (individuals from the high-risk environment) and models were paired consistently in a one-on-one setting, the observers showed no recovery (i.e. no w...
Source: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences - October 3, 2018 Category: Biology Authors: Crane, A. L., Bairos-Novak, K. R., Sacco, L. H., Ferrari, M. C. O. Tags: behaviour, cognition, ecology Source Type: research