Zoology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pheromones are an essential cue for species recognition and mate selection in many insects including the butterfly Bicyclus anynana. Here the authors show that females with a short social experience of a new male learn preferences for novel pheromone blends, a preference which also occurs in their daughters.

    • Emilie Dion
    • , Li Xian Pui
    •  & Antónia Monteiro

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Numerous feathered dinosaurs and early birds have been discovered from the Jurassic and Cretaceous, but the early evolution of feather-feeding insects is not clear. Here, Gao et al. describe a new family of ectoparasitic insects from 10 specimens found associated with feathers in mid-Cretaceous amber.

    • Taiping Gao
    • , Xiangchu Yin
    •  & Dong Ren

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The cerebellum is critical in sensory-motor control and is structurally diverse across vertebrates. Here, the authors investigate the evolutionary relationship between locomotory mode and cerebellum architecture across squamates by integrating study of gene expression, cell distribution, and 3D morphology.

    • Simone Macrì
    • , Yoland Savriama
    •  & Nicolas Di-Poï

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent studies have suggested that hybridization can facilitate adaptive radiations. Here, the authors show that opportunity for hybridization differentiates Lake Mweru, where cichlids radiated, and Lake Bangweulu, where cichlids did not radiate despite ecological opportunity in both lakes.

    • Joana I. Meier
    • , Rike B. Stelkens
    •  & Ole Seehausen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent work has suggested that lift and drag may be employed differently in slow, flapping flight compared to classic flight aerodynamics. Here the authors develop a method to measure vertical and horizontal aerodynamic forces simultaneously and use it to quantify lift and drag during slow flight.

    • Diana D. Chin
    •  & David Lentink

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microbes can establish mutualistic interactions with plants and insects. Here, Kim et al. show that Streptomyces bacteria can protect strawberry plants and honeybees from pathogens, can move into the plant vascular tissue from soil and from flowers, and are transferred among flowers by the pollinators.

    • Da-Ran Kim
    • , Gyeongjun Cho
    •  & Youn-Sig Kwak

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biology serves as inspiration in materials development; this requires improved understanding of the surface chemistry responsible for processes which are being mimicked. Here, the authors report on the use of near edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) imaging to analyze the surface chemistry of insect cuticle.

    • Joe E. Baio
    • , Cherno Jaye
    •  & Tobias Weidner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Parental care can take many forms but how this diversity arises is not well understood. Here, the authors compile data for over 1300 amphibian species and show that different forms of care evolve at different rates, prolonged care can be easily reduced, and biparental care is evolutionarily unstable.

    • Andrew I. Furness
    •  & Isabella Capellini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Vocal development in humans and primate model systems is typically attributed to changing neural circuits. Here the authors show in marmoset monkeys that biomechanical changes in the vocal organ underlie the transition from infant cries to adult contact calls, demonstrating that vocal development is not solely due to neural control.

    • Yisi S. Zhang
    • , Daniel Y. Takahashi
    •  & Coen P. H. Elemans

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Deep learning has the potential to identify ecological relationships between environment and complex phenotypes that are difficult to quantify. Here, the authors use deep learning to analyse associations among elevation, climate and phenotype across ~2000 moth species in Taiwan.

    • Shipher Wu
    • , Chun-Min Chang
    •  & Sheng-Feng Shen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The fish Astyanax mexicanus has divergent cave and river-dwelling eco-morphotypes. Here, Hyacinthe et al. show that cave and river fish communicate sonically, but that the sounds produced and the responses elicited in the two morphs depend differently on the social and behavioral context.

    • Carole Hyacinthe
    • , Joël Attia
    •  & Sylvie Rétaux

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A single species of electric eel, Electrophorus electricus, has been described. Here, de Santana et al. show that there are three major lineages of Electrophorus distributed across Greater Amazonia and describe two new species, one with a much stronger electric discharge than was previously known.

    • C. David de Santana
    • , William G. R. Crampton
    •  & Wolmar B. Wosiacki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Predicted responses to climate change may be informed by evolutionary history. Here, the authors reconstruct the phylogeny of lacertid lizards and investigate how the evolution of this clade has varied with paleoclimates and how closely adapted extant species are to modern climates.

    • Joan Garcia-Porta
    • , Iker Irisarri
    •  & Katharina C. Wollenberg Valero

  • Article
    | Open Access

    When injured, fish release an alarm substance produced by club cells in the skin that elicits fear in members of their shoal. Here, the authors show that mucus and bacteria are transported from the external surface into club cells, and bacterial components elicit alarm behaviour, acting in concert with a substance from fish.

    • Joanne Shu Ming Chia
    • , Elena S. Wall
    •  & Suresh Jesuthasan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Model-based centralization schemes, though able to quantify locomotion control in animals and bio-inspired robots, are limited to specific systems. Here, the authors report a generalized information-based centralization scheme that unifies existing models and can be applied to different systems.

    • Izaak D. Neveln
    • , Amoolya Tirumalai
    •  & Simon Sponberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is thought that fungi protect themselves from predators by the production of toxic compounds. Here, Xu et al. show that a wide range of animal predators avoid feeding on Fusarium fungi, and this depends on fungal production of a bis-naphthopyrone pigment that is not toxic to the predators.

    • Yang Xu
    • , Maria Vinas
    •  & Petr Karlovsky

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bats are long-lived animals that can produce a complex vocabulary of social communication calls. Here, the authors show that even in adulthood, bats retain the ability to adaptively introduce long-term modifications to their vocalizations, showing persistent vocal plasticity.

    • Daria Genzel
    • , Janki Desai
    •  & Michael M. Yartsev

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The praying mantis, a predatory insect, estimates depth via binocular vision. In this way, the animal decides whether prey is within reach. Here, the authors explore the neural correlates of binocular distance estimation and report that individual neurons are tuned to specific locations in 3D space.

    • Ronny Rosner
    • , Joss von Hadeln
    •  & Jenny C. A. Read

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sensory drive theory predicts that vocal signalling coevolves with auditory sensitivity, but empirical evidence is limited. Here, Charlton et al. show that vocal characteristics and hearing have coevolved in forest mammals, due to constraints imposed by the local signalling environment.

    • Benjamin D. Charlton
    • , Megan A. Owen
    •  & Ronald R. Swaisgood

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dog breeds differ in evolutionary age and admixture with wolves, enabling comparison across domestication stages. Here, Hansen Wheat et al. show that correlations among behaviours are decoupled in modern breeds compared to ancient breeds and suggest this reflects a recent shift in selection pressure.

    • Christina Hansen Wheat
    • , John L. Fitzpatrick
    •  & Hans Temrin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The default mode network (DMN) is a core brain network in humans. Here, the authors show that marmoset primates also possess a DMN-like network but, unlike in the human DMN, dlPFC is a more prominent node than mPFC, suggesting mPFC is more developed in humans than in other primates.

    • Cirong Liu
    • , Cecil Chern-Chyi Yen
    •  & Afonso C. Silva

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bumblebee workers are genetically highly similar but they show different behaviors such as brood care and foraging. Here the authors report a high level of ADAR-mediated RNA editing in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris and its weak correlation to task performance.

    • Hagit T. Porath
    • , Esther Hazan
    •  & Guy Bloch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spider silk is widely studied for its structural properties; however, other creatures produce silk that could be of interest. Here, the authors study the properties and structure of Bagworm silk and report it as being extraordinarily strong and tough compared to other known silks.

    • Taiyo Yoshioka
    • , Takuya Tsubota
    •  & Tsunenori Kameda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, Schuldt et al. collate data from two long-term grassland and forest biodiversity experiments to ask how plant diversity facets affect the diversity of higher trophic levels. The results show that positive effects of plant diversity on consumer diversity are mediated by plant structural and functional diversity, and vary across ecosystems and trophic levels.

    • Andreas Schuldt
    • , Anne Ebeling
    •  & Nico Eisenhauer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although male genital shape is known to evolve rapidly in response to sexual selection, relatively little is known about the evolution of female genital shape. Here, the authors show that across onthophagine dung beetles, female genital shape has diverged much more rapidly than male genital shape.

    • Leigh W. Simmons
    •  & John L. Fitzpatrick

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Leaf-feeding insect microbiomes could be influenced by the soil, the plant, or a product of the two. Here, the authors conduct a series of experiments to show that an herbivorous insect predominantly acquires its microbiome from the soil rather than the plant, and that these insect microbiomes reflect soil legacies of earlier growing plants.

    • S. Emilia Hannula
    • , Feng Zhu
    •  & T. Martijn Bezemer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There has been a lack of multi-year landscape-scale studies on the effect of neonicotinoids on honeybee health. Here, Osterman et al. show that clothianidin exposure via seed-treated rapeseed has no negative impact on honeybee colony development, microbial pathogens/symbionts or immune gene expression.

    • Julia Osterman
    • , Dimitry Wintermantel
    •  & Joachim R. de Miranda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reversible phenotypic plasticity is expected to be favoured by long lifespan, as this increases the environmental variation individuals experience. Here, the authors develop a model showing how phenotypic plasticity can drive selection on lifespan, leading to coevolution of these traits.

    • Irja I. Ratikainen
    •  & Hanna Kokko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The structure and distribution of strain-level diversity in host-associated bacterial communities is largely unexplored. Here, Ellegaard and Engel analyze strain level diversity of the honey bee gut microbiota, showing that bees from the same colony differ in strain but not phylotype composition.

    • Kirsten M. Ellegaard
    •  & Philipp Engel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The utility of UV vision for visualizing habitat structure is poorly known. Here, the authors use optical models and multispectral imaging to show that UV vision reveals sharp visual contrasts between leaf surfaces, potentially an advantage in navigating forest environments.

    • Cynthia Tedore
    •  & Dan-Eric Nilsson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Theory predicts that mating systems influence the relative strength of sexual selection before and after mating. Here, Morimoto and colleagues demonstrate that higher polyandry weakens precopulatory while strengthening post-copulatory sexual selection on males in Drosophila melanogaster.

    • Juliano Morimoto
    • , Grant C. McDonald
    •  & Stuart Wigby

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The potential impact of neonicotinoid field exposure on bumblebee microbiota remains unclear. In a landscape—scale study, Wintermantel et al. show that whilst exposure to clothianidin impacts Bombus terrestris performance, it does not affect levels of gut bacteria, viruses or intracellular parasites.

    • Dimitry Wintermantel
    • , Barbara Locke
    •  & Joachim R. de Miranda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although components of animal mating signals are often studied separately, many animals produce complex multimodal displays. Here, the authors show that the courtship display of male broad-tailed hummingbirds consists of synchronized motions, sounds, and colors that occur within just 300 milliseconds.

    • Benedict G. Hogan
    •  & Mary Caswell Stoddard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Numerous microbial symbionts, both commensal and pathogenic, are associated with honey bees. Here, the authors genomically characterize this ‘metagenome’ of the British honey bee, identifying a diversity of commensal microbes as well as known and putative pathogens

    • Tim Regan
    • , Mark W. Barnett
    •  & Tom C. Freeman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cotton bollworm is an important agricultural pest with widespread resistance to insecticides. Here Wang et al. identifies CYP6AEs from cotton bollworm involved in detoxifying plant toxins and chemical insecticides through the CRISPR-Cas9-based reverse genetics approach in conjunction with in vitro metabolism.

    • Huidong Wang
    • , Yu Shi
    •  & Yidong Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Perceptual constancy requires neural representations selective for object identity, yet tolerant of identity-preserving transformations. Here, the authors show that sound identity is represented robustly in auditory cortex and that behavioral generalization requires precise timing of identity information.

    • Stephen M. Town
    • , Katherine C. Wood
    •  & Jennifer K. Bizley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Animal physiology, including reproduction, could respond to climate change in complex ways. Here, the authors use experiments with an insect model system to show that simulated heatwaves harm male reproductive potential by reducing sperm number and viability, an effect which persisted into the next generation

    • Kris Sales
    • , Ramakrishnan Vasudeva
    •  & Matthew J. G. Gage

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The biogeographic drivers of reptile diversity are poorly understood relative to other animal groups. Here, using a dataset of distributions of African squamates, the authors show that environmental filtering explains diversity in stressful habitats while competition explains diversity in benign habitats.

    • Till Ramm
    • , Juan L. Cantalapiedra
    •  & Johannes Müller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Humans infer the trustworthiness of others based on subtle facial features such as the facial width-to-height ratio, but it is not known whether other primates are sensitive to these cues. Here, the authors show that macaque monkeys prefer to look at human faces which appear trustworthy to humans.

    • Manuela Costa
    • , Alice Gomez
    •  & Angela Sirigu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Individual animals have vocal signatures, but are the same signatures consistent across behavioral contexts? Here, the authors use behavioral experiments and acoustic analyses to show that zebra finches have distinct vocal signatures for different call types, such as aggression and long-distance contact.

    • Julie E. Elie
    •  & Frédéric E. Theunissen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The skin of the African bush elephant features micrometer-wide channels whose function is water and mud retention for thermal regulation and protection from parasites. Here authors use microscopy and modelling to show that the channels are fractures of the animal thick and brittle skin outermost layer.

    • António F. Martins
    • , Nigel C. Bennett
    •  & Michel C. Milinkovitch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    More than half of solar radiation is at near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths. Here, Medina et al. show that among Australian birds NIR reflectivity is higher in species from hot, arid environments and their biophysical modelling further shows that this can reduce water loss from evaporative cooling.

    • Iliana Medina
    • , Elizabeth Newton
    •  & Devi Stuart-Fox

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