• bioRxiv Subject Collection: Evolutionary Biology
• Relaxed constraint and functional divergence of the progesterone receptor (PGR) in the human stem-lineage [NEW RESULTS]

  The steroid hormone progesterone, acting through the progesterone receptor (PR), a ligand-activated DNA-binding transcription factor, plays an essential role in regulating nearly every aspect of female reproductive biology. While many reproductive traits regulated by PR are conserved in mammals, Catarrhine primates evolved several derived traits including spontaneous decidualization, menstruation, and a divergent (and unknown) parturition signal,

  bioRxiv Subject Collection: Evolutionary Biology

  Tue Oct 08, 2019 17:00
• Does extrinsic mortality accelerate the pace of life? A bare-bones approach [CONTRADICTORY RESULTS]

  It is commonly asserted that when extrinsic mortality is high, individuals should invest early in reproduction. This intuition thrives in the literature on life-history theory and human behavior, yet it has been criticized repeatedly on the basis of mathematical models. The intuition is indeed wrong; but a recent theoretical criticism has confused the reason why it is wrong, thereby obscuring earlier and sounder criticisms. In the present article

  bioRxiv Subject Collection: Evolutionary Biology

  Tue Oct 08, 2019 17:00
• Evolution of microbial growth traits under serial dilution [NEW RESULTS]

  Selection of mutants in a microbial population depends on multiple cellular traits. In serial- dilution evolution experiments, three key traits are the lag time when transitioning from starvation to growth, the exponential growth rate, and the yield (number of cells per unit resource). Here we investigate how these traits evolve in laboratory evolution experiments using a minimal model of population dynamics, where the only interaction between ce

  bioRxiv Subject Collection: Evolutionary Biology

  Tue Oct 08, 2019 17:00
• Trade-offs between host tolerances to different pathogens in plant-virus interactions [NEW RESULTS]

  Although accumulating evidence indicates that tolerance is a plant defence strategy against pathogens as widespread as resistance, how plants evolve tolerance is poorly understood. Theory predicts that hosts will evolve to maximize tolerance or resistance, but not both. Remarkably, most experimental works failed in finding this trade-off. We tested the hypothesis that the evolution of tolerance to one virus is traded-off against tolerance to othe

  bioRxiv Subject Collection: Evolutionary Biology

  Tue Oct 08, 2019 17:00
• Whole genome sequencing of 358 brown planthoppers uncovers the landscape of their migration and dispersal worldwide [NEW RESULTS]

  The brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens , is a serious migratory rice pest, which is distributed in the broad area of the tropical and temperate Asian-Pacific region. However, we know little about key aspects regarding its evolution such as how they diverged and dispersed worldwide. By resequencing and analyzing 358 BPH genomes from 92 populations across the world, we uncover the genetic relationships among their worldwide populations and

  bioRxiv Subject Collection: Evolutionary Biology

  Tue Oct 08, 2019 17:00
• Estimating the genome-wide contribution of selection to temporal allele frequency change [NEW RESULTS]

  Rapid phenotypic adaptation is often observed in natural populations and selection experiments. However, detecting the genome-wide impact of this selection is difficult, since adaptation often proceeds from standing variation and selection on highly polygenic traits, both of which may leave faint genomic signals indistinguishable from a noisy background of genetic drift. One promising signal comes from the genome-wide covariance between allele fr

  bioRxiv Subject Collection: Evolutionary Biology

  Tue Oct 08, 2019 17:00