The black fur allele has fitness costs but also confers higher immunity against canine distemper virus, making mix-and-match mating key to population survival.
Immunoglobulin genes might have evolved much earlier than previously expected, perhaps even in the common ancestor of Cnidarians and Bilateria, a study suggests.
The Scientist speaks with Trier University’s Henrik Krehenwinkel, whose group recently detected traces of hundreds of arthropod species from a sample of dried plants—in this case, the contents of a tea bag.
Off the western Australian coast, in Shark Bay, a field of seagrass big enough to cover Washington, DC, has flourished for more than four millennia, a new study finds.
Researchers tracked the movements of endangered caribou and sequenced a portion of their genomes to determine which genes may influence migratory behavior.
In a trio of studies, researchers report capturing and analyzing airborne environmental DNA from a wide variety of plants and animals, suggesting a new way of monitoring which terrestrial species are present in an area.
Jennifer A. Schweitzer, Mark A. Genung, and Joseph K. Bailey | Sep 1, 2014 | 10+ min read
In addition to serving as a set of instructions to build an individual, the genome can influence neighboring organisms and, potentially, entire ecosystems.