Biological evolution is the heritable change in characteristics of biological populations over successive generations, driven by mechanisms such as mutation, recombination, genetic drift, gene flow, and natural and sexual selection. It operates through changes in allele frequencies within gene pools, constrained and shaped by developmental, physiological, and ecological contexts. Evolutionary processes generate adaptation, diversification, and extinction, producing hierarchical patterns from microevolutionary shifts within populations to macroevolutionary dynamics among lineages. At the molecular level, evolution involves sequence variation, genomic rearrangements, and changes in gene regulation, which collectively underlie phenotypic diversity and the emergence of complex biological organization.
Early in development, many animals pick a team—male or female—based on their genetics, and, with time, acquire the characteristics to match. New research from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) explores how one species ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 29, 2026
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Biologists have uncovered a new mode of communication inside cells that helps bacterial pathogens learn how to evade drugs. Their findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, describe how these mechanisms drive ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 29, 2026
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Australian and New Zealand scientists have unearthed the remains of ancient wildlife in a cave near Waitomo on Aotearoa's North Island, the first time a large number of million-year-old fossils have been found—including an ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Jan 28, 2026
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599
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology today announced the release of a new online tool for studying biodiversity and the evolutionary relationships among birds: the illustrated Birds of the World Phylogeny Explorer. Available on ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 28, 2026
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The problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has many health experts worried. As disease-causing bacteria adapt to some of our ways to reduce them, especially with antibiotics, it presents an arms race which we appear to ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 26, 2026
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A study of wild African herbivores offers new insight into how environmental conditions—not just diet and anatomy—can influence the evolution of gut microbes that play a critical role in animal health and well-being.
Evolution
Jan 26, 2026
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The diversity of water strider species apparently developed as early as the Cretaceous period, much earlier than previously thought. SNSB researchers have succeeded in clarifying the phylogenetic history of this insect family, ...
Evolution
Jan 22, 2026
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Cities are known to shape the evolution of wildlife within them, but according to a study of European cities published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, this is not a one-off event. Rather ...
An international team of researchers, with the involvement of the UAB, has conducted a study that explains the evolutionary origins of the Dehnel phenomenon, a unique seasonal adaptation in small mammals that involves the ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 15, 2026
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100
Evolutionarily speaking, the ultimate goal of a lifeform is to reproduce and stave off extinction. Many plants and animals have evolved unique tricks to do so. One of these tricks is mimicry, which might be used to trick ...
