Biological Reviews最新文献

{"title":"Molecular regulatory mechanisms of Merkel cell differentiation.","authors":"Christian Felice Cervellera, Chiara Mazziotta, Elisa Mazzoni, Ilaria Bononi, Maria Rosa Iaquinta, Mauro Tognon, Fernanda Martini, John Charles Rotondo","doi":"10.1111/brv.70067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.70067","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Merkel cells are specialized oval-shaped epithelial cells located in the basal epidermis and hair follicles, connected with afferent nerve endings responsible for sensory perception of light touch. Recent advances in developmental biology have shed light on the complex regulatory networks governing Merkel cell maturation. The most recent evidence indicates a crosstalk among epigenetic pathways, notably Polycomb multi-subunit complexes, Merkel cell-lineage transcription factors such as atonal BHLH transcription factor 1 (ATOH1), SRY-box transcription factor 2 (SOX2), ISL LIM homeobox 1 (ISL1) and additional players in the regulation of Merkel cell developmental programs. At the same time, the implications of dysregulated Merkel cell-lineage transcription factors during Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) onset is under investigation. This review offers a comprehensive overview of the current understanding of the genetic and epigenetic pathways crucial for Merkel cell differentiation. It covers the implication of Merkel cell-specific developmental programs, the role of epigenetic regulatory Polycomb complexes, and how genetic and epigenetic mechanisms converge to orchestrate Merkel cell differentiation.</p>","PeriodicalId":133,"journal":{"name":"Biological Reviews","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":11.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144820248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Non-breeding social behaviour as an investment in reducing future territoriality costs.","authors":"Samuele Ramellini, Brendah Nyaguthii, Ettore Camerlenghi, Damien R Farine","doi":"10.1111/brv.70066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.70066","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Territoriality is costly, and animals should adopt strategies to cope with these costs. Seasonal territoriality for breeding - a common strategy in many groups of animals - can reduce costs during the non-breeding season but requires establishing new territories every breeding season. Many seasonal breeders also become more tolerant of conspecifics during the non-breeding season and form social groups containing many individuals. Recent evidence has suggested that these social associations are not random and can entail carry-over effects extending into the following breeding season. Here, we propose that one strategy that seasonal, territorial breeders may employ is to use non-breeding social behaviour to reduce future breeding territoriality costs, through a dear-enemy-like effect. Specifically, by being social during the non-breeding season with previous territorial neighbours, individuals can increase both their and their neighbour's survival, and jointly defend and exploit common territorial areas, ultimately reducing neighbourhood turnover. Reduced neighbourhood turnover can then facilitate re-forming prior territorial boundaries, thereby offsetting the costs of territory establishment and facilitating earlier breeding (which can significantly increase reproductive output). We review evidence supporting our hypothesis and provide predictions and future research directions to bridge current gaps in understanding the link between non-breeding social behaviours and breeding territoriality.</p>","PeriodicalId":133,"journal":{"name":"Biological Reviews","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":11.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144820249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sexual conflict as a constraint on asexual reproduction: an empirical review.","authors":"Daniela Wilner, Russell Bonduriansky, Nathan W Burke","doi":"10.1111/brv.70064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.70064","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Theory predicts that facultatively asexual animals, which can leverage the advantages of both sexual and asexual reproduction, should outcompete obligately sexual and obligately asexual animals. Yet, paradoxically, obligate sexual reproduction predominates in many animal lineages, while the most flexible form of facultative asexuality (i.e. facultative parthenogenesis) appears to be rare. Recent theoretical work suggests that sexual conflict could help to resolve this paradox. Males that coercively fertilise females' eggs may, in the process, prevent alleles for parthenogenesis from spreading by limiting opportunities for asexual reproduction. Coercive males may also inhibit asexual reproduction by making resistance to sex disproportionately costly for females. In this review, we outline evidence of interactions with males that could impose costs on parthenogenetic females or hinder their ability to reproduce parthenogenetically in diverse animal taxa. The evidence suggests that such interactions between the sexes have the potential to mediate sexual conflict over mating and reproductive mode, both within facultative species and between closely related sexual and asexual taxa. However, the relative costs of sex and parthenogenesis are clearly context dependent, and much remains unknown. The most direct evidence for male inhibition of parthenogenesis comes from stick insects, but several other systems offer promising avenues for further investigation. Further research on the costs of mating and resistance in such systems could shed light on the reasons for the puzzling rarity of facultative parthenogenesis in nature.</p>","PeriodicalId":133,"journal":{"name":"Biological Reviews","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":11.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144820250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Defining ecological roles of sharks on coral reefs.","authors":"Natalie V Klinard, Christopher G Mull, Michael R Heithaus, M Aaron MacNeil","doi":"10.1111/brv.70065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.70065","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Sharks have often been perceived to play a critical role in the dynamics of coral reef ecosystems globally. Yet, there is relatively little evidence to support this idea across all but a limited set of species and contexts. Research on the roles and importance of reef sharks has been complicated by logistical challenges in collecting data on sharks compounded by widespread declines in shark populations and reef state due to anthropogenic stressors. However, a better understanding of ecological roles is essential to uncover when, where, how, and to what degree sharks contribute to the function of coral reefs. To address this lack of understanding, we present a standardized framework for determining the ecological roles of reef sharks, including how different streams of data related to movement ecology, trophic ecology, demographics, and ecological context can be combined within specific functional components that collectively define the ecological roles of reef sharks. A series of steps and questions are used to guide research on individual species and promote collection of necessary data. We explore what data in real-world examples can mean for uncovering roles and how data can be interpreted from a functional perspective. Although the framework is centred around breaking down ecological roles into simpler components, it forces researchers to complete a comprehensive evaluation of the animal's ecology and consider how data from each of these components complements each other in a broader context. The need for a detailed and directed approach for researchers to explore the mechanisms, patterns, and causes that comprise reef shark ecological roles is supported by a literature review showing expansive knowledge gaps that persist for most coral-reef-resident and smaller-bodied species. Existing research on the movement and trophic ecology of reef sharks is diverse and spans a broad range of topics and contexts, indicating potential for combining and re-evaluating existing data to improve current knowledge of roles. Resident species with relatively large amounts of published research included grey reef (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos), blacktip reef (Carcharhinus melanopterus), and whitetip reef sharks (Triaenodon obesus), which are among the most widely abundant sharks on coral reefs. As ongoing changes to coral reefs may alter rates of ecological processes, understanding the roles and importance of reef sharks will be crucial to predicting future reef states and enacting effective conservation and management strategies to preserve key functions.</p>","PeriodicalId":133,"journal":{"name":"Biological Reviews","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":11.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144797715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The macroecology of spines on woody plants.","authors":"Kyle W Tomlinson, Fei Yu, Xiaomao Wang, Xin Yao, Chih-Chieh Yu, Tristan Charles-Dominique, Artémis Anest, Yiran Zhao, Ade Prasetyo Agung, Adek Adi Putra, R Sedricke Lapuz, Théodore Lefebvre, T Jonathan Davies, Gareth P Hempson, Bezeng S Bezeng, Barnabas H Daru, Ronny M Kabongo, Olivier Maurin, A Muthama Muasya, Michelle van der Bank, William J Bond, Mohammed Armani, Uriel Gélin","doi":"10.1111/brv.70051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.70051","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Spines are a major ecological innovation supporting plant defence and diversification. Spine anatomy is diverse, having arisen in multiple plant lineages from many different plant organs and parts, which may differ in relative advantages across environmental gradients. Systematic analyses of the correlates of spiny plant diversity are limited, but climate and soil properties may be important. We analysed spatial patterns of the proportional richness of spiny woody plant species (fraction of total woody species richness) and the proportional richness of species with particular spine types (fraction of richness of spiny plants) across three regions with high plant geolocational data density spanning three continents, China (Asia), South Africa (Africa), and Australia. Spiny plants accounted for 12% of woody species, but there are strong phylogenetic biases in the evolution of spiny lineages and lineages bearing different spine types. The proportion of spiny plants increased towards drier environments and higher soil clay contents, and decreased towards soils with greater total N. Species bearing different spine types appear to be distributed differently across climate and soil gradients, suggesting trade-offs across productivity gradients, specialization for climate space, and constraints on environmental adaptability. The spatial richness of spiny plants was positively correlated with estimated historical richness of large herbivorous mammals (body mass >20 kg, diet >90% plant material), and species bearing different spine types also mostly show positive relationships with mammal richness. Plants with spines appear to be advantaged over non-spiny species when exposed to high mammal browsing pressure in arid environments or over certain soil conditions, and species bearing different spine types are differentially advantaged across climate and soil gradients.</p>","PeriodicalId":133,"journal":{"name":"Biological Reviews","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":11.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144793030","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Consistent and flexible maternal effects: how the environments of a mother influence the offspring phenotype.","authors":"Sin-Yeon Kim, Judith Morales","doi":"10.1111/brv.70062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.70062","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The environment experienced by a mother influences offspring phenotype through maternal effects, which can have significant adaptive benefits for both the mother and the offspring. However, the ways in which maternal environments influence offspring development are extremely diverse, and empirical studies using an outcome-based approach often fail to support different maternal effect hypotheses. We argue that this is in part because such studies overlook the ontogeny of the maternal phenotype. Here, we review how the environments experienced by a mother across different life stages influence the development of the maternal phenotype. Then, we propose a new framework that differentiates between two main processes of maternal effects according to the life stage at which a specific maternal trait is developed and how long its effect persists during the mother's reproductive life. The \"consistent\" maternal phenotype is developed mainly during a mother's early life and consistently affects the phenotype of all offspring produced during her lifetime, whereas the \"flexible\" maternal phenotype changes in response to environmental conditions experienced during her adult life and affects the phenotype of her subsequent offspring. We review how consistent and flexible maternal effects can contribute to different maternal effect processes, such as condition-transfer effects, cascading effects, intergenerational plasticity and developmental programming. We also provide empiricists with a quantitative genetic method, which integrates the ontogenetic scope into maternal effect testing, to determine how the early or late environments shape the maternal phenotype across ontogeny and then examine how this maternal phenotype affects offspring phenotype. We highlight that this conceptual and methodological framework of disassembling the multiple processes by which genes and environments interactively influence the maternal and offspring phenotypes will help us to explain the astonishing variation in maternal strategies and life-history trade-off patterns.</p>","PeriodicalId":133,"journal":{"name":"Biological Reviews","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":11.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144783069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Zebra stripes: the questions raised by the answers.","authors":"Hamish M Ireland, Graeme D Ruxton","doi":"10.1111/brv.70063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.70063","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Multiple hypotheses have been suggested to explain why the three zebra species (Equus quagga, E. grevyi and E. zebra) are striped. We review how well these theories explain the nature (rather than simply the existence) of the stripes. Specifically, we explore how well different theories explain (i) the form of zebra stripes (especially on different body parts), (ii) stripe variation between zebra populations and among species, and (iii) the lack of striping in other equids or other large mammalian herbivores. The main hypotheses discussed during the last decade are the deterrence of biting flies, thermoregulation through stripe-generated air movement, and three anti-predation hypotheses: crypsis to avoid detection; dazzle colouration to confuse pursuers; and interspecies signalling to encourage protective mixed-species herding. Our evaluation suggests that these theories struggle to explain all aspects of variation in striping. For each theory we identify where through logical reasoning or empirical data, the theory is unable to account for an aspect of variation, or whether information is currently lacking. In the latter case we offer concrete suggestions for the types of empirical study that would be most useful. Deterrence of biting flies is the theory that currently has strongest empirical support, but this theory alone struggles to explain why striping occurs so strongly in zebra but not in other African mammals, and the distribution of stripes across the body. These aspects can be explained by the interspecies signalling theory, but this theory has not been empirically evaluated. We suggest how future studies could best utilise our framework to close the most pressing knowledge gaps in our understanding of this iconic example of animal colouration.</p>","PeriodicalId":133,"journal":{"name":"Biological Reviews","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":11.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144758801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Measuring juvenile habitat quality for fishes and invertebrates.","authors":"Benjamin J Ciotti, Elliot J Brown, Francesco Colloca, David B Eggleston, A Challen Hyman, Olivier Le Pape, Romuald N Lipcius, Margot A M Maathuis, Suzanne S H Poiesz, Kenneth A Rose, Rochelle D Seitz, Daniele Ventura, Karen E van de Wolfshaar","doi":"10.1111/brv.70050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.70050","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Identifying the role of marine and estuarine habitats in supporting fish and invertebrate populations during vulnerable juvenile life stages is essential to achieve effective conservation and fisheries management. There remains general agreement that: (i) the quality of juvenile habitat is best measured as the contribution of juveniles to adult populations (here \"juvenile-adult contribution\") and (ii) this contribution may be measured directly or inferred from habitat-specific abundance, growth and survival. Obtaining effective estimates of juvenile habitat quality using these four metrics, however, is challenging. Through a systematic review of approaches to measure juvenile habitat quality, we critically evaluate current abilities to identify key habitats and provide recommendations for future work. We found that research in this area remains dominated by measurements of abundance (85% of studies) and, to a lesser extent growth (51% of studies), with limitations in the spatiotemporal resolution and extent of sampling. Relatively few approaches are available to measure survival and juvenile-adult contribution. Knowledge of juvenile habitat quality is further limited by restricted coverage of geographic areas, taxonomic groups and habitats. Based on our analysis of 874 studies over the past ca. 50 years, we provide five recommendations for enabling juvenile habitat research to support fisheries and conservation management better in future.</p>","PeriodicalId":133,"journal":{"name":"Biological Reviews","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":11.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144751925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Individual variation in animal communication: from species averages to unique voices.","authors":"Angèle Lombrey, Marlen Fröhlich","doi":"10.1111/brv.70061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.70061","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The comparative study of communicative behaviour in non-human animals, especially primates, has yielded crucial insights into the evolution of human language. This research, mostly focused on the species and population level, has improved our understanding of the various socio-ecological factors that shape communication systems. However, despite the inherent flexibility of human communication, the impact of individual variation on non-human communication systems has often been overlooked, along with its potential to shed light on the roots of human language. While the eco-evolutionary relevance of genetic and phenotypic differences between individuals is well established, animal communication studies have traditionally focused on group averages and treated outliers as noise. In this review, we address this gap by providing a comprehensive overview of the sources of individual variation in animal communicative behaviour (e.g. physiological, sociodemographic, or personality traits), across parameters such as signal forms, repertoires, and usage strategies. In particular, recent evidence from comparative work underscores the potential evolutionary significance of individual plasticity in communicative behaviour. We argue for an explicit focus on within-individual variation and propose advancing the study of animal communication through multi-level approaches that integrate intrinsic and environmental factors, as well as between- and within-individual variation. Such approaches not only refine our view of complexity in animal communication systems and their implications for social evolution, but also help trace the evolutionary trajectory of human language through comparative studies.</p>","PeriodicalId":133,"journal":{"name":"Biological Reviews","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":11.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144751924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Inhibitory control tests in non-human animals: validity, reliability, and perspectives.","authors":"Louise Loyant, Luke Collins, Marine Joly","doi":"10.1111/brv.70055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.70055","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Inhibitory control, the ability to control impulsive or pre-learned behaviour in order to reach a more rewarding goal, is essential in many aspects of normal life. In non-human animals, better inhibitory control performances have been associated with a larger brain, better problem-solving skills, and fitness benefits. This crucial cognitive ability has been studied in a wide range of fields (psychology, neurosciences, animal cognition) and has been tested in several animal classes from insects to mammals. Unfortunately, unlike in human test psychology, the common paradigms designed to measure inhibitory control in non-human animals often suffer from a lack of validity and reliability and have yielded mixed results. Therefore, the nature of inhibitory control, either defined as a common ability or a suite of distinct processes, is still debated. Besides, the evolutionary processes shaping the variation in inhibitory control, often tested using a single task, are still poorly understood and the relative influences of ecological, anatomical or social factors as evolutionary drivers of this ability remain unclear. Finally, it is only recently that researchers have focused efforts on the factors necessary for the evolution of inhibitory control, that is individual variation in inhibitory control performance, heritability of this trait and fitness benefits. Hence, our main objective herein is to conduct a review of the existing literature to discuss conceptual and methodological challenges faced by researchers wanting to study inhibitory control in animals. We then suggest tools to tackle these challenges and propose a framework to build a valid and reliable measure of inhibitory processes. Next, we describe the requirements to study the selective pressures involved in this cognitive process in order to have a better understanding of its evolutionary underpinnings. We finally consider the future of interspecies comparative studies of inhibitory control.</p>","PeriodicalId":133,"journal":{"name":"Biological Reviews","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":11.7,"publicationDate":"2025-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144726186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}