Proceedings. Biological sciences最新文献

{"title":"Dietary shifts in infected mosquitoes suggest a form of self-medication despite benefits in uninfected individuals.","authors":"Tiago G Zeferino, Alfonso Rojas Mora, Armelle Vallat, Jacob C Koella","doi":"10.1098/rspb.2025.1659","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rspb.2025.1659","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Immune responses protect against infectious diseases but often incur physiological costs, such as oxidative stress. In mosquitoes, these costs may shape behaviours that help regulate oxidative balance, potentially including the consumption of nectar containing bioactive substances such as prooxidants and antioxidants. We investigated whether <i>Anopheles gambiae</i> adjust their preferences for diets with such substances when they are infected with the microsporidian parasite <i>Vavraia culicis</i>. Using sugar solutions supplemented with hydrogen peroxide (a prooxidant) or ascorbic acid (an antioxidant), we assessed the feeding preferences of uninfected and infected mosquitoes at different ages and measured the effects of these diets on oxidative homeostasis, parasite load and lifespan. Infected mosquitoes initially preferred the prooxidant diet, which reduced parasite load and extended lifespan, before shifting their preference towards the antioxidant diet as infection progressed. In contrast, uninfected mosquitoes consistently preferred the unsupplemented sugar, likely to avoid oxidative stress induced by the supplemented diets, which, surprisingly, also increased their lifespan. These results suggest a form of self-medication, despite benefits in uninfected individuals, where mosquitoes dynamically adjust their dietary choices throughout infection. We propose that such dietary strategies may be widespread among mosquitoes, helping them manage oxidative stress, with potential implications for vector-pathogen interactions and the success of biological control programmes.</p>","PeriodicalId":520757,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. Biological sciences","volume":"292 2055","pages":"20251659"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12440630/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145077085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Compounding heterochrony shapes the salamander visual system across adaptive zones.","authors":"Ronald M Bonett, Emily L Bierbaum, Alexander J Hess, Samantha D Trame, Campbell W Eckhardt, Madison A Herrboldt, Carissa N McGouran, Andrew D Kolozsvary, Sydney Sowell, Ann Marie Flusche, Rhiannon McGlone","doi":"10.1098/rspb.2025.0910","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rspb.2025.0910","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Transitioning between disparate environments presents new physical challenges, and metamorphosis can provide solutions. The life cycles of most amphibians involve an aquatic-to-terrestrial transition and concomitant metamorphosis, but shifts in developmental timing (heterochrony) have also produced a wide variety of aquatic-only and terrestrial-only forms. Thyroid hormone (TH) signalling can govern the timing of tissue transformation and may be a key mechanism behind the relationship between development and diversification of some metamorphic traits. Here, we show that life cycle mode and cave adaptation (troglomorphy) through heterochrony primarily explain variation in salamander eyes and retina. Across levels of organization (organ/tissue), heterochrony led to serial reductions in the visual system of larval-form paedomorphs that lost metamorphosis. This pattern is compounded in larval-form paedomorphic lineages that subsequently transitioned to subterranean environments and evolved troglomorphic traits. Following Haller's Rule, visual system investment declines across ontogeny but at a faster rate in paedomorphs and even faster (for eye size) in troglomorphs. Thyroid hormone typically increases eye size during metamorphosis; however, we show that responsiveness is reduced in paedomorphs and lost or reversed in troglomorphs. Salamander visual system variation is an example of how alterations to hormone-mediated transformation can shift developmental trajectories and compound phenotypic modifications as species move into more divergent environments.</p>","PeriodicalId":520757,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. Biological sciences","volume":"292 2055","pages":"20250910"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12457029/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145133333","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Joint commitment in human cooperative hunting through an 'imagined we'.","authors":"Ning Tang, Siyi Gong, Minglu Zhao, Jifan Zhou, Mowei Shen, Tao Gao","doi":"10.1098/rspb.2024.3070","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rspb.2024.3070","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cooperation involves the challenge of jointly selecting one from multiple goals while maintaining the team's joint commitment to it. We test joint commitment in a multi-player hunting game, combining psychophysics and computational modelling. Joint commitment is modelled through an 'imagined we' (IW) approach, where each agent infers the intention of 'we', an imagined supraindividual agent controlling all agents as its body parts. This is compared against a reward sharing model, which frames cooperation through the positive reinforcement of sharing in the rewards of a successful hunt. Both humans and IW, but not reward sharing, maintained high performance by jointly committing to a single prey, regardless of prey quantity or speed. Human observers rated all hunters in both human and IW teams as making high contributions to the catch, regardless of their proximity to the prey, suggesting that high-quality hunting stemmed from sophisticated cooperation rather than individual strategies. Unlike reward sharing hunters, IW hunters are capable of cooperating not only with one another but also with human participants actively engaged in the same hunting game. In conclusion, these results strongly suggest that humans achieve cooperation through joint commitment that enforces a single goal, rather than simply motivating members through reward sharing.</p>","PeriodicalId":520757,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. Biological sciences","volume":"292 2055","pages":"20243070"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12457025/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145133372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Squamate fauna from the Denver Basin shows major ecosystem disruption across K/Pg boundary.","authors":"Holger Petermann, Tyler R Lyson","doi":"10.1098/rspb.2025.1234","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rspb.2025.1234","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Cretaceous/Palaeogene (K/Pg) boundary marks the most recent and the second-most severe mass extinction in Earth's history. Marine K/Pg boundary sections that preserve uninterrupted sedimentation are abundant, and thus the global marine response to this extinction event is well understood. Similar terrestrial sedimentary sequences that record the before and after of the extinction and that are also geochronologically well constrained are rare. We describe and compare the non-marine squamate diversity immediately before (<i>ca</i> 57 kyr) and after (<i>ca</i> 128 kyr) the K/Pg mass extinction from two geographically and chronostratigraphically well constrained localities in the Denver Basin, Colorado. The latest Cretaceous squamate record there consists of 235 isolated fossils and is extraordinarily diverse, with 27 operational taxonomic units, whereas the earliest Palaeocene record is depauperate in both richness (3 taxa) and abundance (20 isolated fossils)-a <i>ca</i> 91% drop in specimen abundance and a 93% extinction rate. Integrating the Denver Basin squamate fossil record with that of the Williston and Powder River basins of Montana, North and South Dakota, and Wyoming, provides a regional extinction rate of between 75 and 84% for squamates in the Western Interior of North America and suggests this group was more severely impacted across the K/Pg boundary than other small-bodied vertebrates.</p>","PeriodicalId":520757,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. Biological sciences","volume":"292 2055","pages":"20251234"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12457021/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145133414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From policy to practice: progress towards data- and code-sharing in ecology and evolution.","authors":"Edward R Ivimey-Cook, Alfredo Sánchez-Tójar, Ilias Berberi, Antica Culina, Dominique G Roche, Rafaela A Almeida, Bawan Amin, Kevin R Bairos-Novak, Heikel Balti, Michael G Bertram, Louis Bliard, Ilha Byrne, Ying-Chi Chan, William R Cioffi, Quentin Corbel, Alexander D Elsy, Katie R N Florko, Elliot Gould, Matthew J Grainger, Anne E Harshbarger, Knut Anders Hovstad, Jake M Martin, April Robin Martinig, Giulia Masoero, Iain R Moodie, David Moreau, Rose E O'Dea, Matthieu Paquet, Joel L Pick, Tuba Rizvi, Inês Silva, Birgit Szabo, Elina Takola, Eli S J Thoré, Wilco C E P Verberk, Saras M Windecker, Gabe Winter, Zuzana Zajková, Romy Zeiss, Nicholas Patrick Moran","doi":"10.1098/rspb.2025.1394","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rspb.2025.1394","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Data and code are essential for ensuring the credibility of scientific results and facilitating reproducibility, areas in which journal sharing policies play a crucial role. However, in ecology and evolution, we still do not know how widespread data- and code-sharing policies are, how accessible they are, and whether journals support data and code peer review. Here, we first assessed the clarity, strictness and timing of data- and code-sharing policies across 275 journals in ecology and evolution. Second, we assessed initial compliance to journal policies using submissions from two journals: <i>Proceedings of the Royal Society B</i> (Mar 2023-Feb 2024: <i>n</i> = 2340) and <i>Ecology Letters</i> (Jun 2021-Nov 2023: <i>n</i> = 571). Our results indicate the need for improvement: across 275 journals, 22.5% encouraged and 38.2% mandated data-sharing, while 26.6% encouraged and 26.9% mandated code-sharing. Journals that mandated data- or code-sharing typically required it for peer review (59.0% and 77.0%, respectively), which decreased when journals only encouraged sharing (40.3% and 24.7%, respectively). Our evaluation of policy compliance confirmed the important role of journals in increasing data- and code-sharing but also indicated the need for meaningful changes to enhance reproducibility. We provide seven recommendations to help improve data- and code-sharing, and policy compliance.</p>","PeriodicalId":520757,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. Biological sciences","volume":"292 2055","pages":"20251394"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12440620/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145077145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cellular, bone-like tissue in the bucklers and thorns of the thornback ray <i>Raja clavata</i> (Batoidea, Chondrichthyes).","authors":"Aaron R H LeBlanc, Moya Meredith Smith, Melanie Debiais-Thibaud, Esther Manzanares, Mason Dean, Charlie Underwood, Zerina Johanson","doi":"10.1098/rspb.2025.0489","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rspb.2025.0489","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Chondrichthyans (cartilaginous fishes) have lost the cellular bone characteristic of other jawed vertebrate skeletons. However, we identify cellular bone-like tissue in modified scales with enlarged bases, called 'bucklers' and 'thorns', which are distinctive for one group of extant batoids (rays). As placoid scales, they possess spines of orthodentine and osteodentine, but a unique basal structure. This consists of a cell-rich material, previously misidentified as an acellular tissue. Newly formed basal tissue grows appositionally and episodically from a cell-rich periosteum-like layer and closely resembles cellular bone, with entombed cells situated between bundles of attachment fibres anchoring the scale to the underlying dermal tissue and the 'periosteum' to the scale surface. In histologically more mature tissue, the cell spaces and attachment fibres are remodelled, forming enlarged, elongated spaces. The result is a unique mineralized tissue in these rays, initially sharing similarities with cellular bone, but with a mature state where cell spaces are modified throughout the base, by proposed remodelling of the matrix. Our findings of cellular bone forming the attachment tissues in ray scales demonstrate the chondrichthyan capacity to deposit bone-like tissues within the odontode module, contrary to previous understandings of hard tissue evolution in vertebrates.</p>","PeriodicalId":520757,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. Biological sciences","volume":"292 2054","pages":"20250489"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12404806/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144987038","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Co-circulating pathogens of humans: a systematic review of mechanistic transmission models.","authors":"Kelsey E Shaw, Jennifer K Peterson, Neda Jalali, Saikanth Ratnavale, Manar Alkuzweny, Carly Barbera, Alan Costello, Liam Emerick, Guido Espana, Alex Meyer, Stacy Mowry, Marya Poterek, Carol de Souza Moreira, Eric Lease Morgan, Sean Moore, Alex Perkins","doi":"10.1098/rspb.2025.1453","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rspb.2025.1453","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Historically, most mathematical models of infectious disease dynamics have focused on a single pathogen, despite the ubiquity of co-circulating pathogens in the real world. We conducted a systematic review of 326 published papers that included a mechanistic, population-level model of co-circulating human pathogens. We identified the types of pathogens represented in this literature, techniques used and motivations for conducting these studies. We also created an interaction index to quantify the degree to which co-circulating pathogen models include across scale and/or pathogen-pathogen interactions. We found that the emergence of new pathogens, such as HIV and SARS-CoV-2, precipitated modelling activity of the emerging pathogen with established pathogens. Pathogen characteristics also tended to drive modelling activity; for example, HIV suppresses the immune response, eliciting interesting dynamics when it is modelled with other pathogens. The motivations driving these studies were varied but could be divided into two major categories: exploration of dynamics and evaluation of interventions. Future potential avenues of research we identified include investigating the effects of misdiagnosis of clinically similar co-circulating pathogens and characterizing the impacts of one pathogen on public health resources available to curtail the spread of other pathogens.</p>","PeriodicalId":520757,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. Biological sciences","volume":"292 2055","pages":"20251453"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12457019/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145133335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Egg mass drives the evolution of bird nest architecture.","authors":"Chun-Chia Chou, Mao-Ning Tuanmu, Chih-Ming Hung","doi":"10.1098/rspb.2025.1445","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rspb.2025.1445","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Although most birds build nests, not all of them build nest walls, and the evolutionary advantage conferring this architectural feature remains inconclusive. By integrating macro-evolutionary patterns with individual fitness consequences, we investigated the function of nest walls in protecting eggs and the evolutionary driver behind this construction. We examined two novel hypotheses relating to egg rolling-off risk: (i) heavy-bird hypothesis: heavier birds generate greater nest vibrations during attendance, increasing egg rolling-off risk; and (ii) light-egg hypothesis: lighter eggs are more susceptible to displacement from nest vibrations due to lower friction against the substrate. Phylogenetic comparative analyses across 4030 species revealed that birds with lower body and egg mass were more likely to construct nest walls, suggesting higher rolling-off risk for lighter eggs. Experiments combining behavioural observations and controlled trials with three-dimensional-printed eggs confirmed that lighter eggs were more prone to falling from nests without walls. The evidence across phylogeny and individual-level experiments consistently supports the light-egg hypothesis, suggesting the adaptive function of nest walls in preventing eggs from falling during external disturbance, particularly for lighter eggs. This study demonstrates how integrating macro- and micro-evolutionary approaches can reveal the functional mechanisms underlying correlated evolution between phenotypic traits.</p>","PeriodicalId":520757,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. Biological sciences","volume":"292 2055","pages":"20251445"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12440621/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145077119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Impacts of an anxiolytic drug on fish behaviour and habitat use in a natural landscape.","authors":"Natalia Sandoval Herrera, Erin S McCallum, Henrik Baktoft, Christer Brönmark, Daniel Cerveny, Lars-Anders Hansson, Gustav Hellström, Kaj Hulthén, Anders Peter Nilsson, Tomas Brodin","doi":"10.1098/rspb.2025.1443","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rspb.2025.1443","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Pharmaceutical contaminants reaching natural aquatic ecosystems can affect fish behaviour, modifying activity patterns, foraging behaviour and antipredator responses. While laboratory-based studies can offer key insights, assessing the ecological relevance of these findings requires field-based approaches. Therefore, we examined the effects of oxazepam, a widely prescribed anxiolytic drug, on the behaviour of a cyprinid fish (the common roach, <i>Rutilus rutilus</i>) in the wild, combining slow-release exposure implants with continuous tracking via acoustic telemetry. To add ecological realism, we created a landscape of fear with an uneven distribution of resources (macrophytes) and exposure to predators (pike, <i>Esox lucius</i>), additionally testing the effects of the drug on roach habitat selection and predator-prey interactions. Fish exposed to the drug showed an increased swimming activity and speed, but exhibited a more constrained spatial distribution in the pond, favouring areas with higher refuge availability. Both exposed and unexposed fish modified their habitat use in the presence of predators. Exposed fish appeared to get closer to the predators when these were caged, but not when predators were free-roaming. Our findings highlight the importance of considering ecological context to understand how pharmaceuticals affect fish behaviour, which is crucial for assessing risks at population and ecosystem levels.</p>","PeriodicalId":520757,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. Biological sciences","volume":"292 2054","pages":"20251443"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12419885/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145031653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Contour integration in the parafovea and the near periphery: testing the association field account.","authors":"Josephine Reuther, Ramakrishna Chakravarthi, Jasna Martinovic","doi":"10.1098/rspb.2025.1107","DOIUrl":"10.1098/rspb.2025.1107","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>It is essential for object recognition that visual information is appropriately combined. To explain stages of perceptual organization that group elements into contours, the concept of <i>association fields</i> has been invoked. Local elements within the boundaries of an association field are grouped to give rise to the perception of a contour if they are appropriately aligned, reasonably similar and close. However, the size of this spatial window remains unclear, as well as how this changes with visual field location. To address this, we studied the combined influence of eccentricity and inter-element spacing on contour detection. Our findings indicate a clear difference in the processing of contours between the parafovea and the periphery. Contour integration in parafoveal regions is efficient and highly stable across a wide range of inter-element spacings and levels of orientation noise. In the periphery, efficient integration is only observed for elements close enough to fall within adjacent receptive fields, while increased inter-element spacings and orientation changes lead to a failure of contour integration. We conclude that two distinct mechanisms underlie contour integration, each with its own spatial extent and tolerance to noise-with the efficient, association field-like mechanism being a characteristic of central vision.</p>","PeriodicalId":520757,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings. Biological sciences","volume":"292 2055","pages":"20251107"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12440617/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145076752","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}