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Climate change can alter when and how animals grow, breed, and migrate, but it is unclear whether this allows populations to persist. This global study shows that shifts in seasonal timing are key to helping vertebrate species maintain population growth under global warming.

Toxic and venomous species often have conspicuous warning colouration that is mimicked by harmless species. Here, Davis Rabosky et al. combine phylogenetic and biogeographic analyses to reveal that mimicry of venomous coral snakes has been a major driver of snake colour evolution in the New World.

Evolutionary theories predict that rates of morphological change should be positively associated with the rate at which new species arise. Here Raboski et al.demonstrate that rates of species diversification are highly correlated with the rate of body size evolution across ray-finned fish species.

Diatoms constitute a vital part of the oceanic ecosystem. As they are dependent on silica, they are thought to have risen to prominence alongside grasslands in the Miocene epoch, when the first large-scale weathering of grassland-derived silica took place. A new analysis of an ocean-bed database contradicts that scenario; it is shown that diatom diversity peaked at the Eocene–Oligocene boundary, long before grasslands became prominent.

The presence of a variety of highly derived spiral ganglion structures of the inner ear is associated with diverse echolocation strategies in yangochiropteran bats and distinguishes them from Yinpterochiroptera.

Contrary to previous hypotheses, high-latitude fish lineages form new species at much faster rates than their tropical counterparts especially in geographical regions that are characterized by low surface temperatures and high endemism.

Age-richness rate (ARR) estimates of evolutionary diversification are widely used to study factors that influence species richness among clades. Here the authors show that ARR inference is based on problematic assumptions and recommend against its use in comparison of past diversity or diversification rates across clades.

The contribution of adaptive radiation to species and phenotypic diversity within major clades is not clear. Here, the authors use morphological and phylogenetic data for 1226 species of frogs, finding that less than half of families resemble adaptive radiation, but that adaptive radiation contributed to 75% of diversity.