News & Comment

Lawyer who was instrumental in securing protection for the high seas and the deep ocean.

In this Focus issue, we highlight research and opinion pieces on the many conceptual and practical contributions of evolutionary biology to predicting and controlling disease.

The ability to predict rapid evolutionary processes within our bodies would advance both medical science and evolutionary biology. We discuss technologies that move us towards intrahost evolutionary predictions, and some of the obstacles that remain to be overcome.

Yajna Ramphal and Tulio de Oliveira are fascinated by the adaptive evolution of chikungunya virus.

Witnessing the effects of yellow fever virus in Brazil motivates Filipe Abreu’s work.

As somatic evolution becomes directly measurable, integrating eco-evolutionary principles with high-resolution molecular data creates opportunities to anticipate and prevent disease.

Evolutionary genomics is transforming our ability to discover immune actors across the tree of life. By leveraging genomic signatures such as positive selection, remote homology and genomic organization, we can predict immune function of uncharacterized genes across diverse organisms, including humans.

Innovative marine ecologist, passionate science communicator and visionary leader in higher education.

Speciation genomics researcher, author of the combinatorial theory of speciation and passionate birder

Corrie S. Moreau studies the evolution of extreme armour and gut microbiomes in turtle ants.

Kenji Fukushima killed his first pitcher plant in a month, and then spent two decades studying their evolution.

As biodiversity net gain rises on the global agenda, Germany’s 50-year-old no-net-loss policy faces mounting resistance amid pressures to accelerate infrastructure development. We argue that the regulation remains essential for maintaining ecological integrity and that targeted reforms could make it more efficient, effective and transparent, and provide key lessons to inform global efforts.

As with plants and animals, microorganisms are affected by climate change. This could destabilize mutualisms that are key to species’ survival and ecosystem resilience.

Zero Invasive Predators (ZIP) is a New Zealand company working together with the New Zealand Department of Conservation and other organizations, community groups and Māori groups towards eradicating invasive predator species from the country. We spoke to James Russell, a professor at the University of Auckland and chief scientist at ZIP, and Maggie Nichols, a predator ecologist at ZIP, about the company’s work.