ScienceDaily: Plants & Animals News

Researchers find that oxygenation of Earth's surface is key to the evolution of large, complex multicellular organisms. If cells can access oxygen, they get a big metabolic benefit. However, when oxygen is scarce, it can't diffuse very far into organisms, so there is an evolutionary incentive for multicellular organisms to be small to ensure most of their cells can still access oxygen.

A new study of ancient DNA from horse fossils found in North America and Eurasia shows that horse populations on the two continents remained connected through the Bering Land Bridge, moving back and forth and interbreeding multiple times over hundreds of thousands of years.

Scientists examining the remains of 36 bubonic plague victims from a 16th century mass grave in Germany have found the first evidence that evolutionary adaptive processes, driven by the disease, may have conferred immunity on later generations of people from the region.

Scientists have discovered genetic data that will help food crops like tomatoes and rice survive longer, more intense periods of drought on our warming planet.

In the insect world, there are rare instances of ants shrugging off their societal duties to become free-loading parasites amongst their free-living relatives. Now, in a new study, an international collaboration of researchers teamed up to discover and collect these rare ant social parasites. Together, they have obtained and analyzed the full DNA genome sequences of three rare 'social parasite' leaf-cutting ant species (called Acromyrmex inquilines) to better understand the differences between them and their respective host species.

Eating a Western diet impairs the immune system in the gut in ways that could increase risk of infection and inflammatory bowel disease, according to a new study.

Scientists have confirmed the species and origin of a colony of wild African vervet monkeys that landed in Dania Beach more than 70 years ago. They escaped from the Dania Chimpanzee Farm in 1948 and settled in a thick mangrove forest near the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in South Florida. The facility acted as a zoo and also provided primates imported from Africa as research subjects in the development of the polio vaccine and other medical research.

In sports, it is common practice to apply ice to sore muscles in order to reduce inflammation. However, a new study on mice has revealed that icing severe muscle injuries may actually prolong the healing process. The results indicate that cooling the injury makes it difficult for macrophages to enter the damaged cells in order to repair them.

Fossils of land animals from South America have been found in the Antilles, but how did these animals get there? According to scientists from the CNRS, l'Université des Antilles, l'Université de Montpellier and d'Université Côte d'Azur, land emerged in this region and then disappeared beneath the waves for millions of years, explaining how some species were able to migrate to the Antilles. This study will be published in June 2021 issue in Earth-Science Reviews.

A new study may have uncovered why wall lizards have become the most successful reptile in the Mediterranean region. The results reveal how drastic changes in sea levels and climate 6 million years ago affected species formation in the area. The researchers believe they can now explain why the lizards became so diverse and widespread, something that has puzzled biologists since the 19th century.

Intact rainforests across tropical Africa continued to remove carbon from the atmosphere before and during the 2015-2016 El Niño, despite the extreme heat and drought. Theyl removed 1.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere during the El Niño monitoring period. This rate is equivalent to three times the carbon dioxide emissions of the UK in 2019. Scientists were surprised by this discovery.

Whether bacteria are resistant to antibiotics is often decided at the cell membrane. This is where antibiotics can be blocked on their way into the cell interior or catapulted from the inside to the outside. Macrocyclic peptides, a novel class of antibiotics, bioactive cytotoxins and inhibitors, shed light on how this transport process occurs at the membrane, how it is influenced and how it can be used to circumvent the resistance of a malignantly transformed cell.

The study establishes baseline observations for tropical birds in East Africa, filling in an important data gap for monitoring biodiversity and tropical ecosystem health in a warming world.

Scientists discover that dinosaurs were not the main competition for mammals during the time of the dinosaurs, challenging previously held ideas about evolution.