Body Mass Shapes Most Life History Traits and a Fast-Slow Continuum in Amphibians.

Amphibians have the least studied life histories among vertebrates, although they have unique and the most diverse life histories within this group. We compiled a new dataset on adult body mass and 16 other life history traits of 2069 amphibian species across three orders (1796 frogs, 236 salamanders, 37 caecilians). These traits characterise fecundity, offspring development from egg deposition to metamorphosis and adult life.

Ant-following behavior is correlated with plumage traits in African understory birds.

Ant-following behavior is a common phenomenon in birds of Neotropical and Afrotropical rainforests but yet little is known from Central Africa. We here report on the phenomenon in lowland rainforest in Cameroon, quantifying the strength of the interaction of different ant-following bird species with driver ants and test the hypothesis that higher levels of specialization in ant-following behavior are associated with dominance or aggression-dependent plumage and other morphological traits. Flock size varied between 1 and 11 individuals with a mean size of 5.

Another piece for the syllid puzzle: A new species from Japan and its mitochondrial genome reveal the enigmatic Clavisyllis (Phyllodocida: Syllidae) as a member of Eusyllinae.

The phylogenetic relationships of Syllidae have been analyzed in several studies during the last decades, resulting in highly congruent topologies. Most of the subfamilies were found to be monophyletic, while other groups (Eusyllinae and several genera) have been reorganized attending their phylogenetic relationships. However, there are still several enigmatic genera, which could not be assigned to any of the established subgroups.

First mitochondrial genomes of Chrysopetalidae (Annelida) from shallow-water and deep-sea chemosynthetic environments.

Among Annelida, Chrysopetalidae is an ecologically and morphologically diverse group, which includes shallow-water, deep-sea, free-living, and symbiotic species. Here, the four first mitochondrial genomes of this group are presented and described. One of the free-living shallow-water species Chrysopetalum debile (Chrysopetalinae), one of the yet undescribed free-living deep-sea species Boudemos sp.