Orthopteran Neo-Sex Chromosomes Reveal Dynamics of Recombination Suppression and Evolution of Supergenes.

The early evolution of sex chromosomes has remained obscure for more than a century. The Vandiemenella viatica species group of morabine grasshoppers is highly suited for studying the early stages of sex chromosome divergence and degeneration of the Y chromosome. This stems from the fact that neo-XY sex chromosomes have independently evolved multiple times by X-autosome fusions with different autosomes.

Ontogeny of color development in two green-brown polymorphic grasshopper species.

Many insects, including several orthopterans, undergo dramatic changes in body coloration during ontogeny. This variation is particularly intriguing in gomphocerine grasshoppers, where the green and brown morphs appear to be genetically determined (Schielzeth & Dieker, 2020, , 20, 63; Winter et al., 2021, , 127, 66).

Condition dependence of (un)predictability in escape behavior of a grasshopper species.

(Un)predictability has only recently been recognized as an important dimension of animal behavior. Currently, we neither know if (un)predictability encompasses one or multiple traits nor how (un)predictability is dependent on individual conditions. Knowledge about condition dependence, in particular, could inform us about whether predictability or unpredictability is costly in a specific context.

Conditional on the social environment? Roots of repeatability in hormone concentrations of male guinea pigs.

Individual differences in behavioral and physiological traits among members of the same species are increasingly being recognized as important in animal research. On the group level, shaping of behavioral and hormonal phenotypes by environmental factors has been reported in different taxa. The extent to which the environment impacts behavior and hormones on the individual level, however, is rather unexplored.

A Phylogenomic Assessment of Processes Underpinning Convergent Evolution in Open-Habitat Chats.

Insights into the processes underpinning convergent evolution advance our understanding of the contributions of ancestral, introgressed, and novel genetic variation to phenotypic evolution. Phylogenomic analyses characterizing genome-wide gene tree heterogeneity can provide first clues about the extent of ILS and of introgression and thereby into the potential of these processes or (in their absence) the need to invoke novel mutations to underpin convergent evolution. Here, we were interested in understanding the processes involved in convergent evolution in open-habitat chats (wheatears of the genus Oenanthe and their relatives).

Once an optimist, always an optimist? Studying cognitive judgment bias in mice.

Individuals differ in the way they judge ambiguous information: some individuals interpret ambiguous information in a more optimistic, and others in a more pessimistic way. Over the past two decades, such "optimistic" and "pessimistic" cognitive judgment biases (CJBs) have been utilized in animal welfare science as indicators of animals' emotional states. However, empirical studies on their ecological and evolutionary relevance are still lacking.

How Individualized Niches Arise: Defining Mechanisms of Niche Construction, Niche Choice, and Niche Conformance.

Organisms interact with their environments in various ways. We present a conceptual framework that distinguishes three mechanisms of organism-environment interaction. We call these : niche construction, in which individuals make changes to the environment; niche choice, in which individuals select an environment; and niche conformance, in which individuals adjust their phenotypes in response to the environment.

Evidence for morph-specific substrate choice in a green-brown polymorphic grasshopper.

Orthopteran insects are characterized by high variability in body coloration, in particular featuring a widespread green-brown color polymorphism. The mechanisms that contribute to the maintenance of this apparently balanced polymorphism are not yet understood. To investigate whether morph-dependent microhabitat choice might contribute to the continued coexistence of multiple morphs, we studied substrate choice in the meadow grasshopper The meadow grasshopper occurs in multiple discrete, genetically determined color morphs that range from uniform brown to uniform green.

partR2: partitioning R in generalized linear mixed models.

The coefficient of determination quantifies the amount of variance explained by regression coefficients in a linear model. It can be seen as the fixed-effects complement to the repeatability (intra-class correlation) for the variance explained by random effects and thus as a tool for variance decomposition. The of a model can be further partitioned into the variance explained by a particular predictor or a combination of predictors using semi-partial (part) and structure coefficients, but this is rarely done due to a lack of software implementing these statistics.

Simple inheritance of color and pattern polymorphism in the steppe grasshopper Chorthippus dorsatus.

The green-brown polymorphism of grasshoppers and bush-crickets represents one of the most penetrant polymorphisms in any group of organisms. This poses the question of why the polymorphism is shared across species and how it is maintained. There is mixed evidence for whether and in which species it is environmentally or genetically determined in Orthoptera.

Individuality meets plasticity: Endocrine phenotypes across male dominance rank acquisition in guinea pigs living in a complex social environment.

The time of dominance rank acquisition is a crucial phase in male life history that often affects reproductive success and hence fitness. Hormones such as testosterone and glucocorticoids can influence as well as be affected by this process. At the same time, hormone concentrations can show large individual variation.

Poor nutritional condition promotes high-risk behaviours: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Animal behaviour can lead to varying levels of risk, and an individual's physical condition can alter the potential costs and benefits of undertaking risky behaviours. How risk-taking behaviour depends on condition is subject to contrasting hypotheses. The asset protection principle proposes that individuals in better condition should be more risk averse, as they have higher future reproductive potential (i.

Collision between biological process and statistical analysis revealed by mean centring.

Animal ecologists often collect hierarchically structured data and analyse these with linear mixed-effects models. Specific complications arise when the effect sizes of covariates vary on multiple levels (e.g.

Sperm velocity in a promiscuous bird across experimental media of different viscosities.

In species with internal fertilization, the female genital tract appears challenging to sperm, possibly resulting from selection on for example ovarian fluid to control sperm behaviour and, ultimately, fertilization. Few studies, however, have examined the effects of swimming media viscosities on sperm performance. We quantified effects of media viscosities on sperm velocity in promiscuous willow warblers .

Comparative Analysis of Genomic Repeat Content in Gomphocerine Grasshoppers Reveals Expansion of Satellite DNA and Helitrons in Species with Unusually Large Genomes.

Eukaryotic organisms vary widely in genome size and much of this variation can be explained by differences in the abundance of repetitive elements. However, the phylogenetic distributions and turnover rates of repetitive elements are largely unknown, particularly for species with large genomes. We therefore used de novo repeat identification based on low coverage whole-genome sequencing to characterize the repeatomes of six species of gomphocerine grasshoppers, an insect clade characterized by unusually large and variable genome sizes.

Author Correction: Reproducibility of animal research in light of biological variation.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Reproducibility of animal research in light of biological variation.

Context-dependent biological variation presents a unique challenge to the reproducibility of results in experimental animal research, because organisms' responses to experimental treatments can vary with both genotype and environmental conditions. In March 2019, experts in animal biology, experimental design and statistics convened in Blonay, Switzerland, to discuss strategies addressing this challenge. In contrast to the current gold standard of rigorous standardization in experimental animal research, we recommend the use of systematic heterogenization of study samples and conditions by actively incorporating biological variation into study design through diversifying study samples and conditions.

The green-brown polymorphism of the club-legged grasshopper Gomphocerus sibiricus is heritable and appears genetically simple.

Background: Local coexistence of distinct, genetically determined color morphs can be unstable and transitional. Stable, long-term coexistence requires some form of balancing selection to protect morphs from getting lost by directional selection or genetic drift. However, not all phenotypic polymorphism need to have a genetic basis.

Linked-read sequencing enables haplotype-resolved resequencing at population scale.

The feasibility to sequence entire genomes of virtually any organism provides unprecedented insights into the evolutionary history of populations and species. Nevertheless, many population genomic inferences - including the quantification and dating of admixture, introgression and demographic events, and inference of selective sweeps - are still limited by the lack of high-quality haplotype information. The newest generation of sequencing technology now promises significant progress.

Green-brown polymorphism in alpine grasshoppers affects body temperature.

Ectothermic animals depend on external heat sources for pursuing their daily activities. However, reaching sufficiently high temperature can be limiting at high altitudes, where nights are cold and seasons short. We focus on the role of a green-brown color polymorphism in grasshoppers from alpine habitats.

A multitrophic perspective on biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research.

Concern about the functional consequences of unprecedented loss in biodiversity has prompted biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) research to become one of the most active fields of ecological research in the past 25 years. Hundreds of experiments have manipulated biodiversity as an independent variable and found compelling support that the functioning of ecosystems increases with the diversity of their ecological communities. This research has also identified some of the mechanisms underlying BEF relationships, some context-dependencies of the strength of relationships, as well as implications for various ecosystem services that mankind depends upon.

Comparative analysis of the multivariate genetic architecture of morphological traits in three species of Gomphocerine grasshoppers.

Evolutionary change is the change in trait values across generations, and usually occurs in multidimensional trait space rather than along isolated traits. Genetic covariation influences the magnitude and direction of evolutionary change and can be statistically summarized by the additive genetic (co)variance matrix, G. While G can affect the response to selection, it is exposed to evolutionary change by selection and genetic drift, but the magnitude and speed of these changes are poorly understood.

Genome-wide evidence supports mitochondrial relationships and pervasive parallel phenotypic evolution in open-habitat chats.

In wheatears and related species ('open-habitat chats'), molecular phylogenetics has led to a comprehensively revised understanding of species relationships and species diversity. Phylogenetic analyses have suggested that, in many cases, phenotypic similarities do not reflect species' relationships, revealing traditionally defined genera as non-monophyletic. This led to the suggestion of pervasive parallel evolution of open-habitat chats' plumage coloration and ecological phenotypes.