Parallel adaptation of rabbit populations to myxoma virus.

In the 1950s the myxoma virus was released into European rabbit populations in Australia and Europe, decimating populations and resulting in the rapid evolution of resistance. We investigated the genetic basis of resistance by comparing the exomes of rabbits collected before and after the pandemic. We found a strong pattern of parallel evolution, with selection on standing genetic variation favoring the same alleles in Australia, France, and the United Kingdom.

Discovered and disappearing? Conservation genetics of a recently named Australian carnivorous marsupial.

Five new species within the Australian carnivorous marsupial genus have recently been named, at least two of which are threatened. Important facets of the habitat use and extinction risk of one of these new species, the buff-footed antechinus, ., are not well understood.