This Week in Evolution

Reciprocal Rewards Stabilize Cooperation in the Mycorrhizal Symbiosis Toby Kiers, who previously demonstrated host sanctions against cheating rhizobia, now shows that plants give less carbon to less-beneficial mycorrhizal fungi. I hope I can find time to discuss this paper in more detail soon.

Natural variation in Pristionchus pacificus dauer formation reveals cross-preference rather than self-preference of nematode dauer pheromones "strains may have evolved to induce dauer formation precociously in other strains in order to reduce the fitness of these strains"

Nest Inheritance Is the Missing Source of Direct Fitness in a Primitively Eusocial Insect

Polyandrous females benefit by producing sons that achieve high reproductive success in a competitive environment

Kin selection in den sharing develops under limited availability of tree hollows for a forest marsupial

Aging of the cerebral cortex differs between humans and chimpanzees "significant aging effects in humans were... individuals that were older than the maximum longevity of chimpanzees. Thus... brain structure shrinkage in human aging is evolutionarily novel and the result of an extended lifespan"

Bacterial persistence by RNA endonucleases

Host-parasite local adaptation after experimental coevolution of Caenorhabditis elegans and its microparasite Bacillus thuringiensis

Sperm chemotaxis, fluid shear, and the evolution of sexual reproduction