The insects’ brilliant hues evolved in lush ecosystems to help them survive. Now they are becoming more muted to adapt to degraded landscapes – and they are not the only things dulling down

The Genome Facility at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön is seeking to fill two positions (full time) to support and expand our core facility services.

In this bite, the authors discuss recent changes to the NSF's Graduate Research Fellowship, their impact, and what you can do to help.

At this time of year, the flor de izote blooms in Los Angeles. The Salvadoran-American chef Karla Tatiana Vasquez says the flowers are both a delicacy and a connection to her identity.

Scientists have confirmed that the Atlas blue butterfly carries the most chromosomes of any animal, with 229 pairs. Unlike duplication, its chromosomes split apart, reshaping its genome in surprising ...

Natural selection has repeatedly led to the evolution of two alternative antipredator color strategies—camouflage to avoid detection and aposematism to advertise unprofitability—but we lack understand...

Compound eyes deliver a vast stream of information to the tiny insect brains. To maximize the information content and minimize the redundancy of neural signals, insect eyes are built so to encode the relevant and filter out the unimportant elements of the visual environment. Terrestrial habitats have a predictable spatio-spectral structure, which can be matched by the distribution of photoreceptors with different spectral sensitivities across the retina. Here, we investigate the retinal organization of the nymphalid butterfly Heliconius melpomene using single-cell recordings, immunohistochemistry and eye shine imaging. The ventral retina is enriched with ommatidia, which contain red screening pigments that shape the spectral sensitivity of basal red receptors R9, while their long visual fibre photoreceptors R1&2, expressing a long-wavelength (L) opsin, are synaptically inhibited by R9 and directly participate in colour vision. These G + R– receptors frequently co-express the L opsin with the blue (B) or ultraviolet (U) opsin. U&L opsin-co-expressing R1&2 are scarce, while B&L co-expression is frequent in the ventral ommatidia and gradually diminishes towards the eye equator, where G + R– receptors express the L opsin only. In this region, G + R– receptors are further inhibited by blue-sensitive receptors. With electrophysiology matching immunohistochemistry, we reveal the fine tuning of spectral sensitivity of a single photoreceptor class across the dorso-ventral axis of the butterfly compound eye. Similar tuning is found in other nymphalid butterflies across the phylogeny, suggesting that this adaptation is ancestral and confers an advantage to those diurnal nymphalids, equipped with the cellular toolkit for colour vision in the red.

Birds can seem amazingly social as they fly and roost together. But why do they really hang out? Let’s take a closer look at the social lives of birds.

Sacramento this week will host Terra Madre Americas, an international food event affiliated with the "slow food" movement, which originated in Italy.

How the Word Is Passed meets Braiding Sweetgrass in a cultural and personal reclamation of Black history and Black botanical mastery, shared through the stor...

Program Manager, University of California ANR News and Information Outreach in Spanish (NOS)   Ricardo is 33-year broadcast journalism professional. Before joining Extension, Ricardo worked for the Ch...

Latino Studies -

Indigenous broadcasters scramble to maintain weather alerts, language programs and local news

SAN JOSÉ POAQUIL, Guatemala — The last rays of daylight filter through the trees as Andres “Tata” López, 56, the local Maya mayor, greets his neighbors coming to source water in the communal forest…

Political directives have undermined agency's independence and record of supporting the best basic research

OHIO senior Collin Thacker, under the mentorship of professor Harvey Ballard, discovered four new species of violets in the mountains of Virginia, including two tucked away in Shenandoah National Park...

The arts, according to a systematic synthesis of data from 95 studies (across 26 countries), may support non-communicable disease prevention by providing opportunities for increased physical activity,...