Natural History Museum of Bern

Convergent genome streamlining accompanies independent miniaturization in the world’s smallest fishes

Miniaturization, the reduction of adult body size to an extreme degree, has evolved repeatedly across vertebrates. Yet its genomic underpinnings remain poorly understood. Cypriniformes, the most species-rich order of freshwater fishes, contains multiple miniaturized lineages that...

Disentangling unique site-specific and shared habitat-level adaptation in a classic system of repeated evolution

Repeated divergence across contrasting habitats is widely used to infer natural selection and adaptation. Such comparative inferences, however, remain inherently correlative and capture only adaptation shared among populations from the same habitat type, thereby missing site-spec...

Reduced Food Availability Amplifies Behavioral Depression and Impairs Locomotor Performance After Immune Challenge in Xenopus laevis

Mounting an immune response and locomotor activity are energetically costly processes that can generate trade-offs affecting energy allocation, muscle performance, and activity patterns. The balance between these demands can be modulated by factors such as food availability and e...