It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
An international team of researchers from Belgium, France, Switzerland, Spain, and the USA has reconstructed the evolution of body mass in carnivorous mammals during the Paleogene – a crucial window in the diversification of mammals, that follows the extinction of dinosaurs. This work, published in Biology Letters, challenges the long-standing hypothesis that competition decided the fate of ancient top predators.
Our cats, dogs, bears, and walruses, and their ancestors – forming together the clade Carnivoramorpha – once shared the planet with other groups of large meat-eating mammals that have since vanished. These groups, chiefly among them hyaenodonts, evolved large body size early in the Paleogene and became the top predators of their ecosystems. They disappeared in a step-wise fashion tens of million years afterwards, while carnivoramorphans diversified into a myriad of shapes, sizes, and ecologies.
The long-standing theory explaining this shift held that carnivoramorphans won their place at the top of the food chain by outcompeting the other clades, thanks to their more versatile teeth; but this idea rests almost entirely on the North American fossil record. To test this, the team investigated the rich fossil record of Europe and focused its efforts on reconstructing body mass trends from that record.
“Body mass is a powerful clue of the ecological role of continental animals” explains Prof. Valentin Fischer, director of the Evolution & Diversity Dynamics Lab at the Université of Liège and co-lead author of the study. “Because of these strong bonds between ecology and body mass, it is actually possible to reliably infer the body mass of ancient predators by measuring key traits in their dentition.”
Armed with body mass data on 155 fossil species spanning nearly the entire Palaeogene period, the scientists found that carnivoramorphans grew larger and far more diverse in body mass shortly after an abrupt global warming event 40 million years ago, known as the Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum. Contrary to what is seen in North America, their supposed rivals showed no associated decline; European hyaenodonts remained diverse for millions of years afterward, only declining following a major cooling event around 34 million years ago known as the “Grande Coupure”.
By showing that Europe's carnivoramorphans and their rivals coexisted for a long time, and that body-size change tracks climate events rather than diversity, this study suggests that regional climate, not a universal competitive advantage, decided who ruled as top predator, with strong differences in tempo across continents. The lineages that gave rise to todays’s lions, wolves, grizzlies, and racoons were shaped by past climate changes, and are now threatened by it.
The rise of carnivoran mammals in Europe through the lens of body mass
Article Publication Date
15-Aug-2026
Sediments off Brazil’s Northeast coast reveal sudden changes in heat transport in the Atlantic
Research shows that the AMOC, a system fundamental to the Earth’s climate, has undergone sudden changes in the past, driven by climate shifts similar to those we are experiencing now
Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
According to a new study led by researchers from Brazil and Germany, the main system that transports heat from one end of the Atlantic Ocean to the other may undergo sudden changes in intensity driven by climate changes similar to those we are experiencing now, even when it is already weakened. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is a vast system of ocean currents that functions as a conveyor belt for heat across the Atlantic. It carries warm water from equatorial and tropical regions to high latitudes in the North Atlantic. This helps regulate the climate in both hemispheres by moderating temperatures in Europe and parts of North America. It also influences rainfall patterns in intertropical regions of Africa and South America.
Global warming has gradually weakened the AMOC, and researchers have warned for decades about the risk of the circulation reaching a critical threshold that would trigger an abrupt slowdown and radically alter the climate in various regions of the planet. Previous research indicated that the circulation could remain in this weakened, relatively stable state for thousands of years. However, a new study shows that the AMOC may be much more dynamic than previously thought, indicating that society needs to prepare not only for abrupt climate change but also for a series of such changes.
The study, led by Cristiano Mazur Chiessi of the School of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities at the University of São Paulo (EACH-USP) in Brazil and Stefan Mulitza of the University of Bremen in Germany, found evidence of two episodes of significant AMOC intensification between 17,800 and 14,800 years ago.
During this period, known as “Heinrich Stadial 1,” the circulation was, for the most part, much weaker than it is today. However, the analysis of marine sediments by the German-Brazilian team concluded that the AMOC experienced two abrupt surges in intensity during this time: one lasting from 16,500 to 15,800 years ago and a shorter one lasting about 100 years around 15,400 years ago. During the latter episode, the AMOC’s intensity even exceeded its current level.
These results were published in May in the journal Nature Communications.
“This is the first time it’s been shown that the AMOC can experience bursts of strengthening during periods when it’s weakened,” says Chiessi, a specialist in paleoceanography and paleoclimatology (sciences that study the past of the ocean and climate). “As one of the article’s reviewers wrote, this completely changes the way we understand the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.”
The main driver of the AMOC is the sinking of cold, salty water off the coast of Greenland. This deep water then flows southward and returns to the surface primarily in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, where strong winds promote upwelling. Surface currents then carry some of this water back north, completing the circuit.
However, global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions is currently weakening this circulation. The melting of Greenland’s glaciers, the warming of the Arctic Ocean, and increased rainfall in the region are reducing the salinity and density of surface waters, making it harder for them to sink.
Researchers predict that this process could lead to a sudden, significant weakening of the AMOC but still do not know when or how intensely this might occur. Until recently, even the best climate models evaluated by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) could not predict the AMOC’s evolution with sufficient accuracy. In April of this year, however, a team of researchers from the University of Bordeaux in France published improved predictions in the journal Science Advances, based on new observational data. According to the researchers, the AMOC could weaken by between 43% and 59% by 2100, even if all countries meet their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
A weakening of the AMOC on this scale has not occurred since the end of the last Ice Age. During the Last Glacial Maximum, the coldest period of the last Ice Age, much of Eurasia and North America was covered by gigantic glaciers over 3,000 meters high. These glaciers extended as far south as Chicago in the United States. The enormous volume of water locked in ice caused sea levels to drop 120 meters below current levels. Even during that period, the AMOC was as strong as it is today.
However, a long period of deglaciation began when climate changes triggered by natural variations in the Earth’s orbit raised global temperatures. After about 1,000 years of glacial melting, the AMOC experienced an abrupt decline in intensity from which it did not recover until 3,000 years later, at the end of the Heinrich Stadial 1 (HS1) event.
Chiessi points out that the AMOC’s previous 1,000-year weakening period does not guarantee the same timeframe for a future decline. “Climate conditions were entirely different,” he explains. “During that period, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was lower than in the pre-industrial era. We can learn from past events, but they aren’t perfect analogues.”
Reconstructing the past
The study analyzed a marine sediment core collected in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean at a depth of 1,367 meters and approximately 189 kilometers off the coast of Maranhão state, Northeast Brazil, during a 2012 cruise by the German research vessel RV Maria S. Merian. During the HS1 event, as well as during other periods of weakened AMOC, precipitation increased significantly in northeastern Brazil, while it decreased dramatically in the northern Amazon and other regions farther north. “The sedimentation rate where we collected the sample was high because it rained heavily, causing significant erosion and deposition,” Chiessi explains. “That allowed us to conduct many analyses. It’s like having a movie with many frames per second in extremely high resolution.”
To estimate the strength of past ocean currents, Chiessi and Mulitza’s team used a sophisticated, costly, but highly accurate method called radiocarbon ventilation dating. This technique calculates how long deep ocean water has been isolated from the atmosphere, enabling researchers to measure the speed of the currents.
In each sediment layer, the researchers identified and dated shells from two types of microorganisms, both of which are called foraminifera, using carbon-14 (radiocarbon). Since this isotope is produced in the atmosphere and absorbed by microalgae only at the ocean’s surface, the apparent “age” of these shells reflects the depth at which they formed.
The shells of planktonic foraminifera (which live on the surface) are younger than those of benthic foraminifera (which live on the ocean floor). This age difference occurs because carbon-14 only reaches the depths when carried by surface waters that sink in the Greenland region.
Currently, it takes 350 years for this water to circulate in the equatorial Atlantic, which is known as the “ventilation age” of the AMOC. Therefore, as Chiessi concludes, “The age difference between a shell formed at the surface and one formed at the bottom is a direct indicator of how intense the AMOC is.”
Researchers Partha Sarathi Jena and Ines Beese conducted the analyses during their postdoctoral fellowships at EACH-USP and the University of Bremen, respectively. Their findings concluded that just before the HS1 event, the apparent age difference between planktonic and benthic foraminifera was 325 years. During most of the event, this difference increased to 960 years due to the weakening of the AMOC. However, during the first episode of intensification, it decreased to 450 years, and during the second, it decreased further, to 200 years.
The team compared their results with those of other paleoclimatic studies, particularly estimates of precipitation during HS1 obtained by analyzing stalagmites collected at Jaraguá Cave in Bonito in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul and at Gruta da Paixão in Andaraí in the state of Bahia. The two peaks in AMOC intensification coincide with two periods when heavy rainfall gave way to a drier climate on the continent, reducing the volume of freshwater reaching the ocean.
These peaks also coincide with increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, as recorded by studies of air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice during HS1. Chiessi and his colleagues suggest that the two AMOC intensifications may have transported deep, carbon dioxide-rich waters – which had been relatively stagnant in the Atlantic when the AMOC was weak – into the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Once there, the carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere.
Chiessi hopes his work will improve AMOC forecasts and help develop systems that identify climate signals anticipating abrupt changes. This would enable society to take early adaptation measures. “We’ll need a great deal of resilience, but we can still prevent the worst from happening if we take action to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he notes.
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Evolutionary relationships among assemblies. A. Distance tree of selected Armeniaca genome assemblies. This tree aims to define an order for pangenome graph construction (see methods) and, as a consequence, is rooted on the selected reference genome Rojo_HCUR and not outgroups. Wherever possible, individual haplotypes are maintained as distinct leaves (labels H1 and H2). B. Global synteny among all of chromosome 1. Horizontal lines represent chromosome length, and colored vertical blocks represent all rearrangements detected between consecutive chromosome pairs.
Apricot breeding has long depended on a narrow genomic view, leaving much of the variation preserved in wild relatives outside the frame. A phylogeny-guided pangenome now brings that hidden diversity into focus across domesticated and wild members of the Armeniaca section. By integrating chromosome-scale assemblies from common, Siberian, and Manchurian apricots, the study captured millions of small variants and more than half a million structural changes that a single reference genome can miss. It also revealed how distant lineages enlarge the accessible gene pool and how transposable elements reshape regions near genes. The resource offers a stronger foundation for investigating domestication, adaptation, dormancy, and future apricot improvement.
Cultivated apricot, Prunus armeniaca, emerged through at least two domestication routes from Central Asia before spreading toward China and the Mediterranean. Yet most population studies still compare diverse plants with one reference sequence, creating reference bias and obscuring structural variants, copy-number variants, and lineage-specific DNA. Pangenomes can represent many genomes together, but most graph-building tools were developed for variation within a single species. Extending these tools across closely related, interfertile taxa introduces additional challenges because evolutionary distance can complicate genome alignment and variant detection. Based on these challenges, deeper investigation into a phylogeny-aware, cross-taxon pangenome for apricot and its wild relatives is needed.
A research team led by the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) at Université de Bordeaux and Université de Toulouse, with collaborators from Université de Rouen Normandie, Université Paris-Saclay, the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), AgroParisTech, and New York University Abu Dhabi, published (DOI: 10.1093/hr/uhag104) the study in Horticulture Research on March 27, 2026. The researchers constructed a chromosome-level pangenome graph from 25 curated assemblies representing Prunus armeniaca, P. sibirica, P. mandshurica, and interspecific hybrids, then assessed genomic diversity, read mapping, and dormancy-associated structural variation.
The researchers first assembled a dataset of 32 Prunus genomes, including seven generated for this study, and corrected chromosome labels, orientations, and other assembly inconsistencies before selecting 25 assemblies for graph construction. Guided by evolutionary relationships, the graph identified approximately 25 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and more than 537,000 insertions and deletions, a major class of structural variants (SVs). Closely related European genomes added progressively less new sequence, whereas wild Central Asian, Chinese, Siberian, and Manchurian material contributed substantial accessory and private regions. The team also detected 42,679 transposable elements (TEs) within graph-derived insertions and deletions. About three quarters occurred within 2.6 kilobases upstream or downstream of a start codon, supporting a possible role in gene regulation while suggesting selection against insertions directly at start sites. Mapping 322 short-read samples to the graph recovered 0.5% to 9.2% more reads than mapping them to the single Rojo_HCUR reference. As a case study, the researchers resolved four large variants across the Dormancy-Associated MADS-box (DAM) gene cluster—MADS refers to MCM1, AGAMOUS, DEFICIENS, and serum response factor—and used polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays to test an insertion between DAM2 and DAM3. The analysis also exposed a probable genome-assembly error at this locus. This broader representation reduced the bias created by a single genomic template.
The authors said the pangenome shows why one cultivated genome cannot serve as a complete standard for apricot diversity. They said the largest additions came from evolutionary groups that are often underrepresented in breeding collections, particularly wild and more distant relatives. In their view, the close relationship between transposable elements and structural variation offers a plausible route through which genome architecture may influence nearby genes and plant traits. They also emphasized that careful assembly curation is essential, because errors in chromosome structure or labeling can otherwise be mistaken for genuine biological variation in graph-based analyses.
The pangenome can support genome-wide association studies (GWAS) that evaluate structural variants alongside conventional SNP markers, helping researchers prioritize genomic regions connected with bud dormancy, flowering, environmental adaptation, and other complex traits. These links will still require broader phenotyping and functional validation before they can guide selection directly. The resource can also make future sequencing more strategic by showing which evolutionary groups contribute the greatest amounts of previously unrepresented DNA. For breeders, wild apricot relatives may provide alleles and structural variants that are scarce in cultivated germplasm. Beyond apricot, the phylogeny-driven workflow offers a practical model for constructing cross-taxon graph references in other perennial fruit trees with diverse, interfertile wild relatives.
This work was supported by a PhD fellowship from the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research (MNSER) and Université de Bordeaux, an apprenticeship grant from the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), the European Union’s Horizon Europe FRUITDIV project (Grant No. 101133964), and the France 2030 AGRODIV program administered by the French National Research Agency (ANR-22-PEAE-0005-AgroDiv). The de novo assemblies of wild Armeniaca genomes were additionally supported by the University of Bordeaux WOODYSV project (2020–2022) and the ANR JCJC PLEASURE project (ANR-21-CE20-0005). The BReIF e-infrastructure was funded under Grant No. ANR-22-PEAE-00014-BREiF.
Horticulture Research is an open access journal of Nanjing Agricultural University and ranked number one in the Horticulture category of the Journal Citation Reports ™ from Clarivate, 2023. The journal is committed to publishing original research articles, reviews, perspectives, comments, correspondence articles and letters to the editor related to all major horticultural plants and disciplines, including biotechnology, breeding, cellular and molecular biology, evolution, genetics, inter-species interactions, physiology, and the origination and domestication of crops.
Phylogeny-driven pangenome analysis uncovers the genomic landscape of domesticated and wild Armeniaca species
New obesity definitions reveal ill health more accurately than Body Mass Index, study suggests
An international study led by King’s College London has found that proposed new obesity definitions give greater insight into the ill health of metabolic bariatric surgery candidates compared with Body Mass Index (BMI)
The study, published in Jama Open Network, found that people considered for metabolic bariatric surgery had marked variation in disease burden – the number and severity of diseases – and operation-related risks, despite having similar BMI.
However, by reviewing clinical data from thousands of bariatric surgery candidates and applying new obesity definitions, the researchers were able to better understand their underlying health – which could have important implications for patient treatment and surgery prioritisation in the future.
Led by Professor Francesco Rubino, Chair of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery at King’s College London, the researchers reviewed retrospective clinical data from 2,316 surgical candidates across four specialist centres – King’s College Hospital in the UK, and centres in France, Spain and Brazil.
They applied the new obesity definitions: clinical obesity, where there is clear evidence that excess fat, or adiposity, is causing organ damage, and preclinical obesity, where organ function is preserved despite excess adiposity.
From the surgical candidates, 73.8% had clinical obesity and 26.2% had preclinical obesity. Despite both groups of patients having similar BMI, patients with clinical obesity had far greater surgery-related and cardiovascular risks. They also had an overall high chance of death.
These findings suggest that distinguishing between clinical and preclinical obesity reveals key information about the health status and risks to surgery candidates that BMI alone cannot capture.
“This study shows that the distinction between clinical and pre-clinical obesity is clinically meaningful even among surgical candidates with very high BMI levels, because BMI alone cannot tell us who has active disease,” said Professor Francesco Rubino, senior author and Chair of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery at King’s College London.
He continued: “It is now essential that future surgical studies and registries systematically report patients’ clinical or pre-clinical obesity status, so that surgical safety, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness can be interpreted in the appropriate clinical context.”
Traditionally, obesity has been classified primarily using BMI, a measure of weight relative to height that provides limited information about whether excess fat is actually affecting a person’s health. BMI levels have historically played a central role in determining eligibility and priority for metabolic bariatric surgery – operations of the stomach that help people lose weight and fix health issues, such as type 2 diabetes.
In 2025, the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology Commission on Clinical Obesity proposed a new diagnostic framework. This distinguished between clinical obesity, where there is clear evidence that excess fat, or adiposity, is leading to organ dysfunction, from preclinical obesity, where organ function is preserved but future health risk is increased.
In the latest study, the researchers found that these differences in disease status were not reflected in BMI. In the UK centre, for example, BMI was roughly 47.5 among patients with clinical obesity and 48.5 among those with preclinical obesity. Yet those with clinical obesity were approximately 10 years older and had substantially higher risk of death, cardiovascular risk and operation-related risk.
The researchers argue that for patients with clinical obesity, surgery primarily represents treatment of established disease. On the other hand, for those with preclinical obesity, its key goal may instead be to reduce future health risk. Recognising this distinction could help clinicians plan surgery, as well as select and prioritise surgical candidates.
Certain bacteriophages found in the human gut have mutation hotspots scattered throughout their genomes that help them modify key defense genes, researchers report.
In the race for a solution to the antibiotic resistance crisis, a century-old practice is attracting renewed interest. The treatment, called phage therapy, involves co-opting friendly viruses that kill bacteria but ignore human cells.
Bacteria can — and do — develop resistance to phages, just as they do with antibiotics. But unlike antibiotics, phages can evolve counter defenses of their own.
Now, researchers at Michigan State University have identified a counter defense used by a group of phages common in the human gut, called Enterobacteria phage T2, that helps them stay one step ahead of their bacterial hosts.
These phages have mutation hotspots scattered throughout their genomes that help them modify key defense genes, the researchers report.
In a study published Aug. 13 in the journal Nature Microbiology, they show that these mutation hotspots help diversify their progeny to employ different survival strategies, ensuring that at least some continue to infect and kill no matter what countermeasures their bacterial hosts throw at them.
“They’re essentially hedging their bets,” said co-author Chris Waters, a core faculty member in MSU’s Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior program.
“If we can harness these kinds of evolutionary tricks, we might be able to make more effective phage therapies in response to the antibiotic resistance crisis,” Waters added.
The idea of using phages in medicine isn’t new. Cocktails of phages have been used since the 1920s to treat dysentery, sepsis, pneumonia and other ailments, particularly in France, Poland and parts of the former Soviet Union.
Interest in phage therapy waned in the West after the discovery of penicillin and other chemical antibiotics in the 1940s. But now, with deadly microbes from MRSA to tuberculosis becoming resistant to more and more of these drugs, researchers are revisiting phage therapy to combat antibiotic-resistant infections.
When phages invade, they latch onto a bacterium and inject their genes into the cell. Once inside, they hijack the bacterium’s internal machinery and turn it into a virus factory, forcing their host to churn out new phages until the cell bursts and releases them.
To fend off these attacks, bacteria have their own tactics. The researchers were studying one such strategy — a system in the bacterium that causes cholera — when they noticed something odd. In previous work, they identified a set of genes in cholera that spot the DNA of invading phages and chop it up before the phages can take over. But interestingly, this anti-virus protection didn’t last for long.
First author Jasper Gomez conducted the work while earning his Ph.D. in the Waters lab in MSU’s department of microbiology, genetics, & immunology.
In their experiments, the researchers transferred cholera DNA encoding the protective system to E. coli, a bacterium that is easier to work with in the lab, and exposed the bacteria to phages. Before long, the engineered E. coli were under attack. In other words, the phages quickly devised a workaround to bypass their hosts’ defenses, allowing them to sneak in and hijack their victims’ cells anyway.
“Within a few hours, the phages always started to win,” Waters said. “We couldn’t understand why,” he added.
The researchers sequenced the DNA of the resistant phages and found that many had “typos” in a gene called agt, particularly in a region of repetitive DNA where the same letter, or nucleotide base, appeared multiple times in the gene sequence.
“When I saw the data, I thought, oh my gosh,” Waters said. The region resembled a type of mutational hotspot called a contingency locus. Well studied in other organisms but never shown in phages before, such regions of the genome are known to be places where the cell’s DNA copying machinery sometimes “slips” and makes mistakes, Waters said.
The result is that, each time new phages are produced, they aren’t producing exact genetic copies of their ancestor. Some of the resistant mutants gain an extra repeat unit in the agt gene, while others lose one, throwing off how the gene’s instructions are read.
The researchers found that the repetitive region accumulates mutations thousands of times faster than the rest of the genome.
While mutations are often harmful, this changeability can give phages an evolutionary edge, Waters said. By continually churning out new mutants, they increase the odds that at least some will carry a mutation that lets them evade or disarm their host’s ever-changing arsenal.
“This changes our understanding of how phages evolve,” Waters said. “Instead of hijacking their hosts to mass produce exact copies of themselves, they are actually using these mutation hotspots to make a zoo.”
Phages outnumber bacteria by around ten to one, making them the most abundant organisms on the planet. The researchers focused on a type of phage that lurks in the gut, where it specializes on E. coli bacteria, but phages can be found just about anywhere, from the sands of the Sahara Desert to the ice of the Arctic Sea.
Working with MSU microbial evolution expert Jeffrey Barrick, the team found hundreds of similar mutation hotspots scattered across the genomes of other phage species as well.
Next, the researchers are looking into whether these mutation hotspots give phages an edge in other situations, such as adapting to survive and exploit their bacterial hosts after a shift in the environment, or evolving to infect new types of bacteria.
In much of the U.S., the U.K., and elsewhere, phage therapy is still far from mainstream; regulatory hurdles make it available only as a last resort. In the meantime, Waters and other researchers at MSU are exploring potential applications beyond the clinic, to treat bacterial infections in everything from honeybees and crops to pets and livestock.
“MSU could be a great phage therapy center for veterinary and agriculture applications,” Waters said.
“We’re never going to be able to completely get rid of resistance,” he added. “But if we can better understand how bacteria protect themselves from phage infection and how phages fight back, we might be able to minimize it.”
This research was supported by grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (GM139537, AI158433, GM088344 and F31AI186463) and the National Science Foundation (DEB-1813069 and DEB-1951307).
CITATION: "Phage-encoded contingency loci enable bet-hedging against host defence mechanisms," Jasper B. Gomez, Jeffrey E. Barrick, Christopher M. Waters. Nature Microbiology, Aug. 13, 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41564-026-02445-w
