Aquatic insects are well-adapted to freshwater environments, but metabolic mechanisms of such adaptations, particularly to primary environmental factors (e.g., hypoxia, water pressure, dark light and abundant microbes), are poorly known. Most firefly species (Coleoptera: Lampyridae) are terrestri...

Combined saline-alkali and cold stresses severely constrain plant growth at middle and high latitudes. Plants have evolved cross-adaptation mechanisms wherein exposure to one stress enhances resistance to another. However, the specific mechanisms driving cross-adaptation between saline-alkali and...

Microalgae are important primary producers and form the basis for the marine food web. As global climate changes, so do salinity levels that algae are exposed to. A metabolic response of algal cells partly alleviates the resulting osmotic stress. Some metabolites involved in the response are well...

Bamboo rats (Rhizomys pruinosus) are among the few mammals that lives on a bamboo-based diet which is mainly composed of lignocellulose. However, the mechanisms of adaptation of their gut microbiome and metabolic systems in the degradation of lignocellulose are largely unknown. Here, we ...

High-temperature stress critically challenges cold-water aquaculture; however, the size-dependent molecular mechanisms underlying thermal adaptation in triploid rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) remain poorly understood. Here, we integrated transcriptomic and metabolomic profiling of liver tiss...

Living organisms are organized into hierarchical levels of increasing complexity. As mutational effects propagate through these levels, multiple phenotypes are produced. However, identifying which phenotypes influence fitness and drive selection remains a key challenge in understanding genotype-p...

Biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) encoding the production of bacteriocins are widespread among bacterial isolates and are important genetic determinants of competitive fitness within a given habitat. Staphylococci produce a tremendous diversity of compounds, and the corresponding BGCs are frequen...

The gut microbiota is being increasingly recognized as a pivotal regulator of thermal adaptation in homeothermic rodents. However, it remains unclear whether similar mechanisms operate in other homeothermic species, such as birds, which exhibit higher basal body temperature and limited heat toler...