Evolution

The first comprehensive study of how diverse evolutionary forces influence the leading cause of infant mortality is led by Vanderbilt researchers. Read More

International collaboration shows that marsupial saber-tooth cats were more closely related to possums than fearsome predators. Read More

Paleontologist and associate professor of biological sciences Larisa DeSantis finds answers about early hominin diets are with an unrelated group of mammals—tapirs. Read More

A team of scientists at Vanderbilt has discovered the first known instance of a hybrid fungal species causing aspergillosis, an ensemble of different types of lung infections that often impacts immune-compromised people. Read More

Evolution may explain why we overvalue some things—but not others—to an irrational degree. Read More

With a new app from a team at Vanderbilt, birdsong researchers can better leverage crowdsourced fieldwork and audio recordings from amateur birders and citizen songbird scientists. Read More

The quokka, a small marsupial native to Australia, is an example of a species vulnerable to extinction in the country’s harsh surroundings. In a new study, researchers at Vanderbilt University demonstrate evidence for the dramatic decline of quokkas over the past century. Read More

Jonathan Losos, a world-renowned evolutionary biologist whose discoveries have shed light on how organisms diversify, will deliver the 2020 Darwin Day Lecture on Wednesday, Feb. 12. Read More

When it comes to our differences from Neanderthals, most of what we know comes from comparing fossils. But fossils can only tell us about bones and not whole living organisms. That’s changing thanks to a new paper from a team of genomics researchers at Vanderbilt, who… Read More

Picky females force male songbirds to become better singers. Read More

The Vanderbilt Evolutionary Studies Initiative seeks to position the university as a global leader in evolutionary studies by engaging a large group of scholars who share this research interest. Read More

The most detailed study to date of ancient predators trapped in the La Brea Tar Pits is helping Americans understand why today we’re dealing with coyotes dumping over garbage cans and not saber-toothed cats ripping our arms off. Read More

“They are behaving like animals, and that’s a link between them and what we recognize as animals," says paleontologist Simon A.F. Darroch. Read More

A group of budding yeasts in the genus Hanseniaspora, which is closely related to the baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, has lost large numbers of genes related to cell cycle and DNA repair processes. Read More

Louise Rollins-Smith and colleagues have discovered a new way that a deadly fungus evades frogs' immune systems. Read More

The team, one of the first in the world to examine the ability’s origins, used a small CT scanner to look inside a 30-million-year-old ear bone fossil from a specimen resembling Olympicetus avitus. Read More

For many species, extravagant displays are a critical part of attracting a mate. Think of a peacock’s long tail or a songbird’s elaborate melody. When considering these populations, scientists at Vanderbilt University wondered if they could use new methods to test a theory that has been around for almost 150… Read More

Ediacara biota were forming complex communities tens of millions of years before the Cambrian explosion. Read More

Vanderbilt biologist Nicole Creanza is the guest editor of a new themed issue of "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B" highlighting interdisciplinary approaches to understanding human evolution. Read More

Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor in Biological Sciences Antonis Rokas has been selected as a finalist for the $250,000 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists Read More