© 2020 The Authors.The guppy (Poecilia reticulata) is a model species in ecology and evolution. Many studies have examined effects of predators on guppy behaviour, reproduction, survival strategies, feeding and other life-history traits, but few have studied variation in their parasite diversity. We surveyed parasites of 18 Trinidadian populations of guppy, to provide insight on the geographical mosaic of parasite variability, which may act as a source of natural selection acting on guppies. We found 21 parasite species, including five new records for Trinidad. Spatial variation in parasite diversity was significantly higher than that of piscine predators, and significant variation in parasite richness among individuals and populations was correlated with (i) host size, (ii) snail species richness, and (iii) the distance between populations. Differences in parasite species richness are likely to play an important, yet underestimated role in the biology of this model species of vertebrate ecology and evolution. © 2020 The Authors.The evolution of spoken languages has been studied since the mid-nineteenth century using traditional historical comparative methods and, more recently, computational phylogenetic methods. By contrast, evolutionary processes resulting in the diversity of contemporary sign languages (SLs) have received much less attention, and scholars have been largely unsuccessful in grouping SLs into monophyletic language families using traditional methods. To date, no published studies have attempted to use language data to infer relationships among SLs on a large scale. Here, we report the results of a phylogenetic analysis of 40 contemporary and 36 historical SL manual alphabets coded for morphological similarity. Our results support grouping SLs in the sample into six main European lineages, with three larger groups of Austrian, British and French origin, as well as three smaller groups centring around Russian, Spanish and Swedish. The British and Swedish lineages support current knowledge of relationships among SLs based on extra-linguistic historical sources. With respect to other lineages, our results diverge from current hypotheses by indicating (i) independent evolution of Austrian, French and Spanish from Spanish sources; (ii) an internal Danish subgroup within the Austrian lineage; and (iii) evolution of Russian from Austrian sources. © 2020 The Authors.Agent-based models (ABMs) are gaining traction as one of the most powerful modelling tools within the social sciences. They are particularly suited to simulating complex systems. Despite many methodological advances within ABM, one of the major drawbacks is their inability to incorporate real-time data to make accurate short-term predictions. This paper presents an approach that allows ABMs to be dynamically optimized. Through a combination of parameter calibration and data assimilation (DA), the accuracy of model-based predictions using ABM in real time is increased. We use the exemplar of a bus route system to explore these methods. The bus route ABMs developed in this research are examples of ABMs that can be dynamically optimized by a combination of parameter calibration and DA. The proposed model and framework is a novel and transferable approach that can be used in any passenger information system, or in an intelligent transport systems to provide forecasts of bus locations and arrival times. © 2020 The Authors.Chromatin remodelling and transcription factors play important roles in lineage commitment and development through control of gene expression. Activation of selected lineage-specific genes and repression of alternative lineage-affiliated genes result in tightly regulated cell differentiation transcriptional programmes. However, the complex functional and physical interplay between transcription factors and chromatin-modifying enzymes remains elusive. Recent evidence has implicated histone demethylases in normal haematopoietic differentiation as well as in malignant haematopoiesis. Here, we report an interaction between H3K4 demethylase JARID1A and the haematopoietic-specific master transcription proteins SCL and GATA1 in red blood cells. Specifically, we observe a direct physical contact between GATA1 and the second PHD domain of JARID1A. This interaction has potential implications for normal and malignant haematopoiesis. © 2020 The Authors.We developed a time-dependent stochastic neutral model for predicting diverse temporal trajectories of biodiversity change in response to ecological disturbance (i.e. habitat destruction) and dispersal dynamic (i.e. emigration and immigration). The model is general and predicts how transition behaviours of extinction may accumulate according to a different combination of random drift, immigration rate, emigration rate and the degree of habitat destruction. We show that immigration, emigration, the areal size of the destroyed habitat and initial species abundance distribution (SAD) can impact the total biodiversity loss in an intact local area. Among these, the SAD plays the most deterministic role, as it directly determines the initial species richness in the local target area. By contrast, immigration was found to slow down total biodiversity loss and can drive the emergence of species credits (i.e. a gain of species) over time. However, the emigration process would increase the extinction risk of species and accelerate biodiversity loss. BFA inhibitor Finally but notably, we found that a shift in the emigration rate after a habitat destruction event may be a new mechanism to generate species credits. © 2020 The Authors.It is often observed that married women have a later age of natural menopause (ANM) than unmarried women; however, the reason for this association is unknown. We test an original hypothesis that sexual frequency acts as a bio-behavioural mediator between marital status and ANM. We hypothesize that there is a trade-off between continued ovulation and menopause based on the woman’s chances of becoming pregnant. If a woman is sexually inactive, then pregnancy is impossible, and continued investment in ovulation would not be adaptive. In addition, we test an existing hypothesis that the observed relationship is because of the exposure to male pheromones. Data from 2936 women were drawn from 11 waves of the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation, which is a longitudinal study conducted in the United States. Using time-varying Cox regression, we found no evidence for the pheromone hypothesis. However, we did observe that women who reported to have sex weekly during the study period were 28% less likely to experience menopause than women who had sex less than monthly.