Mothers’ Well-Being in Families and Family Structure: Examining Constellations of Stressors Across Life Domains

Identifying conditions under which parents thrive is a key concern of family research. Prior research often focused on mothers’ well-being in single life domains, yet it is more likely to be shaped by stressors that stem directly from the parenting role and related stressors emerging from spillover processes into other domains. We therefore examine how stressors concerning mothers’ subjective, relational, and financial well-being accumulate and combine within subgroups of mothers and whether the likelihood to belong to these multidimensional subgroups varies by family structure. Using representative German data ( N = 11,242), latent class analysis revealed four distinct subgroups of maternal well-being with varying exposure to financial, psychological, and relational stressors. Regression models showed that particularly single mothers were at risk to belong to the most vulnerable group with exposure to multiple stressors. Findings are discussed in light of persisting disparities among post-separation families despite demographic trends toward growing family diversity.

The Semi-Supervised Strategy of Machine Learning on the Gene Family Diversity to Unravel Resveratrol Synthesis

Resveratrol is a phytochemical with medicinal benefits, being well-known for its presence in wine. Plants develop resveratrol in response to stresses such as pathogen infection, UV radiation, and other mechanical stress. The recent publications of genomic sequences of resveratrol-producing plants such as grape, peanut, and eucalyptus can expand our molecular understanding of resveratrol synthesis. Based on a gene family count matrix of Viridiplantae members, we uncovered important gene families that are common in resveratrol-producing plants. These gene families could be prospective candidates for improving the efficiency of synthetic biotechnology-based artificial resveratrol manufacturing.

Regional heterogeneity in coral species richness and hue reveals novel global predictors of reef fish intra-family diversity

Habitat heterogeneity shapes biological communities, a well-known process in terrestrial ecosystems but substantially unresolved within coral reef ecosystems. We investigated the extent to which coral richness predicts intra-family fish richness, while simultaneously integrating a striking aspect of reef ecosystems—coral hue. To do so, we quantified the coral richness, coral hue diversity, and species richness within 25 fish families in 74 global ecoregions. We then expanded this to an analysis of all reef fishes (4465 species). Considering coral bleaching as a natural experiment, we subsequently examined hue's contribution to fish communities. Coral species and hue diversity significantly predict each family's fish richness, with the highest correlations (> 80%) occurring in damselfish, butterflyfish, emperors and rabbitfish, lower (60–80%) in substrate-bound and mid-water taxa such as blennies, seahorses, and parrotfish, and lowest (40–60%) in sharks, morays, grunts and triggerfish. The observed trends persisted globally. Coral bleaching's homogenization of reef colouration revealed hue’s contribution to maintaining fish richness, abundance, and recruit survivorship. We propose that each additional coral species and associated hue provide added ecological opportunities (e.g. camouflage, background contrast for intraspecific display), facilitating the evolution and co-existence of diverse fish assemblages.

Genome-Wide Analysis of Protein Family Diversity Provides Insights into Species-Specific Protein Family Expansions in Insects

Insects are one of the earliest land animals with more than 400 million years old history on Earth, and they compose more than 80% of species. Insects invade a wide range of ecosystems and are considered one of the most evolutionary successful organism groups. Today, many insect species’ genomes have been sequenced to encode molecular mechanisms behind this magnificent evolutionary plasticity. However, only limited genome-wide studies have been carried out to compare protein family diversity in insects. A total of 20 insect species belonging to seven insect orders and two morphogenesis groups were investigated for evolutionary relationships and to uncover protein family diversity in the present study. The phylogenetic analysis inferred from a total of 530 one-to-one single-copy ortholog genes were separated insects into two evolutionary clades based on morphogenesis. Protein family analyses showed that insects share core protein families that perform essential tasks in development and metabolic processes, such as Pkinase and Zinc Finger, cellular signaling and odorant perception (7tm), digestion of food molecules (Trypsin), and detoxification (p450) with copy number expansion compared to other protein families. Additionally, species-specific protein family expansion was observed in various protein families. This study provided insights into protein family diversity and variation among insects and highlights high copy number variation in protein families species-wide.