Australian researchers have discovered a huge number of new species of invertebrate animals living in underground water, caves and "micro-caverns" amid the harsh conditions of the Australian outback.

The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and an international committee of taxonomists – scientists responsible for species exploration and classification – today announce the top 10 new species described in 2007.

Cooperative behaviour is common in many species, including humans. Given that cooperative individuals can often be exploited, it is not immediately clear why such behaviour has evolved.

Scientists exploring one of the largest remaining blocks of tropical forest in Western Africa discovered significant populations of new, rare and threatened species underscoring the area’s high biological diversity and value.

When it comes to picking a mate, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young had an answer: “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” As it turns out, that may be a cardinal rule in the animal kingdom, too.

Three years ago, "ultraconserved elements" were discovered in the genomes of mice, rats, and humans. These are DNA sequences 200 base pairs in length or longer — some are over 700 base pairs long — showing 100-percent identity among the three species. They have been perfectly conserved since the last common ancestor of mice, rats, and humans, which lived some 85 million years ago.

Trophic relationships, such as those between predator and prey or between pathogen and host, are key interactions linking species in ecological food webs. The structure of these links and their strengths have major consequences for the dynamics and stability of food webs.

An international research team has documented the link between the way an animal moves and the dimensions of an important part of its organ of balance, the three semicircular canals of the inner ear on each side of the skull. The team's article on its research will be published on 26 June in the print edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and in the journal's online early edition during the week of 18 to 22 June.

Neighbors gone, sex gone, fruits gone, species gone. This is the ultra-short conclusion of the findings in a study by Dennis Hansen, Heine Kiesbüy, and Christine Müller from Zurich University, and Carl Jones from the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, who found that an endangered plant in Mauritius depends on a neighboring plant to provide a safe home for its pollinator, a day-active gecko.

A group of organisms that has never had sex in over 40 million years of existence has nevertheless managed to evolve into distinct species, says new research published today. The study challenges the assumption that sex is necessary for organisms to diversify and provides scientists with new insight into why species evolve in the first place.