In aquatic ecosystems, dense populations of snails can shed millions of digenean trematode cercariae every day. These short-lived, free-living larvae are rich in energy and present a potential resource for consumers. We investigated whether estuarine fishes eat cercariae shed by trematodes of the estuarine snail Cerithidea californica. In aquaria we presented cercariae from 10 native trematode ...

Human ageing is a fundamental biological process that leads to functional decay, increased risk for various diseases and, ultimately, death. Some of the basic biological mechanisms underlying human ageing are shared with other organisms; thus, animal models have been invaluable in providing key mechanistic and molecular insights into the common bases of biological ageing. In this Review, we bri...

Lifespan is a remarkably diverse trait ranging from a few days to several hundred years in nature, but the mechanisms underlying the evolution of lifespan differences remain elusive. Here we de novo assemble a reference genome for the naturally short-lived African turquoise killifish, providing a unique resource for comparative and experimental genomics. The identification of genes under positi...

Diapause and aging are controlled by overlapping genetic mechanisms in C.elegans and these include microRNAs (miRNAs). Here, we investigated miRNA regulation in embryos of annual killifish that naturally undergo diapause to overcome desiccation of their habitats. We compared miRNA expression in diapausing and non-diapausing embryos in three independent lineages of killifish. We identified 13 mi...

The mangrove killifish (Kryptolebias marmoratus) is the only vertebrate known to be capable of self-fertilization. Its gonad is typically an ovotestis that simultaneously produces eggs and sperm, and fertilization is internal. Although most populations of this species consist primarily or exclusively of hermaphroditic individuals, gonochoristic males occur at approximately 20% frequency in a na...

Resveratrol has shown evidence of decreasing cancer incidence, heart disease, metabolic syndrome and neural degeneration in animal studies. However, the effects on longevity are mixed. We aimed to quantify the current knowledge of life extension from resveratrol. We used meta-analytic techniques to assess the effect resveratrol has on survival, using data from 19 published papers, including six...

The spreading of mesenchymal-like cell layers is critical for embryo morphogenesis and tissue repair, yet we know little of this process in vivo. Here we take advantage of unique developmental features of the non-conventional annual killifish embryo to study the principles underlying tissue spreading in a simple cellular environment, devoid of patterning signals and major morphogenetic cell mov...

Many aquatic organisms are resistant to environmental pollutants, probably because their inherent multi-drug-resistant protein extrusion pump (pgp) can be co-opted to handle man-made pollutants. This mechanism of multixenobiotic resistance is similar to the mechanism of multidrug resistance exhibited in chemotherapy-resistant human tumor cells. In the present study, a variety of techniques were...

This paper discusses in layperson’s terms human and computational studies of the impact of threat and fear on exploration and creativity. A first study showed that both killifish from a lake with predators and from a lake without predators explore a new environment to the same degree and plotting number of new spaces covered over time generates a hump-shaped curve. However, for the fish from th...

The quest to slow aging has come far, and what used to be the domain of science fiction writers and snake oil salesmen may soon become science fact. Innovative new approaches, such as the use of the very short-lived African killifish (Harel et al.), are bridging the translational gap and bring the promise of healthy longevity to fruition.