Proceedings B is the Royal Society’s flagship biological research journal, accepting original articles and reviews of outstanding scientific importance and broad general interest. The main criteria for acceptance are that a study is novel, and has general significance to biologists. Articles published cover the breadth of the biological sciences; many but not all articles have direct relevance to organisms and the environments in which they live. The scope of articles that we publish includes, but is not limited to: behaviour, development, physiology, ecology, evolution, genetics, genomics, global change, conservation, morphology, biomechanics, neuroscience, cognition and paleobiology. Authors are encouraged to submit articles not only in these fields, but in all branches of biology.