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The Rate, Spectrum And Effects Of Spontaneous Mutation In Bacteria With Multiple Chromosomes, Marcus M. Dillon
The Rate, Spectrum And Effects Of Spontaneous Mutation In Bacteria With Multiple Chromosomes, Marcus M. Dillon
Doctoral Dissertations
Despite their essentiality for evolutionary change and role in many diseases, spontaneous mutations remain understudied because of both biological and technical barriers. Prokaryotic mutation biases are especially understudied and no studies have been conducted on bacteria with multiple chromosomes, leaving major gaps in our understanding of the role of genome content and structure on mutation. The application of mutation accumulation lines to whole-genome sequencing offers the opportunity to study spontaneous mutations in a wide range of prokaryotic organisms. Here, we present a genome-wide view of molecular mutation rates and spectra in Burkholderia cenocepacia, Vibrio fischeri, and Vibrio cholerae, three bacterial …
Bacterial And Phage Interactions Influencing Vibrio Parahaemolyticus Ecology, Ashley L. Marcinkiewicz
Bacterial And Phage Interactions Influencing Vibrio Parahaemolyticus Ecology, Ashley L. Marcinkiewicz
Master's Theses and Capstones
Vibrio parahaemolyticus, a human pathogenic bacterium, is a naturally occurring member of the microbiome of the Eastern oyster. As the nature of this symbiosis in unknown, the oyster presents the opportunity to investigate how microbial communities interact with a host as part of the ecology of an emergent pathogen of importance. To define how members of the oyster bacterial microbiome correlate with V. parahaemolyticus, I performed marker-based metagenetic sequencing analyses to identify and quantify the bacterial community in individual oysters after culturally-quantifying V. parahaemolyticus abundance. I concluded that despite shared environmental exposures, individual oysters from the same collection site varied …
Relating Shell Morphometrics And Heterozygosity To Byssogenesis, Byssal Thread Attachment Strength And Motility In The Blue Mussel, Ellie Daniels
Relating Shell Morphometrics And Heterozygosity To Byssogenesis, Byssal Thread Attachment Strength And Motility In The Blue Mussel, Ellie Daniels
Master's Theses and Capstones
Heterozygote deficiencies have been noted in both wild and farmed populations of Mytilus edulis Linnaeus 1758, yet the underlying causes for this deficit remain unclear. This is especially surprising considering that advantageous fitness traits (i.e., increased fecundity, reduced basal metabolism, higher growth rate in farmed mussels) as well as decreased mortality under environmental stressors (i.e., air exposure, increased water temperature) are positively correlated with heterozygosity in these mussels. The dislodgement hypothesis states that more heterozygous mussels are migrating to the periphery of a rope culture or mussel bed to gain an energetic advantage where they become more susceptible to drop-off. …
Understanding The Evolution Of Pathogenicity Within Geosmithia, Taruna Aggarwal
Understanding The Evolution Of Pathogenicity Within Geosmithia, Taruna Aggarwal
Master's Theses and Capstones
Geosmithia morbida is a filamentous ascomycete that causes thousand cankers disease in the eastern black walnut tree. This pathogen is commonly found in the western US; however, recently the disease was also detected in several eastern states where the black walnut lumber industry is concentrated. G. morbida is one of two known phytopathogens within the genus Geosmithia, and it is vectored into the host tree via the walnut twig beetle. We present the first de novo draft genome of G. morbida (Chapter 2). It is 26.5 Mbp in length and contains less than 1% repetitive elements. The genome possesses an …
Dominance And Experience: Aggression And The Evolutionary Origins Of Social Behavior, Jacob Withee
Dominance And Experience: Aggression And The Evolutionary Origins Of Social Behavior, Jacob Withee
Master's Theses and Capstones
Sociality as a life history strategy has many overt benefits, but its origin from solitary living is not fully understood. The cooperation necessary for formation of even basic social groups can present natural selection paradoxes that many models are unable to reconcile. Conversely, aggression is a key component to the formation of dominance hierarchies, a very basic form of social group. These hierarchies can give way to reproductive hierarchies, which are in turn the basis for some of the most complex forms of social organization. The focus of this thesis is to use aggression in an incipiently social bee species …
Iron Uptake In Symbiosis: The Role Of Siderophore In The Association Between Vibrio Fischeri And Euprymna Scolopes, Evan Dasilva
Iron Uptake In Symbiosis: The Role Of Siderophore In The Association Between Vibrio Fischeri And Euprymna Scolopes, Evan Dasilva
Master's Theses and Capstones
Iron acquisition is well studied in pathogens, and successful virulence is often attributed to iron acquisition by siderophore and heme uptake; however, the role of iron uptake in mutual symbiotic interactions is not as well understood. The mutual symbiosis between Vibrio fischeri and the Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes, is a well-characterized system in which iron uptake has been implicated as a symbiotic factor. Four studies have implicated iron uptake in the symbiosis: 1) A TnLux reporter assay revealed that siderophore is more highly expressed by V. fischeri in the light organs of juvenile squid compared to V. fischeri in …
Marker Assisted Selection Of Sex Determination In Kiwiberry (Actinidia Arguta And Actinidia Kolomikta), Haley Gustafson
Marker Assisted Selection Of Sex Determination In Kiwiberry (Actinidia Arguta And Actinidia Kolomikta), Haley Gustafson
Master's Theses and Capstones
The selection of phenotypic traits in plant breeding has recently become augmented by the implementation of molecular markers. Marker-assisted breeding strategies are used to develop new cultivars of many important crop plants but have yet to be assimilated into breeding programs for many minor crops with untapped economic potential. In the following chapters, I discuss methods of marker development in crop plants, sex determination as a trait of economic interest in plant breeding, and the identification of two male-dominant, PCR-based markers in the commercially viable Kiwiberry species Actinidia arguta and A. kolomikta.