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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
The Evolution Of Host Specificity In The Vertebrate Gut Symbiont Lactobacillus Reuteri, Steven Frese
The Evolution Of Host Specificity In The Vertebrate Gut Symbiont Lactobacillus Reuteri, Steven Frese
Department of Food Science and Technology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research
The vertebrate gut is home to one of the densest populations of life on Earth. This microbial community has a profound effect on host health, nutrition, development, behavior, and evolution. However, very little is known about how these microbes have evolved with their vertebrate hosts, how and whether they select hosts or how they remain associated with their hosts. Recent work identified Lactobacillus reuteri as an organism that is composed of host-specific sub-populations, each population associated with a different host animal. Representatives from each host-associated population were tested for their ability to colonize gnotobiotic mice, which only rodent strains could …
Two Boundaries Separate Borrelia Burgdorferi Populations In North America, Gabriele Margos, Jean I. Tsao, Santiago Castillo-Ramirez, Yvette A. Girard, Anne G. Hoen
Two Boundaries Separate Borrelia Burgdorferi Populations In North America, Gabriele Margos, Jean I. Tsao, Santiago Castillo-Ramirez, Yvette A. Girard, Anne G. Hoen
Dartmouth Scholarship
Understanding the spread of infectious diseases is crucial for implementing effective control measures. For this, it is important to obtain information on the contemporary population structure of a disease agent and to infer the evolutionary processes that may have shaped it. Here, we investigate on a continental scale the population structure of Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme borreliosis (LB), a tick-borne disease, in North America. We test the hypothesis that the observed d population structure is congruent with recent population expansions and that these were preceded by bottlenecks mostly likely caused by the near extirpation in the 1900s …
Prospects For The Study Of Evolution In The Deep Biosphere, Jennifer F. Biddle, Jason B. Sylvan, William J. Brazelton, Katina J. Edwards, Craig L. Moyer, John F. Heidelberg, William C. Nelson
Prospects For The Study Of Evolution In The Deep Biosphere, Jennifer F. Biddle, Jason B. Sylvan, William J. Brazelton, Katina J. Edwards, Craig L. Moyer, John F. Heidelberg, William C. Nelson
Biology Faculty and Staff Publications
Since the days of Darwin, scientists have used the framework of the theory of evolution to explore the interconnectedness of life on Earth and adaptation of organisms to the ever-changing environment. The advent of molecular biology has advanced and accelerated the study of evolution by allowing direct examination of the genetic material that ultimately determines the phenotypes upon which selection acts. The study of evolution has been furthered through examination of microbial evolution, with large population numbers, short generation times, and easily extractable DNA. Such work has spawned the study of microbial biogeography, with the realization that concepts developed in …