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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Epigenetic Buffering In Introduced House Sparrows, M. Ellesse Lauer
Epigenetic Buffering In Introduced House Sparrows, M. Ellesse Lauer
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Epigenetic buffering, as an environmentally induced increase in variance of epigenetic states that increases phenotypic variation to buffer populations against decreased fitness, may be a factor that resolves the genetic paradox of introduced species. DNA methylation is a molecular mechanism that could facilitate epigenetic buffering by changing in response to environmental stress. Therefore, epigenetic buffering can be detected through increased variance in DNA methylation in novel or heterogeneous environments. Introduced house sparrows (Passer domesticus) have well-documented phenotypic changes with low genetic diversity, high epigenetic diversity, and high variance in DNA methylation that provide a characteristic signature of epigenetic buffering. …
Effects Of Unpaved Roads On Relative Abundance And Epigenetics Of Early Successional Lizards, David Tevs
Effects Of Unpaved Roads On Relative Abundance And Epigenetics Of Early Successional Lizards, David Tevs
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Unpaved roads may provide uniform microhabitat characteristics and impart edge effects in the adjacent landscape that mediate environmental pressures acting on small vertebrates. These features may allow species that are associated with recent disturbance to persist in aging forest patches. Further, epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation may provide these species the phenotypic plasticity necessary to occupy multiple habitats with different environmental conditions. To understand how small vertebrates use unpaved roads, the relative abundance and occurrence of Florida scrub lizards (Sceloporus woodi) and six-lined racerunners (Aspidoscelis sexlineata) were quantified using visual encounter surveys along unpaved roads …