Life Sciences Commons^™

Leaf Form Diversification In An Ornamental Heirloom Tomato Results From Alterations In Two Different Homeobox Genes, Hokuto Nakayama, Steven D. Rowland, Zizhang Cheng, Kristina Zumstein, Julie Kang, Yohei Kondo, Neelima R. Sinha

Faculty Publications

Domesticated plants display diverse phenotypic traits. However, the influence of breeding effort on this phenotypic diversity remains unknown. Here, we demonstrate that a single nucleotide deletion in the homeobox motif of BIPINNATA, a BEL-LIKE HOMEODOMAIN gene, led to a highly complex leaf phenotype in an heirloom tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), Silvery Fir Tree (SiFT), which is used as a landscaping and ornamental plant. A comparative gene network analysis revealed that repression of SOLANIFOLIA, the ortholog of WUSCHEL RELATED HOMEOBOX 1, caused the narrow leaflet phenotype seen in SiFT. Comparative genomics indicated that the bip mutation in SiFT likely arose de novo …

Complex Gene Loss And Duplication Events Have Facilitated The Evolution Of Multiple Loricrin Genes In Diverse Bird Species, Anthony C. Davis, Matthew J. Greenwold, Roger H. Sawyer

Faculty Publications

The evolution of a mechanically resilient epidermis was a key adaptation in the transition of amniotes to a fully terrestrial lifestyle. Skin appendages usually form via a specialized type of programmed cell death known as cornification which is characterized by the formation of an insoluble cornified envelope (CE). Many of the substrates of cornification are encoded by linked genes located at a conserved genetic locus known as the epidermal differentiation complex (EDC). Loricrin is the main protein component of the mammalian CE and is encoded for by a gene located within the EDC. Recently, genes resembling mammalian loricrin, along with …

Exposure To Environmental Radionuclides Associates With Tissue-Specific Impacts On Telomerase Expression And Telomere Length, Jenni Kesaniemi, Anton Lavrinienko, Eugene Tukalenko, Zbyszek Boratynski, Kati Kivisaari, Tapio Mappes, Gennadi Milinevsky, Anders Pape Moller, Timothy A. Mousseau, Phillip C. Watts

Faculty Publications

Telomeres, the protective structures at the ends of chromosomes, can be shortened when individuals are exposed to stress. In some species, the enzyme telomerase is expressed in adult somatic tissues, and potentially protects or lengthens telomeres. Telomeres can be damaged by ionizing radiation and oxidative stress, although the effect of chronic exposure to elevated levels of radiation on telomere maintenance is unknown for natural populations. We quantified telomerase expression and telomere length (TL) in different tissues of the bank vole Myodes glareolus, collected from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, an environment heterogeneously contaminated with radionuclides, and from uncontaminated control sites …

Does Body Size Affect Fitness The Same Way In Males And Females? A Test Of Multiple Fitness Components, Ashlee N. Smith, Mark C. Belk

Faculty Publications

Body size generally has an important relationship with fitness, whereby larger body size leads to an increase in fitness through competition, reproductive output and survivorship. However, the traits through which body size increases fitness often differ between the sexes. We tested for the effects of body size on fitness in both sexes using three separate experiments on competitive ability, reproductive output and starvation resistance in the burying beetle Nicrophorus marginatus. Results varied between sexes as follows: (1) larger body size increased competitive ability differentially between sexes; (2) female body size, but not male body size, significantly affected reproductive output …

Temporal Migration Patterns Between Natal Locations Of Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus Colubris) And Their Gulf Coast Stopover Site, Theodore J. Zenzal Jr., Andrea J. Contina, Jeffrey F. Kelly, Frank R. Moore

Faculty Publications

Background

Autumn latitudinal migrations generally exhibit one of two different temporal migration patterns: type 1 where southern populations migrate south before northern populations, or type 2 where northern populations overtake southern populations en route. The ruby-throated hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) is a species with an expansive breeding range, which allows opportunities to examine variation in the timing of migration. Our objective was to determine a relationship between natal origin of ruby-throated hummingbirds and arrival at a Gulf coast stopover site; and if so, what factors, such as differences in body size across the range as well as the …

De-Extinction And The Conception Of Species, Leonard Finkelman

Faculty Publications

Developments in genetic engineering may soon allow biologists to clone organisms from extinct species. The process, dubbed “de-extinction,” has been publicized as a means to bring extinct species back to life. For theorists and philosophers of biology, the process also suggests a thought experiment for the ongoing “species problem”: given a species concept, would a clone be classified in the extinct species? Previous analyses have answered this question in the context of specific de-extinction technologies or particular species concepts. The thought experiment is given more comprehensive treatment here. Given the products of three de-extinction technologies, twenty-two species concepts are “tested” …

Why Does It Take Two To Tango? Lifetime Fitness Consequences Of Parental Care In A Burying Beetle, Ashlee N. Smith, J. Curtis Creighton, Mark C. Belk

Faculty Publications

In species that require parental care, each parent can either care for their offspring or leave them in the care of the other parent. For each parent this creates three possible parental care strategies: biparental care, uniparental (male or female) care, and uniparental desertion by either the male or female. The burying beetle, Nicrophorus orbicollis, typically exhibits biparental care of offspring, and thus provides a unique system that allows us to compare the fitness benefits of these parental care strategies in an unconfounded way. In this study, we assess the lifetime fitness of biparental care, uniparental care, and uniparental …

Interaction Between Predation Environment And Diet Constrains Body Shape In Utah Chub, Gila Atraria (Cypriniformes: Cyprinidae), Trevor J. Williams, Jerald B. Johnson, Mark C. Belk

Faculty Publications

Evolution typically occurs in response to a suite of selective pressures. Yet, many studies of natural selection in the wild only investigate a single selective agent at a time. This can be problematic when selective agents act in non-additive ways. Here we evaluate the interactive effects of diet and predation on the evolution of body shape in the cyprinid fish Utah chub (Gila atraria). We found that both factors and the interaction between them are significant predictors of body shape. This interaction is likely a result of different forms of selective pressures, where predation is a stabilizing selective …

The Relationship Of Female Physical Attractiveness To Body Fatness, Guanlin Wang, Kurosh Djafarian, Chima A. Egedigwe, Asmaa El Hamdouchi, Robert Ojiambo, Harris Ramuth, Sandra Johanna Wallner-Liebmann, Sonja Lackner, Adama Diouf, Justina Sauciuvenaite, Catherine Hambly, Lobke M. Vaanholt, Mark D. Faries, John R. Speakman

Faculty Publications

Aspects of the female body may be attractive because they signal evolutionary fitness. Greater body fatness might reflect greater potential to survive famines, but individuals carrying larger fat stores may have poor health and lower fertility in non-famine conditions. A mathematical statistical model using epidemiological data linking fatness to fitness traits, predicted a peaked relationship between fatness and attractiveness (maximum at body mass index (BMI) = 22.8 to 24.8 depending on ethnicity and assumptions). Participants from three Caucasian populations (Austria, Lithuania and the UK), three Asian populations (China, Iran and Mauritius) and four African populations (Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and Senegal) …

Using Phylogenetically-Informed Annotation (Pia) To Search For Light-Interacting Genes In Transcriptomes From Non-Model Organisms, Daniel Isaac Speiser, M Sabrina Pankey, Alexandera K. Zaharoff, Barbara A. Battelle, Heather D. Bracken-Grissom, Jesse W. Breinholt, Seth M. Bybee, Thomas W. Cronin, Anders Garm, Annie R. Lindgren, Nipam H. Patel, Megan L. Porter, Meredith E. Protas, Ajna S. Rivera, Jeanne M. Serb, Kirk S. Zigler, Keith A. Crandall, Todd H. Oakley

Faculty Publications

Background

Tools for high throughput sequencing and de novo assembly make the analysis of transcriptomes (i.e. the suite of genes expressed in a tissue) feasible for almost any organism. Yet a challenge for biologists is that it can be difficult to assign identities to gene sequences, especially from non-model organisms. Phylogenetic analyses are one useful method for assigning identities to these sequences, but such methods tend to be time-consuming because of the need to re-calculate trees for every gene of interest and each time a new data set is analyzed. In response, we employed existing tools for phylogenetic analysis …

Fitness: Philosophical Problems, Grant Ramsey, Charles H. Pence

Faculty Publications

Fitness plays many roles throughout evolutionary theory, from a measure of populations in the wild to a central element in abstract theoretical presentations of natural selection. It has thus been the subject of an extensive philosophical literature, which has primarily centred on the way to understand the relationship between fitness values and reproductive outcomes. If fitness is a probabilistic or statistical quantity, how is it to be defined in general theoretical contexts? How can it be measured? Can a single conceptual model for fitness be offered that applies to all biological cases, or must fitness measures be case-specific? Philosophers have …

Multi-Break Rearrangements And Breakpoint Re-Uses: From Circular To Linear Genomes, Max A. Alekseyev

Faculty Publications

Multi-break rearrangements break a genome into multiple fragments and further glue them together in a new order. While 2-break rearrangements represent standard reversals, fusions, fissions, and translocations, 3-break rearrangements represent a natural generalization of transpositions. Alekseyev and Pevzner (2007a, 2008a) studied multi-break rearrangements in circular genomes and further applied them to the analysis of chromosomal evolution in mammalian genomes. In this paper, we extend these results to the more difficult case of linear genomes. In particular, we give lower bounds for the rearrangement distance between linear genomes and for the breakpoint re-use rate as functions of the number and proportion …