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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Functional Morphology, Biomechanics, And Evolution Of Ruminant Mammals, Abby Vander Linden
Functional Morphology, Biomechanics, And Evolution Of Ruminant Mammals, Abby Vander Linden
Doctoral Dissertations
Ruminant mammals, including the families Bovidae, Cervidae, Tragulidae, Moschidae, Antilocapridae, and Giraffidae, display incredible past and present diversity in morphology, ecology, and behavior. They inhabit an impressive range of environments across North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and compel the fascination of naturalists and researchers alike with their charismatic social behavior and conspicuous cranial appendages. I explore the drivers and consequences of this spectacular diversity through a comparative morphological framework, biomechanical modeling approaches, and semi-parametric and likelihood-based methods for estimating state-dependent diversification rates across the ruminant phylogeny. Together, these investigations provide evidence for adaptation via correlated evolution of …
Dynamic Evolution In The Leucine-Rich Repeat Receptor-Like Kinase (Lrr-Rlk) Family Of Receptors, Jarrett Man
Dynamic Evolution In The Leucine-Rich Repeat Receptor-Like Kinase (Lrr-Rlk) Family Of Receptors, Jarrett Man
Doctoral Dissertations
Cells in multicellular organisms must gauge their environmental conditions, including neighboring cells, during development. In plants, the Leucine-Rich Repeat Receptor-like Kinases (LRR-RLKs) encode a family of membrane-bound receptors that transduce such cell-to-cell signals and are required for many aspects of plant development. Very little is known about the function of most of these genes, and the evolutionary history of the family is difficult to infer because of its size and complexity. Several factors contribute to this difficulty, including genetic redundancy, challenging bioinformatic detection, exceptionally large family size, and high copy number variation among species. In this dissertation, I characterize some …