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Full-Text Articles in Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

First Major Appearance Of Brachiopod-Dominated Benthic Shelly Communities In The Reef Ecosystem During The Early Silurian, Cale A.C. Gushulak Aug 2016

First Major Appearance Of Brachiopod-Dominated Benthic Shelly Communities In The Reef Ecosystem During The Early Silurian, Cale A.C. Gushulak

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The early Silurian reefs of the Attawapiskat Formation in the Hudson Bay Basin preserved the oldest record of major invasion of the coral-stromatoporoid skeletal reefs by brachiopods and other marine shelly benthos, providing an excellent opportunity for studying the early evolution, functional morphology, and community organization of the rich and diverse reef-dwelling brachiopods. Biometric and multivariate analysis demonstrate that the reef-dwelling Pentameroides septentrionalis evolved from the level-bottom-dwelling Pentameroides subrectus to develop a larger and more globular shell. The reef-dwelling brachiopods in the paleoequatorial Hudson Bay Basin were more diverse than contemporaneous higher latitude reef-dwelling brachiopod faunas, with ten distinct …


Population Genetic Structure And Parasite Communities In A Nomadic Songbird, The Red Crossbill (Loxia Curvirostra), Erica L. Lovett Mar 2016

Population Genetic Structure And Parasite Communities In A Nomadic Songbird, The Red Crossbill (Loxia Curvirostra), Erica L. Lovett

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Although much speciation occurs in allopatry, populations with overlapping geographic ranges may also experience reduced gene flow due to ecological differences. Parasites are an important feature of the biotic environment, and place important selective pressures on their hosts, potentially reducing gene flow among geographically separated host populations. However, virtually nothing is known about host-parasite interactions in systems where hosts have nomadic distributions, and where ecologically distinct populations exist in sympatry. I examined population genetic structuring and characterized bloodborne parasite communities across four ecologically distinct, but partially sympatric, “vocal types” of nomadic red crossbills (Loxia curvirostra) sampled at multiple …