Evolution Commons^™

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 2 : The Spelling "Russel", And Wallace's Date Of Birth, Charles H. Smith, James Williams, Jonathan Stephens, George Beccaloni

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ecological Opportunity And The Origin Of Adaptive Radiations, J. B. Yoder, E. Clancey, S. Des Roches, J. M. Eastman, L. Gentry, W. Godsoe, T. J. Hagey, D. Jochimsen, B. P. Oswald, J. Robertson, B. Sarver, J. J. Schenk, S. F. Spear, L. J. Harmon

Biology

Ecological opportunity – through entry into a new environment, the origin of a key innovation or extinction of antagonists – is widely thought to link ecological population dynamics to evolutionary diversification. The population-level processes arising from ecological opportunity are well documented under the concept of ecological release. However, there is little consensus as to how these processes promote phenotypic diversification, rapid speciation and adaptive radiation. We propose that ecological opportunity could promote adaptive radiation by generating specific changes to the selective regimes acting on natural populations, both by relaxing effective stabilizing selection and by creating conditions that ultimately generate diversifying …

Darwinian Populations And Natural Selection, Grant Ramsey, Hope Hollocher, Agustín Fuentes, Charles H. Pence, Edwin Siu

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Systematics Of The Genus Ptychadena Boulenger, 1917 (Anura: Ptychadenidae) From Democratic Republic Of The Congo, Katrina Marie Weber

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis increases the scope of previous phylogenetic analyses that revealed high levels of genetic differentiation within the anuran genus Ptychadena. Herein, I increase sampling of Central African populations of Ptychadena by over six times to examine their relationships to other African populations and to search for cryptic species. This study represents the most comprehensive molecular phylogeny of Ptychadena to date. A total of three mitochondrial (12S, 16S, and cyt b) and two nuclear (RAG1 and rhodopsin) genes were sequenced for 67 specimens of Ptychadena. Maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian analyses were conducted. These analyses revealed …

Evolution Of Lactate Dehydrogenase Genes In Primates, With Special Consideration Of Nucleotide Organization In Mammalian Promoters, Zack Papper

Wayne State University Dissertations

Concomitant with an increase in brain volume and mass, the allocation of energetic resources to the brain increased during stem anthropoid evolution, leading to humans. One mechanism by which this allocation may have occurred is through greater use of lactate as a neuronal fuel. Both the production of lactate, and conversion to pyruvate for use in aerobic metabolism, are catalyzed, in part, by the tetrameric enzyme lactate dehydrogenase (LDH). The two primary LDH genes, LDHA and LDHB, confer different rates of substrate turnover to the LDH enzyme, and these rates lend to the argument that LDHA supports anaerobic while LDHB …

Functionality, Parsimony, Discovery, Avoiding Hamartia: How Evolutionary Perspectives Are Changing Psychology, Brooke N. Jenkins, Aaron T. Goetz

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Evolutionary psychology offers an important perspective to scientific psychology. Evolutionary psychology, in its short existence, has added an abundance of knowledge to the social sciences, let alone psychology. The study of human cognition and behavior remains incomplete without an evolutionary perspective. Here, we argue that evolutionary psychology uniquely provides a complete understanding of scientific psychology because it explains the functions of our psychological traits, provides us with the most parsimonious explanation of many psychological phenomena, predicts undocumented phenomena, and possibly allows us to avoid the downfalls of some of our contemptible evolved psychological mechanisms.

Intuitions Of Punishment, Owen D. Jones, Robert Kurzban

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Recent work reveals, contrary to wide-spread assumptions, remarkably high levels of agreement about how to rank order, by blameworthiness, wrongs that involve physical harms, takings of property, or deception in exchanges. In The Origins of Shared Intuitions of Justice (http://ssrn.com/abstract=952726) we proposed a new explanation for these unexpectedly high levels of agreement.

Elsewhere in this issue, Professors Braman, Kahan, and Hoffman offer a critique of our views, to which we reply here. Our reply clarifies a number of important issues, such as the interconnected roles that culture, variation, and evolutionary processes play in generating intuitions of punishment.

Assessing Genetic Differentiation Among Populations Of The Invasive Plant Impatiens Glandulifera In Maine, Jordan R. Schoonover

Honors Theses

The annual herbaceous plant Impatiens glandulifera Royle is native to the Himalayas and is a significant invasive species in Europe. In the past century, it was introduced to the United States, where it has become established in 12 states. This study evaluated genetic differentiation among four Maine populations, to address a theory that posits hybridization of distinct lineages as a trigger for invasiveness. Regions of microsatellite repeats were evaluated at two polymorphic loci for 41 plants sampled from the four populations. A striking finding was that the observed heterozygosity was substantially higher than the heterozygosity expected from random combination of …

Early Cranial Patterning In The Direct-Developing Frog Eleutherodactylus Coqui Revealed Through Gene Expression, Ryan Kerney, Joshua Gross, James Hanken

Ryan Kerney

Genetic and developmental alterations associated with the evolution of amphibian direct development remain largely unexplored. Specifically, little is known of the underlying expression of skeletal regulatory genes, which may reveal early modifications to cranial ontogeny in direct-developing species. We describe expression patterns of three key skeletal regulators (runx2, sox9, and bmp4) along with the cartilage-dominant collagen 2a1 gene (col2a1) during cranial development in the direct- developing anuran, Eleutherodactylus coqui. Expression patterns of these regulators reveal transient skeletogenic anlagen that correspond to larval cartilages, but which never fully form in E. coqui. Suprarostral anlagen in the frontonasal processes are detected through …

Darwinian Controversies: An Historiographical Recounting, David Depew

David J Depew

This essay reviews key controversies in the history of the Darwinian research tradition: the Wilberforce-Huxley debate in 1860, early twentieth-century debates about the heritability of acquired characteristics and the consistency of Mendelian genetics with natural selection; the 1925 Scopes trial about teaching evolution; tensions about race, culture, and eugenics at the 1959 centenary celebration Darwin’s Origin of Species; adaptationism and its critics in the Sociobiology debate of 1970s and, more recently, Evolutionary Psychology; and current disputes about Intelligent Design. These controversies, I argue, are etched into public memory because they occur at the emotionally charged boundaries between public-political, technical-scientific, and …

Darwinian Controversies: An Historiographical Recounting, David Depew

David J Depew

This essay reviews key controversies in the history of the Darwinian research tradition: the Wilberforce-Huxley debate in 1860, early twentieth-century debates about the heritability of acquired characteristics and the consistency of Mendelian genetics with natural selection; the 1925 Scopes trial about teaching evolution; tensions about race, culture, and eugenics at the 1959 centenary celebration Darwin’s Origin of Species; adaptationism and its critics in the Sociobiology debate of 1970s and, more recently, Evolutionary Psychology; and current disputes about Intelligent Design. These controversies, I argue, are etched into public memory because they occur at the emotionally charged boundaries between public-political, technical-scientific, and …

Genetic Variation For Susceptibility To Storm-Induced Stem Breakage In Solidago Altissima: The Role Of Stem Height And Morphology, M. Wise, W. Abrahamson

Warren G. Abrahamson, II

While storms can have obvious ecological impacts on plants, plants’ potential to respond evolutionarily to selection for increased resistance to storm damage has received little study. We took advantage of a thunderstorm with strong wind and hail to examine genetic variation for resistance to stem breakage in the herbaceous perennial Solidago altissima. The storm broke the apex of nearly 10% of 1883 marked ramets in a common-garden plot containing 26 genets of S. altissima. Plant genets varied 20-fold in resistance to breakage. Stem height was strongly correlated with resistance to breakage, with taller stems being significantly more susceptible. A stem’s …

Is Evolutionary Biology Infected With Invalid Teleological Reasoning? Invited Review Essay Of John Reiss, Retiring Darwin’S Watchmaker., David Depew

David J Depew

No abstract provided.

Spatiotemporal Variation Of Fruit Digestible-Nutrient Production In Florida's Uplands, J. Layne, W. Abrahamson

Warren G. Abrahamson, II

We examined annual total digestible nutrient (TDN) production by fruits of eight species (Quercus chapmanii, Q. geminata, Q. inopina, Q. laevis, Q. myrtifolia, Carya floridana, Sabal etonia, Serenoa repens) that account for the major proportion of TDN production by fruits and seeds in Florida’s xeric upland associations (southern ridge sandhill, sand pine scrub, scrubby flatwoods). Mean annual fruit TDN of all species combined over a 27-year span in sandhill and scrub and 24 years in scrubby flatwoods was highest (45.4 kg/ha) in sandhill, intermediate in scrubby flatwoods (28.8 kg/ha), and lowest in scrub (14.2 kg/ha). Sandhill fruit TDN production was …

Regulatory Elements Of Xenopus Col2a1 Drive Cartilaginous Gene Expression In Transgenic Frogs, Ryan Kerney, Brian K. Hall, James Hanken

Ryan Kerney

This study characterizes regulatory elements of collagen 2α1 (col2a1) in Xenopus that enable transgene expression in cartilage-forming chondrocytes. The reporters described in this study drive strong cartilage-specific gene expression, which will be a valuable tool for further investigations of Xenopus skeletal development. While endogenous col2a1 mRNA is expressed in many embryonic tissues, its expression becomes restricted to tadpole and adult chondrocytes. This chondrocyte-specific expression is recapitulated by col2a1 reporter constructs, which were tested through I-SceI meganuclease-mediated transgenesis. These constructs contain a portion of the Xenopus tropicalis col2a1 intron, which aligns to a cartilage-specific intronic enhancer that has been well characterized …

Ducking As The Means Of Resistance In "Candy-Cane" Stems Of Goldenrod: Straightened Stems Lose Their Edge, M. J. Wise, W. G. Abrahamson, J. A. Cole

Warren G. Abrahamson, II

Herbivores are among the most pervasive selective forces acting on plants, and the number of plant chemicals that presumably evolved for defense against herbivory is immense. In contrast, biologists are only beginning to appreciate the important roles that architectural traits can play in antiherbivore defense. One putative architectural-resistance trait is the nodding stem apex of some goldenrods (Solidago ; Asteraceae). Individuals of S. altissima genets that undergo temporary nodding in the late spring (i.e., “candy-cane ramets) have been shown to be more resistant than individuals of erect-stemmed genets to certain apex-attacking” herbivores. We tested the hypothesis that the greater resistance …

Nutrition As A Facilitator Of Host-Race Formation: The Role Of Food Quality In The Shift Of A Stem-Boring Beetle To A Gall Host, C. P. Blair, R. V. Schlanger, S. E. Diamond, W. G. Abrahamson

Warren G. Abrahamson, II

1. The importance of host-race formation to herbivorous insect diversity depends on the likelihood that successful populations can be established on a new plant host. A previously unexplored ecological aid to success on a novel host is better nutritional quality. The role of nutrition was examined in the shift of the stem-boring beetle Mordellistena convicta to fly-induced galls on goldenrod and the establishment there of a genetically distinct gall host race. 2. First, larvae of the host race inhabiting stems of Solidago gigantea were transplanted into stems and galls of greenhouse-grown S. gigantea plants. At the end of larval development, …

Polyphyly Of The Pikeminnows (Teleostei: Cyprinidae) Inferred Using Mitochondrial Dna Sequences, T. Heath Ogden

T. Heath Ogden

The phylogenetic relationships of the Colorado pikeminnow Ptychocheilus lucius, northern pikeminnow P. oregonensis, Sacramento pikeminnow P. grandis, Umpqua pikeminnow P. umpquae, and hardhead Mylopharodon conocephalus were examined by using molecular data to investigate monophyly of the genus Ptychocheilus. Phylogenies generated using DNA sequence data from the cytochrome b and 16S ribosomal DNA genes of the mitochondrial genome reveal that Ptychocheilus is a polyphyletic genus and suggest that the taxonomy of the group is in need of further revision. These data yield insights into the evolution of the pikeminnows and help place the significant evolutionary events in context with the geological …