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Getting A Grip At The Edge: Recolonization And Introgression In Eastern Pacific Porites Corals, Michael E. Hellberg, Carlos Prada, Maxine H. Tan, Zac H. Forsman, Iliana B. Baums Nov 2016

Getting A Grip At The Edge: Recolonization And Introgression In Eastern Pacific Porites Corals, Michael E. Hellberg, Carlos Prada, Maxine H. Tan, Zac H. Forsman, Iliana B. Baums

Faculty Publications

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Aim: To infer species identity, population isolation, and geographical variation in inter-specific hybridization among corals of the genus Porites from the central and eastern tropical Pacific, with a focus on the timing of separation between populations of P. evermanni and P. lobata divided by the Eastern Pacific Barrier. Location: Hawaii, American Samoa, Panama and the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador. Methods: Maximum likelihood gene trees were obtained for mitochondrial DNA (COI), the internal transcribed spacer (ITS), and 5 single-copy nuclear (scn) gene regions. Allelic networks were used to group multi-locus scn data into species …

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Research Needs To Improve Hypertension Treatment And Control In African Americans, Paul K. Whelton, Paula T. Einhorn, Paul Muntner, Lawrence J. Appel, William C. Cushman, Ana V.Diez Roux, Keith C. Ferdinand, Mahboob Rahman, Herman A. Taylor, Jamy Ard, Donna K. Arnett, Barry L. Carter, Barry R. Davis, Barry I. Freedman, Lisa A. Cooper, Richard Cooper, Patrice Desvigne-Nickens, Nara Gavini, Alan S. Go, David J. Hyman, Paul L. Kimmel, Karen L. Margolis, Edgar R. Miller, Katherine T. Mills, George A. Mensah, Ann M. Navar, Gbenga Ogedegbe, Michael K. Rakotz, George Thomas, Jonathan N. Tobin, Jackson T. Wright, Sung Sug Sarah Yoon, Jeffrey A. Cutler Nov 2016

Research Needs To Improve Hypertension Treatment And Control In African Americans, Paul K. Whelton, Paula T. Einhorn, Paul Muntner, Lawrence J. Appel, William C. Cushman, Ana V.Diez Roux, Keith C. Ferdinand, Mahboob Rahman, Herman A. Taylor, Jamy Ard, Donna K. Arnett, Barry L. Carter, Barry R. Davis, Barry I. Freedman, Lisa A. Cooper, Richard Cooper, Patrice Desvigne-Nickens, Nara Gavini, Alan S. Go, David J. Hyman, Paul L. Kimmel, Karen L. Margolis, Edgar R. Miller, Katherine T. Mills, George A. Mensah, Ann M. Navar, Gbenga Ogedegbe, Michael K. Rakotz, George Thomas, Jonathan N. Tobin, Jackson T. Wright, Sung Sug Sarah Yoon, Jeffrey A. Cutler

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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The Effect Of Demographic Correlations On The Stochastic Population Dynamics Of Perennial Plants, Aldo Compagnoni, Andrew J. Bibian, Brad M. Ochocki, Haldre S. Rogers, Emily L. Schultz, Michelle E. Sneck, Bret D. Elderd, Amy M. Iler, David W. Inouye, Hans Jacquemyn, Tom E.X. Miller Nov 2016

The Effect Of Demographic Correlations On The Stochastic Population Dynamics Of Perennial Plants, Aldo Compagnoni, Andrew J. Bibian, Brad M. Ochocki, Haldre S. Rogers, Emily L. Schultz, Michelle E. Sneck, Bret D. Elderd, Amy M. Iler, David W. Inouye, Hans Jacquemyn, Tom E.X. Miller

Faculty Publications

© 2016 by the Ecological Society of America. Understanding the influence of environmental variability on population dynamics is a fundamental goal of ecology. Theory suggests that, for populations in variable environments, temporal correlations between demographic vital rates (e.g., growth, survival, reproduction) can increase (if positive) or decrease (if negative) the variability of year-to-year population growth. Because this variability generally decreases long-term population viability, vital rate correlations may importantly affect population dynamics in stochastic environments. Despite long-standing theoretical interest, it is unclear whether vital rate correlations are common in nature, whether their directions are predominantly negative or positive, and whether they …

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Pragmatic Hydraulic Theory Predicts Stomatal Responses To Climatic Water Deficits, John S. Sperry, Yujie Wang, Brett T. Wolfe, D. Scott Mackay, William R.L. Anderegg, Nate G. Mcdowell, William T. Pockman Nov 2016

Pragmatic Hydraulic Theory Predicts Stomatal Responses To Climatic Water Deficits, John S. Sperry, Yujie Wang, Brett T. Wolfe, D. Scott Mackay, William R.L. Anderegg, Nate G. Mcdowell, William T. Pockman

Faculty Publications

Ecosystem models have difficulty predicting plant drought responses, partially from uncertainty in the stomatal response to water deficits in soil and atmosphere. We evaluate a ‘supply–demand’ theory for water-limited stomatal behavior that avoids the typical scaffold of empirical response functions. The premise is that canopy water demand is regulated in proportion to threat to supply posed by xylem cavitation and soil drying. The theory was implemented in a trait-based soil–plant–atmosphere model. The model predicted canopy transpiration (E), canopy diffusive conductance (G), and canopy xylem pressure (Pcanopy) from soil water potential (Psoil) and vapor pressure deficit (D). Modeled responses to D …

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Transformational Principles For Neon Sampling Of Mammalian Parasites And Pathogens: A Response To Springer And Colleagues, Joseph A. Cook, Stephen E. Greiman, Salvatore J. Agosta, Robert P. Anderson, Brian S. Arbogast, Robert J. Baker, Walter Boeger, Robert D. Bradley, Daniel R. Brooks, Rebecca Cole, John R. Demboski, Andrew P. Dobson, Jonathan L. Dunnum, Ralph P. Eckerlin, Jacob Esselstyn, Kurt E. Galbreath, John Hawdon, Hopi E. Hoekstra, Susan J. Kutz, Jessica E. Light, Link E. Olson, Bruce D. Patterson, James L. Patton, Anna J. Phillips, Eric Rickart, Duke S. Rogers, Mark E. Siddall, Vasyl V. Tkach, Eric P. Hoberg Nov 2016

Transformational Principles For Neon Sampling Of Mammalian Parasites And Pathogens: A Response To Springer And Colleagues, Joseph A. Cook, Stephen E. Greiman, Salvatore J. Agosta, Robert P. Anderson, Brian S. Arbogast, Robert J. Baker, Walter Boeger, Robert D. Bradley, Daniel R. Brooks, Rebecca Cole, John R. Demboski, Andrew P. Dobson, Jonathan L. Dunnum, Ralph P. Eckerlin, Jacob Esselstyn, Kurt E. Galbreath, John Hawdon, Hopi E. Hoekstra, Susan J. Kutz, Jessica E. Light, Link E. Olson, Bruce D. Patterson, James L. Patton, Anna J. Phillips, Eric Rickart, Duke S. Rogers, Mark E. Siddall, Vasyl V. Tkach, Eric P. Hoberg

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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The Negative Effects Of Pathogen-Infected Prey On Predators: A Meta-Analysis, Andrew J. Flick, Miguel A. Acevedo, Bret D. Elderd Nov 2016

The Negative Effects Of Pathogen-Infected Prey On Predators: A Meta-Analysis, Andrew J. Flick, Miguel A. Acevedo, Bret D. Elderd

Faculty Publications

© 2016 The Authors Intra-guild predation (IGP) – where a top predator (IGPred) consumes both a basal resource and a competitor for that resource (IGPrey) – has become a fundamental part of understanding species interactions and community dynamics. IGP communities composed of intraguild predators and prey have been well studied; however, we know less about IGP communities composed of predators, pathogens, and resources. Resource quality plays an important role in community dynamics and may influence IGP dynamics as well. We conducted a meta-analysis on predator–pathogen–resource communities to determine whether resource quality mediated by the pathogen affected predator life-history traits and …

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Impact Of Different Fecal Processing Methods On Assessments Of Bacterial Diversity In The Human Intestine, Yu Hsin Hsieh, Courtney M. Peterson, Anne Raggio, Michael J. Keenan, Roy J. Martin, Eric Ravussin, Maria L. Marco Oct 2016

Impact Of Different Fecal Processing Methods On Assessments Of Bacterial Diversity In The Human Intestine, Yu Hsin Hsieh, Courtney M. Peterson, Anne Raggio, Michael J. Keenan, Roy J. Martin, Eric Ravussin, Maria L. Marco

Faculty Publications

The intestinal microbiota are integral to understanding the relationships between nutrition and health. Therefore, fecal sampling and processing protocols for metagenomic surveys should be sufficiently robust, accurate, and reliable to identify the microorganisms present. We investigated the use of different fecal preparation methods on the bacterial community structures identified in human stools. Complete stools were collected from six healthy individuals and processed according to the following methods: (i) randomly sampled fresh stool, (ii) fresh stool homogenized in a blender for 2 min, (iii) randomly sampled frozen stool, and (iv) frozen stool homogenized in a blender for 2 min, or (v) …

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Plasmon-Enhanced Photocleaving Dynamics In Colloidal Microrna-Functionalized Silver Nanoparticles Monitored With Second Harmonic Generation, Raju R. Kumal, Mohammad Abu-Laban, Corey R. Landry, Blake Kruger, Zhenyu Zhang, Daniel J. Hayes, Louis H. Haber Oct 2016

Plasmon-Enhanced Photocleaving Dynamics In Colloidal Microrna-Functionalized Silver Nanoparticles Monitored With Second Harmonic Generation, Raju R. Kumal, Mohammad Abu-Laban, Corey R. Landry, Blake Kruger, Zhenyu Zhang, Daniel J. Hayes, Louis H. Haber

Faculty Publications

© 2016 American Chemical Society. The photocleaving dynamics of colloidal microRNA-functionalized nanoparticles are studied using time-dependent second harmonic generation (SHG) measurements. Model drug-delivery systems composed of oligonucleotides attached to either silver nanoparticles or polystyrene nanoparticles using a nitrobenzyl photocleavable linker are prepared and characterized. The photoactivated controlled release is observed to be most efficient on resonance at 365 nm irradiation, with pseudo-first-order rate constants that are linearly proportional to irradiation powers. Additionally, silver nanoparticles show a 6-fold plasmon enhancement in photocleaving efficiency over corresponding polystyrene nanoparticle rates, while our previous measurements on gold nanoparticles show a 2-fold plasmon enhancement compared …

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Willet Be One Species Or Two? A Genomic View Of The Evolutionary History Of Tringa Semipalmata, Jessica A. Oswald, Michael G. Harvey, Rosalind C. Remsen, Depaul U. Foxworth, Steven W. Cardiff, Donna L. Dittmann, Libby C. Megna, Matthew D. Carling, Robb T. Brumfield Oct 2016

Willet Be One Species Or Two? A Genomic View Of The Evolutionary History Of Tringa Semipalmata, Jessica A. Oswald, Michael G. Harvey, Rosalind C. Remsen, Depaul U. Foxworth, Steven W. Cardiff, Donna L. Dittmann, Libby C. Megna, Matthew D. Carling, Robb T. Brumfield

Faculty Publications

© 2016 American Ornithologists' Union. The Willet (Tringa semipalmata; Scolopacidae) is composed of 2 morphologically and vocally distinct subspecies with broadly disjunct breeding distributions in North America. Nominate T. s. semipalmata breeds in coastal salt and brackish marshes along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of eastern North America and the West Indies, and T. s. inornata breeds in wet grasslands and prairies in the northwestern interior of North America. To assess divergence and test for hybridization between the 2 subspecies, we sampled breeding and wintering populations and collected morphological data, mitochondrial DNA sequences from the ND2 locus, and nuclear DNA …

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The Impact Of A Large-Scale Climate Event On Antarctic Ecosystem Processes, Andrew G. Fountain, Grace Saba, Byron Adams, Peter Doran, William Fraser, Michael Gooseff, Maciej Obryk, John C. Priscu, Sharon Stammerjohn, Ross A. Virginia Oct 2016

The Impact Of A Large-Scale Climate Event On Antarctic Ecosystem Processes, Andrew G. Fountain, Grace Saba, Byron Adams, Peter Doran, William Fraser, Michael Gooseff, Maciej Obryk, John C. Priscu, Sharon Stammerjohn, Ross A. Virginia

Faculty Publications

© 2016 The Author(s) 2016. Extreme climate and weather events, such as a drought, hurricanes, or ice storms, can strongly imprint ecosystem processing and may alter ecosystem structure. Ecosystems in extreme environments are particularly vulnerable because of their adaptation to severe limitations in energy, water, or nutrients. The vulnerability can be expressed as a relatively long-lasting ecosystem response to a small or brief change in environmental conditions. Such an event occurred in Antarctica and affected two vastly different ecosystems: a marine-dominated coastal system and a terrestrial polar desert. Both sites experienced winds that warmed air temperatures above the 0°C threshold, …

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Adaptation To Climate Change: Trade-Offs Among Responses To Multiple Stressors In An Intertidal Crustacean, Morgan W. Kelly, Melissa B. Debiasse, Vidal A. Villela, Hope L. Roberts, Colleen F. Cecola Oct 2016

Adaptation To Climate Change: Trade-Offs Among Responses To Multiple Stressors In An Intertidal Crustacean, Morgan W. Kelly, Melissa B. Debiasse, Vidal A. Villela, Hope L. Roberts, Colleen F. Cecola

Faculty Publications

© 2016 The Authors. Evolutionary Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Trade-offs may influence both physiological and evolutionary responses to co-occurring stressors, but their effects on both plastic and adaptive responses to climate change are poorly understood. To test for genetic and physiological trade-offs incurred in tolerating multiple stressors, we hybridized two populations of the intertidal copepod Tigriopus californicus that were divergent for both heat and salinity tolerance. Starting in the F2 generation, we selected for increased tolerance of heat, low salinity, and high salinity in replicate lines. After five generations of selection, heat-selected lines had greater heat …

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Physiological Plasticity And Local Adaptation To Elevated Pco2 In Calcareous Algae: An Ontogenetic And Geographic Approach, Jacqueline L. Padilla-Gamiño, Juan Diego Gaitán-Espitia, Morgan W. Kelly, Gretchen E. Hofmann Oct 2016

Physiological Plasticity And Local Adaptation To Elevated Pco2 In Calcareous Algae: An Ontogenetic And Geographic Approach, Jacqueline L. Padilla-Gamiño, Juan Diego Gaitán-Espitia, Morgan W. Kelly, Gretchen E. Hofmann

Faculty Publications

© 2016 The Authors. Evolutionary Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. To project how ocean acidification will impact biological communities in the future, it is critical to understand the potential for local adaptation and the physiological plasticity of marine organisms throughout their entire life cycle, as some stages may be more vulnerable than others. Coralline algae are ecosystem engineers that play significant functional roles in oceans worldwide and are considered vulnerable to ocean acidification. Using different stages of coralline algae, we tested the hypothesis that populations living in environments with higher environmental variability and exposed to higher levels …

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Cryopreservation Of Lipid Bilayers By Lea Proteins From Artemia Franciscana And Trehalose, Daniel S. Moore, Steven C. Hand Oct 2016

Cryopreservation Of Lipid Bilayers By Lea Proteins From Artemia Franciscana And Trehalose, Daniel S. Moore, Steven C. Hand

Faculty Publications

© 2016 Elsevier Inc. The capacity of Late Embryogenesis Abundant (LEA) proteins and trehalose to protect liposomes against freezing-induced damage was examined by measuring the leakage of 5(6)-carboxyfluorescein (CF). Liposomes were prepared to simulate the lipid compositions of the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane, outer mitochondrial membrane (OMM), and inner mitochondrial membrane (IMM). Two recombinant LEA proteins belonging to Group 3 (AfrLEA2 and AfrLEA3m) were expressed and purified from embryos of Artemia franciscana. Only OMM-like liposomes were significantly protected by AfrLEA2 and AfrLEA3m against freeze-thaw damage; at the highest protein:lipid mass ratio tested, leakage of CF was 56.3% of …

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Sex And Tissue Specificity Of Peg3 Promoters, Bambarendage P.U. Perera, Joomyeong Kim Oct 2016

Sex And Tissue Specificity Of Peg3 Promoters, Bambarendage P.U. Perera, Joomyeong Kim

Faculty Publications

© 2016 Perera, Kim. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The expression of mouse Peg3 (Paternally expressed gene 3) is driven by 4 promoters, including its main and three alternative promoters. The sexual, temporal and spatial specificity of these promoters was characterized in the current study. According to the results, the main promoter displays ubiquitous expression patterns throughout different stages and tissues. In contrast, the expression of Peg3 driven by the alternative …

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Assessing The Similarity Of Ligand Binding Conformations With The Contact Mode Score, Yun Ding, Ye Fang, Juana Moreno, J. Ramanujam, Mark Jarrell, Michal Brylinski Oct 2016

Assessing The Similarity Of Ligand Binding Conformations With The Contact Mode Score, Yun Ding, Ye Fang, Juana Moreno, J. Ramanujam, Mark Jarrell, Michal Brylinski

Faculty Publications

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd Structural and computational biologists often need to measure the similarity of ligand binding conformations. The commonly used root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) is not only ligand-size dependent, but also may fail to capture biologically meaningful binding features. To address these issues, we developed the Contact Mode Score (CMS), a new metric to assess the conformational similarity based on intermolecular protein-ligand contacts. The CMS is less dependent on the ligand size and has the ability to include flexible receptors. In order to effectively compare binding poses of non-identical ligands bound to different proteins, we further developed the eXtended Contact …

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A Geometrical Model For Testing Bilateral Symmetry Of Bamboo Leaf With A Simplified Gielis Equation, Shuyan Lin, Li Zhang, Gadi V.P. Reddy, Cang Hui, Johan Gielis, Yulong Ding, Peijian Shi Oct 2016

A Geometrical Model For Testing Bilateral Symmetry Of Bamboo Leaf With A Simplified Gielis Equation, Shuyan Lin, Li Zhang, Gadi V.P. Reddy, Cang Hui, Johan Gielis, Yulong Ding, Peijian Shi

Faculty Publications

The size and shape of plant leaves change with growth, and an accurate description of leaf shape is crucial for describing plant morphogenesis and development. Bilateral symmetry, which has been widely observed but poorly examined, occurs in both dicot and monocot leaves, including all nominated bamboo species (approximately 1,300 species), of which at least 500 are found in China. Although there are apparent differences in leaf size among bamboo species due to genetic and environmental profiles, bamboo leaves have bilateral symmetry with parallel venation and appear similar across species. Here, we investigate whether the shape of bamboo leaves can be …

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The Genetics Of Blood Pressure Regulation And Its Target Organs From Association Studies In 342,415 Individuals, Georg B. Ehret, Teresa Ferreira, Daniel I. Chasman, Anne U. Jackson, Ellen M. Schmidt, Toby Johnson, Gudmar Thorleifsson, Jian'an Luan, Louise A. Donnelly, Stavroula Kanoni, Ann Kristin Petersen, Vasyl Pihur, Rona J. Strawbridge, Dmitry Shungin, Maria F. Hughes, Osorio Meirelles, Marika Kaakinen, Nabila Bouatia-Naji, Kati Kristiansson, Sonia Shah, Marcus E. Kleber, Xiuqing Guo, Leo Pekka Lyytikäinen, Cristiano Fava, Niclas Eriksson, Ilja M. Nolte, Patrik K. Magnusson, Elias L. Salfati, Loukianos S. Rallidis, Elizabeth Theusch, Andrew J.P. Smith, Lasse Folkersen, Kate Witkowska Oct 2016

The Genetics Of Blood Pressure Regulation And Its Target Organs From Association Studies In 342,415 Individuals, Georg B. Ehret, Teresa Ferreira, Daniel I. Chasman, Anne U. Jackson, Ellen M. Schmidt, Toby Johnson, Gudmar Thorleifsson, Jian'an Luan, Louise A. Donnelly, Stavroula Kanoni, Ann Kristin Petersen, Vasyl Pihur, Rona J. Strawbridge, Dmitry Shungin, Maria F. Hughes, Osorio Meirelles, Marika Kaakinen, Nabila Bouatia-Naji, Kati Kristiansson, Sonia Shah, Marcus E. Kleber, Xiuqing Guo, Leo Pekka Lyytikäinen, Cristiano Fava, Niclas Eriksson, Ilja M. Nolte, Patrik K. Magnusson, Elias L. Salfati, Loukianos S. Rallidis, Elizabeth Theusch, Andrew J.P. Smith, Lasse Folkersen, Kate Witkowska

Faculty Publications

To dissect the genetic architecture of blood pressure and assess effects on target organ damage, we analyzed 128,272 SNPs from targeted and genome-wide arrays in 201,529 individuals of European ancestry, and genotypes from an additional 140,886 individuals were used for validation. We identified 66 blood pressure-associated loci, of which 17 were new; 15 harbored multiple distinct association signals. The 66 index SNPs were enriched for cis-regulatory elements, particularly in vascular endothelial cells, consistent with a primary role in blood pressure control through modulation of vascular tone across multiple tissues. The 66 index SNPs combined in a risk score showed comparable …

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Lsu Research Fall 2016, Louisiana State University And Agricultural & Mechanical College Oct 2016

Lsu Research Fall 2016, Louisiana State University And Agricultural & Mechanical College

Research Magazine

LSU Research is published annually by the Office of Research & Economic Development, Louisiana State University.

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Amine Reactive Dyes: An Alternative To Estimate Membrane Integrity In Fish Sperm Cells, Leticia Torres, Terrence R. Tiersch Oct 2016

Amine Reactive Dyes: An Alternative To Estimate Membrane Integrity In Fish Sperm Cells, Leticia Torres, Terrence R. Tiersch

Faculty Publications

Fluorescent dyes that binds irreversibly to cellular amines, come in several available emission spectra, and do not poses health concerns were used to evaluate membrane integrity in fish sperm cells. The objectives of the present study were to determine: (1) a working dye concentration for fish sperm samples, and (2) if the traditional propidium iodide/SYBR-14 staining combination was comparable with the amine reactive dye (ARD) methods at identifying cell populations with intact and compromised membranes after sperm activation, refrigerated storage, and exposure to cryoprotectant and surfactant. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) sperm were obtained by stripping, and pooled samples (in triplicate) were …

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Do Movement Behaviors Identify Reproductive Habitat Sampling For Wild Turkeys?, Mason D. Conley, Nathan A. Yeldell, Michael J. Chamberlain, Bret A. Collier Oct 2016

Do Movement Behaviors Identify Reproductive Habitat Sampling For Wild Turkeys?, Mason D. Conley, Nathan A. Yeldell, Michael J. Chamberlain, Bret A. Collier

Faculty Publications

Selection of habitats has regularly been suggested to influence species demography at both local and broad scales. The expectation is that selection behaviors have positive benefits via greater fitness or increased survival. The current paradigm of habitat selection theory suggests a hierarchical process, where an individual first selects where they choose to live (e.g., range) and then searches and selects locations within this range meeting life history needs. Using high-frequency GPS data collected from reproductively active Rio Grande (n = 21) and Eastern (n = 23) wild turkeys, we evaluated a long-standing theory for ground-nesting galliformes, in that movements during …

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Genetic Vulnerability And The Relationship Of Commercial Germplasms Of Maize In Brazil With The Nested Association Mapping Parents, Luciano Rogério Braatz De Andrade, Roberto Fritsche Neto, Ítalo Stefanine Correia Granato, Gustavo César Sant'ana, Pedro Patric Pinho Morais, Aluízio Borém Oct 2016

Genetic Vulnerability And The Relationship Of Commercial Germplasms Of Maize In Brazil With The Nested Association Mapping Parents, Luciano Rogério Braatz De Andrade, Roberto Fritsche Neto, Ítalo Stefanine Correia Granato, Gustavo César Sant'ana, Pedro Patric Pinho Morais, Aluízio Borém

Faculty Publications

A few breeding companies dominate the maize (Zea mays L.) hybrid market in Brazil: Monsanto ® (35%), DuPont Pioneer® (30%), Dow Agrosciences® (15%), Syngenta® (10%) and Helix Sementes (4%). Therefore, it is important to monitor the genetic diversity in commercial germplasms as breeding practices, registration and marketing of new cultivars can lead to a significant reduction of the genetic diversity. Reduced genetic variation may lead to crop vulnerabilities, food insecurity and limited genetic gains following selection. The aim of this study was to evaluate the genetic vulnerability risk by examining the relationship between the commercial Brazilian maize germplasms and the …

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Sexually Dimorphic Gene Expression In Bovine Conceptuses At The Initiation Of Implantation, Niamh Forde, Veronica Maillo, Peadar O'Gaora, Constantine A. Simintiras, Roger G. Sturmey, Alan D. Ealy, Thomas E. Spencer, Alfonso Gutierrez-Adan, Dimitrios Rizos, Patrick Lonergan Oct 2016

Sexually Dimorphic Gene Expression In Bovine Conceptuses At The Initiation Of Implantation, Niamh Forde, Veronica Maillo, Peadar O'Gaora, Constantine A. Simintiras, Roger G. Sturmey, Alan D. Ealy, Thomas E. Spencer, Alfonso Gutierrez-Adan, Dimitrios Rizos, Patrick Lonergan

Faculty Publications

In cattle, maternal recognition of pregnancy occurs on Day 16 via secretion of interferon tau (IFNT) by the conceptus. The endometrium can distinguish between embryos with different developmental competencies. In eutherian mammals, X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) is required to ensure an equal transcriptional level of most X-linked genes for both male and female embryos in adult tissues, but this process is markedly different in cattle than mice. We examined how sexual dimorphism affected conceptus transcript abundance and amino acid composition as well as the endometrial transcriptome during the peri-implantation period of pregnancy. Of the 5132 genes that were differentially expressed on …

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Modeling The Thickness Of Perennial Ice Covers On Stratified Lakes Of The Taylor Valley, Antarctica, M. K. Obryk, P. T. Doran, J. A. Hicks, C. P. Mckay, J. C. Priscu Oct 2016

Modeling The Thickness Of Perennial Ice Covers On Stratified Lakes Of The Taylor Valley, Antarctica, M. K. Obryk, P. T. Doran, J. A. Hicks, C. P. Mckay, J. C. Priscu

Faculty Publications

© The Author(s) 2016. A1-D ice cover model was developed to predict and constrain drivers of long-term ice thickness trends in chemically stratified lakes of Taylor Valley, Antarctica. The model is driven by surface radiative heat fluxes and heat fluxes from the underlying water column. The model successfully reproduced 16a (between 1996 and 2012) of ice thickness changes for the west lobe of Lake Bonney (average ice thickness = 3.53 m) and Lake Fryxell (average ice thickness = 4.22 m). Long-term ice thickness trends require coupling with the thermal structure of the water column. The heat stored within the temperature …

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Responses Of Antarctic Marine And Freshwater Ecosystems To Changing Ice Conditions, Maciej K. Obryk, Peter T. Doran, Ari S. Friedlaender, Michael N. Gooseff, Wei Li, Rachael M. Morgan-Kiss, John C. Priscu, Oscar Schofield, Sharon E. Stammerjohn, Deborah K. Steinberg, Hugh W. Ducklow Oct 2016

Responses Of Antarctic Marine And Freshwater Ecosystems To Changing Ice Conditions, Maciej K. Obryk, Peter T. Doran, Ari S. Friedlaender, Michael N. Gooseff, Wei Li, Rachael M. Morgan-Kiss, John C. Priscu, Oscar Schofield, Sharon E. Stammerjohn, Deborah K. Steinberg, Hugh W. Ducklow

Faculty Publications

© 2016 The Author(s) 2016. Polar regions are warming more rapidly than lower latitudes, and climate models predict that this trend will continue into the coming decades. Despite these observations and predictions, relatively little is known about how polar ecosystems have responded and will continue to respond to this change. Two Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites, located in contrasting environments in Antarctica, have been studying marine and aquatic terrestrial ecosystems for more than two decades. We use data from these research areas to show that the extent and thickness of ice covers are highly sensitive to short- and long-term climate …

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The Small Gtpase Mosec4 Is Involved In Vegetative Development And Pathogenicity By Regulating The Extracellular Protein Secretion In Magnaporthe Oryzae, Huakun Zheng, Simiao Chen, Xiaofeng Chen, Shuyan Liu, Xie Dang, Chengdong Yang, Martha C. Giraldo, Ely Oliveira-Garcia, Jie Zhou, Zonghua Wang, Barbara Valent Sep 2016

The Small Gtpase Mosec4 Is Involved In Vegetative Development And Pathogenicity By Regulating The Extracellular Protein Secretion In Magnaporthe Oryzae, Huakun Zheng, Simiao Chen, Xiaofeng Chen, Shuyan Liu, Xie Dang, Chengdong Yang, Martha C. Giraldo, Ely Oliveira-Garcia, Jie Zhou, Zonghua Wang, Barbara Valent

Faculty Publications

The Rab GTPase proteins play important roles in the membrane trafficking, and consequently protein secretion and development of eukaryotic organisms. However, little is known about the function of Rab GTPases in Magnaporthe oryzae. To further explore the function of Rab GTPases, we deleted the ortholog of the yeast Sec4p protein in M. oryzae, namely MoSEC4. The ΔMosec4 mutant is defective in polarized growth and conidiation, and it displays decreased appressorium turgor pressure and attenuated pathogenicity. Notably, the biotrophic invasive hyphae produced in rice cells are more bulbous and compressed in the ΔMosec4 mutant. Further studies showed that deletion of the …

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Phylogenetics Of Extant And Fossil Pinaceae: Methods For Increasing Topological Stability, David S. Gernandt, Garth Holman, Christopher Campbell, Matthew Parks, Sarah Mathews, Linda A. Raubeson, Aaron Liston, Ruth A. Stockey, Gar W. Rothwell Sep 2016

Phylogenetics Of Extant And Fossil Pinaceae: Methods For Increasing Topological Stability, David S. Gernandt, Garth Holman, Christopher Campbell, Matthew Parks, Sarah Mathews, Linda A. Raubeson, Aaron Liston, Ruth A. Stockey, Gar W. Rothwell

Faculty Publications

© 2016, Canadian Science Publishing. All rights reserved. Relationships of living and fossil Pinaceae were inferred using parsimony and Bayesian inference of morphological characters and plastid and nuclear DNA sequences. When considering extant taxa only, adding molecular to morphological characters resulted in markedly increased resolution and branch support compared with analysis of morphology alone. Including 45 fossil taxa resulted in drastically decreased resolution in morphology-based consensus trees. We evaluated the effect on branch support and resolution of including DNA sequences, deleting fossils lacking information for cone scale apices and seeds, using reduced consensus methods, and using implied weighting, and found …

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Mechanosensory Signaling As A Potential Mode Of Communication During Social Interactions In Fishes, Julie M. Butler, Karen P. Maruska Sep 2016

Mechanosensory Signaling As A Potential Mode Of Communication During Social Interactions In Fishes, Julie M. Butler, Karen P. Maruska

Faculty Publications

© 2016. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd. Signals produced during social interactions convey crucial information about the sender's identity, quality, reproductive state and social status. Fishes can detect near-body water movements via the mechanosensory lateral line system, and this sense is used during several common fish behaviors, such as schooling, rheotaxis and predator-prey interactions. In addition, many fish behaviors, such as aggressive lateral displays and reproductive body quivers, involve fin and body motions that generate water movements that can be detected by the lateral line system of nearby fish. This mechanosensory system is well studied for its role …

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Dispersal Distance Determines The Exponent Of The Spatial Taylor's Power Law, Pei Jian Shi, Hardev S. Sandhu, Gadi V.P. Reddy Sep 2016

Dispersal Distance Determines The Exponent Of The Spatial Taylor's Power Law, Pei Jian Shi, Hardev S. Sandhu, Gadi V.P. Reddy

Faculty Publications

The equation describing a power-law relationship between the mean and variance of population abundance in space or time is known as Taylor's power law (TPL), initially observed in samples of insects. Factors determining the TPL exponent are of particular concern to ecologists because the observations of the exponent usually range 1-2. Recent studies have suggested that TPL is caused solely by statistical artifacts rather than biological processes, with the corresponding statistical models lacking linkages to explicit population demography. In this study, we used two special forms of the Neyman-Scott cluster point process to study the effect of offspring dispersal distance …

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Membrane-Dependent Activities Of Human 15-Lox-2 And Its Murine Counterpart Implications For Murine Models Of Atherosclerosis, Gunes Bender, Erin E. Schexnaydre, Robert C. Murphy, Charis Uhlson, Marcia E. Newcomer Sep 2016

Membrane-Dependent Activities Of Human 15-Lox-2 And Its Murine Counterpart Implications For Murine Models Of Atherosclerosis, Gunes Bender, Erin E. Schexnaydre, Robert C. Murphy, Charis Uhlson, Marcia E. Newcomer

Faculty Publications

© 2016 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc. The enzyme encoded by the ALOX15B gene has been linked to the development of atherosclerotic plaques in humans and in a mouse model of hypercholesterolemia. In vitro, these enzymes, which share 78% sequence identity, generate distinct products from their substrate arachidonic acid: the human enzyme, a 15-S-hydroperoxy product; and the murine enzyme, an 8-S-product. We probed the activities of these enzymes with nanodiscs as membrane mimics to determine whether they can access substrate esterified in a bilayer and characterized their activities at the membrane interface. We observed that …

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Phragmites Australis As A Model Organism For Studying Plant Invasions, Laura A. Meyerson, James T. Cronin, Petr Pyšek Sep 2016

Phragmites Australis As A Model Organism For Studying Plant Invasions, Laura A. Meyerson, James T. Cronin, Petr Pyšek

Faculty Publications

© 2016, Springer International Publishing Switzerland. The cosmopolitan reed grass Phragmites australis (Poaceae) is an intensively studied species globally with a substantial focus in the last two decades on its invasive populations. Here we argue that P. australis meets the criteria to serve as a model organism for studying plant invasions. First, as a dominant species in globally important wetland habitats, it has generated significant pre-existing research, demonstrating a high potential for funding. Second, this plant is easy to grow and use in experiments. Third, it grows abundantly in a wide range of ecological systems and plant communities, allowing a …

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