Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Biodiversity
Extending The Fossil Record Of The Polytrichaceae (Bryophyta): Insights From The Early Cretaceous Of Vancouver Island, Canada, Alexander C. Bippus
Extending The Fossil Record Of The Polytrichaceae (Bryophyta): Insights From The Early Cretaceous Of Vancouver Island, Canada, Alexander C. Bippus
Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects
Diverse in modern ecosystems, mosses are dramatically underrepresented in the fossil record. Furthermore, most pre-Cenozoic mosses are known only from compression fossils, which lack detailed anatomical information. Lower Cretaceous deposits at Apple Bay (Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada) contain a diverse anatomically preserved flora that includes numerous bryophytes, many of which have yet to be characterized. Among them is a polytrichaceous moss that is described here as Meantoinea alophosioides gen. et sp. nov. Meantoinea alophosioides represents the first occurrence of gemma cups in a fossil moss and is the oldest unequivocal record of Polytrichaceae, providing a hard minimum age for …
Phylogenetic Relationships And Evolution Of Snakes, Alex Figueroa
Phylogenetic Relationships And Evolution Of Snakes, Alex Figueroa
University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
Snakes represent an impressive evolutionary radiation of over 3,500 widely-distributed species, categorized into 515 genera, encompassing a diverse range of morphologies and ecologies. This diversity is likely attributable to their distinctive morphology, which has allowed them to populate a wide range of habitat types within most major ecosystems. In my first chapter, I provide the largest-yet estimate of the snake tree of life using maximum likelihood on a supermatrix of 1745 taxa (1652 snake species + 7 outgroup taxa) and 9,523 base pairs from 10 loci (5 nuclear, 5 mitochondrial), including previously unsequenced genera (2) and species (61). I then …
Systematics Of The Genus Ptychadena Boulenger, 1917 (Anura: Ptychadenidae) From Democratic Republic Of The Congo, Katrina Marie Weber
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 …