Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Biology Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 16 of 16

Full-Text Articles in Biology

Spite Versus Cheats: Competition Among Social Strategies Shapes Virulence In Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, R. Inglis, Sam Brown, Sam Brown, Angus Buckling Nov 2012

Spite Versus Cheats: Competition Among Social Strategies Shapes Virulence In Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, R. Inglis, Sam Brown, Sam Brown, Angus Buckling

Biology Department Faculty Works

Social interactions have been shown to play an important role in bacterial evolution and virulence. The majority of empirical studies conducted have only considered social traits in isolation, yet numerous social traits, such as the production of spiteful bacteriocins (anticompetitor toxins) and iron-scavenging siderophores (a public good) by the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, are frequently expressed simultaneously. Crucially, both bacteriocin production and siderophore cheating can be favored under the same competitive conditions, and we develop theory and carry out experiments to determine how the success of a bacteriocin-producing genotype is influenced by social cheating of susceptible competitors and the resultant …


Freq-Seq: A Rapid, Cost-Effective, Sequencing-Based Method To Determine Allele Frequencies Directly From Mixed Populations, Lon Chubiz, Ming-Chun Lee, Nigel Delaney, Christopher Marx Oct 2012

Freq-Seq: A Rapid, Cost-Effective, Sequencing-Based Method To Determine Allele Frequencies Directly From Mixed Populations, Lon Chubiz, Ming-Chun Lee, Nigel Delaney, Christopher Marx

Biology Department Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


Phylogenomics And A Posteriori Data Partitioning Resolve The Cretaceous Angiosperm Radiation Malpighiales, Peter Stevens, Zhenxiang Xi, Brad Ruhfel, Hanno Schaefer, André Amorim, M. Sugumaran, Kenneth Wurdack, Peter Endress, Merran Matthews, Sarah Mathews, Charles Davis Oct 2012

Phylogenomics And A Posteriori Data Partitioning Resolve The Cretaceous Angiosperm Radiation Malpighiales, Peter Stevens, Zhenxiang Xi, Brad Ruhfel, Hanno Schaefer, André Amorim, M. Sugumaran, Kenneth Wurdack, Peter Endress, Merran Matthews, Sarah Mathews, Charles Davis

Biology Department Faculty Works

The angiosperm order Malpighiales includes ∼16,000 species and constitutes up to 40% of the understory tree diversity in tropical rain forests. Despite remarkable progress in angiosperm systematics during the last 20 y, relationships within Malpighiales remain poorly resolved, possibly owing to its rapid rise during the mid-Cretaceous. Using phylogenomic approaches, including analyses of 82 plastid genes from 58 species, we identified 12 additional clades in Malpighiales and substantially increased resolution along the backbone. This greatly improved phylogeny revealed a dynamic history of shifts in net diversification rates across Malpighiales, with bursts of diversification noted in the Barbados cherries (Malpighiaceae), cocas …


Daily Energy Expenditure In Precocial Shorebird Chicks: Smaller Species Perform At Higher Levels, Robert Ricklefs, Karen Krijgsveld, G. Visser Oct 2012

Daily Energy Expenditure In Precocial Shorebird Chicks: Smaller Species Perform At Higher Levels, Robert Ricklefs, Karen Krijgsveld, G. Visser

Biology Department Faculty Works

We measured daily energy expenditure (DEE) during the development periods of precocial chicks of five species of Arctic shorebirds spanning a broad range in size, in order to investigate the relationships between DEE, body size, and growth rate. We also quantified the effect of weather conditions on the energy expenditure of chicks to establish the impact of cold arctic weather on their time and energy budgets. We used the doubly labeled water method to measure DEE at ambient temperatures in an outside enclosure on the subarctic tundra at Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. Growth rate was highest in the smallest species, and …


Transcriptional Cross Talk Within The Mar-Sox-Rob Regulon In Escherichia Coli Is Limited To The Rob And Marrab Operons, Lon Chubiz, George Glekas, Christopher Rao Sep 2012

Transcriptional Cross Talk Within The Mar-Sox-Rob Regulon In Escherichia Coli Is Limited To The Rob And Marrab Operons, Lon Chubiz, George Glekas, Christopher Rao

Biology Department Faculty Works

Bacteria possess multiple mechanisms to survive exposure to various chemical stresses and antimicrobial compounds. In the enteric bacterium Escherichia coli, three homologous transcription factors—MarA, SoxS, and Rob—play a central role in coordinating this response. Three separate systems are known to regulate the expression and activities of MarA, SoxS, and Rob. However, a number of studies have shown that the three do not function in isolation but rather are coregulated through transcriptional cross talk. In this work, we systematically investigated the extent of transcriptional cross talk in the mar-sox-rob regulon. While the three transcription factors were found to have the potential …


Reinterpreting Bateman Gradients: Multiple Mating And Selection In Both Sexes Of A Songbird Species, N.M. Gerlach, J.W Mcglothlin, P.G Parker, E.D Ketterson Sep 2012

Reinterpreting Bateman Gradients: Multiple Mating And Selection In Both Sexes Of A Songbird Species, N.M. Gerlach, J.W Mcglothlin, P.G Parker, E.D Ketterson

Biology Department Faculty Works

Bateman’s principle, which states that male reproductive success should increase with multiple mating, whereas female reproductive success should not, has long been used to explain sex differences in behavior. The statistical relationship between mating success and reproductive success, or Bateman gradient, has been proposed as a way to quantify sex differences in sexual selection. We used a long-term data set on the distribution of paternity in the socially monogamous dark-eyed junco to examine the effect of multiple mating on lifetime reproductive success and to determine the relative contributions of within-pair and extra-pair mating. Both sexes exhibited a strong positive Bateman …


Herbivore Pressure Increases Toward The Equator, Robert Marquis, Diego Salazar Jul 2012

Herbivore Pressure Increases Toward The Equator, Robert Marquis, Diego Salazar

Biology Department Faculty Works

Increases in species diversity and density from higher to lower latitudes are well documented. Nevertheless, the consequences of these changes in diversity for structuring ecological communities and influencing biotic evolution are largely unknown. It is widely believed that this increase in species diversity is associated with increased intensity of ecological interactions closer to the equator. For plant–herbivore interactions in particular, the predictions are that, at lower latitudes, plants will be attacked by more individual herbivores, more herbivore species, and more specialized herbivores and, therefore, will suffer greater damage. We used a large-scale latitudinal transect from Mexico to Bolivia to quantify …


Tcp Transcription Factor, Branch Angle Defective 1 (Bad1), Is Required For Normal Tassel Branch Angle Formation In Maize, Fang Bai, Renata Reinheimer, Diego Durantini, Elizabeth Kellogg, Robert Schmidt Jul 2012

Tcp Transcription Factor, Branch Angle Defective 1 (Bad1), Is Required For Normal Tassel Branch Angle Formation In Maize, Fang Bai, Renata Reinheimer, Diego Durantini, Elizabeth Kellogg, Robert Schmidt

Biology Department Faculty Works

In grass inflorescences, a structure called the “pulvinus” is found between the inflorescence main stem and lateral branches. The size of the pulvinus affects the angle of the lateral branches that emerge from the main axis and therefore has a large impact on inflorescence architecture. Through EMS mutagenesis we have identified three complementation groups of recessive mutants in maize having defects in pulvinus formation. All mutants showed extremely acute tassel branch angles accompanied by a significant reduction in the size of the pulvinus compared with normal plants. Two of the complementation groups correspond to mutations in the previously identified genes, …


Five Nuclear Loci Resolve The Polyploid History Of Switchgrass (Panicum Virgatum L.) And Relatives, Jimmy Triplett, Yunjing Wang, Jinshun Zhong, Elizabeth Kellogg Jun 2012

Five Nuclear Loci Resolve The Polyploid History Of Switchgrass (Panicum Virgatum L.) And Relatives, Jimmy Triplett, Yunjing Wang, Jinshun Zhong, Elizabeth Kellogg

Biology Department Faculty Works

Polyploidy poses challenges for phylogenetic reconstruction because of the need to identify and distinguish between homoeologous loci. This can be addressed by use of low copy nuclear markers. Panicum s.s. is a genus of about 100 species in the grass tribe Paniceae, subfamily Panicoideae, and is divided into five sections. Many of the species are known to be polyploids. The most well-known of the Panicum polyploids are switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) and common or Proso millet (P. miliaceum). Switchgrass is in section Virgata, along with P. tricholaenoides, P. amarum, and P. amarulum, whereas P. miliaceum is in sect. Panicum. We have …


Cytosolic Glyceraldehyde-3-Phosphate Dehydrogenases Interact With Phospholipase Dδ To Transduce Hydrogen Peroxide Signals In The Arabidopsis Response To Stress, Xuemin Wang, Liang Guo, Shivakumar Devaiah, Rama Narasimhan, Xiangqing Pan, Yanyan Zhang, Wenhua Zhang May 2012

Cytosolic Glyceraldehyde-3-Phosphate Dehydrogenases Interact With Phospholipase Dδ To Transduce Hydrogen Peroxide Signals In The Arabidopsis Response To Stress, Xuemin Wang, Liang Guo, Shivakumar Devaiah, Rama Narasimhan, Xiangqing Pan, Yanyan Zhang, Wenhua Zhang

Biology Department Faculty Works

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are produced in plants under various stress conditions and serve as important mediators in plant responses to stresses. Here, we show that the cytosolic glycolytic enzymes glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenases (GAPCs) interact with the plasma membrane–associated phospholipase D (PLDδ) to transduce the ROS hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) signal in Arabidopsis thaliana. Genetic ablation of PLDδ impeded stomatal response to abscisic acid (ABA) and H2O2, placing PLDδ downstream of H2O2 in mediating ABA-induced stomatal closure. To determine the molecular link between H2O2 and PLDδ, GAPC1 and GAPC2 were identified to bind to PLDδ, and the interaction was demonstrated by coprecipitation …


Crosstalk Between Phospholipase D And Sphingosine Kinase In Plant Stress Signaling, Xuemin Wang, Liang Guo Mar 2012

Crosstalk Between Phospholipase D And Sphingosine Kinase In Plant Stress Signaling, Xuemin Wang, Liang Guo

Biology Department Faculty Works

The activation of phospholipase D (PLD) produces phosphatidic acid (PA), whereas plant sphingosine kinase (SPHK) phosphorylates long-chain bases to generate long-chain base-1-phosphates such as phytosphingosine-1-phosphate (phyto-S1P). PA and phyto-S1P have been identified as lipid messengers. Recent studies have shown that PA interacts directly with SPHKs in Arabidopsis, and that the interaction promotes SPHK activity. However, SPHK and phyto-S1P act upstream of PLDα1 and PA in the stomatal response to abscisic acid (ABA). These findings indicate that SPHK/phyto-S1P and PLD/PA are co-dependent in the amplification of lipid messengers, and that crosstalk between the sphingolipid- and phospholipid-mediated signaling pathways may play important …


Levels Of Arabidopsis Thaliana Leaf Phosphatidic Acids, Phosphatidylserines, And Most Trienoate-Containing Polar Lipid Molecular Species Increase During The Dark Period Of The Diurnal Cycle, Xuemin Wang, Sara Maatta, Brad Scheu, Mary Roth, Pamela Tamura, Maoyin Li, Todd Williams, Ruth Welti Mar 2012

Levels Of Arabidopsis Thaliana Leaf Phosphatidic Acids, Phosphatidylserines, And Most Trienoate-Containing Polar Lipid Molecular Species Increase During The Dark Period Of The Diurnal Cycle, Xuemin Wang, Sara Maatta, Brad Scheu, Mary Roth, Pamela Tamura, Maoyin Li, Todd Williams, Ruth Welti

Biology Department Faculty Works

Previous work has demonstrated that plant leaf polar lipid fatty acid composition varies during the diurnal (dark–light) cycle. Fatty acid synthesis occurs primarily during the light, but fatty acid desaturation continues in the absence of light, resulting in polyunsaturated fatty acids reaching their highest levels toward the end of the dark period. In this work, Arabidopsis thaliana were grown at constant (21°C) temperature with 12-h light and 12-h dark periods. Collision induced dissociation time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MS) demonstrated that 16:3 and 18:3 fatty acid content in membrane lipids of leaves are higher at the end of the dark than at …


Connections Between Sphingosine Kinase And Phospholipase D In The Abscisic Acid Signaling Pathway In Arabidopsis, Xuemin Wang, Liang Guo, Girish Mishra, Jennifer E. Markham, Maoyin Li, Amanda Tawfall, Ruth Welti Mar 2012

Connections Between Sphingosine Kinase And Phospholipase D In The Abscisic Acid Signaling Pathway In Arabidopsis, Xuemin Wang, Liang Guo, Girish Mishra, Jennifer E. Markham, Maoyin Li, Amanda Tawfall, Ruth Welti

Biology Department Faculty Works

Phosphatidic acid (PA) and phytosphingosine 1-phosphate (phyto-S1P) both are lipid messengers involved in plant response to abscisic acid (ABA). Our previous data indicate that PA binds to sphingosine kinase (SPHK) and increases its phyto-S1P-producing activity. To understand the cellular and physiological functions of the PA-SPHK interaction, we isolated Arabidopsis thaliana SPHK mutants sphk1-1 and sphk2-1 and characterized them, together with phospholipase Dα1 knock-out, pldα1, in plant response to ABA. Compared with wild-type (WT) plants, the SPHK mutants and pldα1 all displayed decreased sensitivity to ABA-promoted stomatal closure. Phyto-S1P promoted stomatal closure in sphk1-1 and sphk2-1, but not in pldα1, whereas …


Philopatry Drives Genetic Differentiation In An Island Archipelago: Comparative Population Genetics Of Galapagos Nazca Boobies (Sula Granti) And Great Frigatebirds (Fregata Minor), Iris Levin, Patricia Parker Jan 2012

Philopatry Drives Genetic Differentiation In An Island Archipelago: Comparative Population Genetics Of Galapagos Nazca Boobies (Sula Granti) And Great Frigatebirds (Fregata Minor), Iris Levin, Patricia Parker

Biology Department Faculty Works

Seabirds are considered highly mobile, able to fly great distances with few apparent barriers to dispersal. However, it is often the case that seabird populations exhibit strong population genetic structure despite their potential vagility. Here we show that Galapagos Nazca booby (Sula granti) populations are substantially differentiated, even within the small geographic scale of this archipelago. On the other hand, Galapagos great frigatebird (Fregata minor) populations do not show any genetic structure. We characterized the genetic differentiation by sampling five colonies of both species in the Galapagos archipelago and analyzing eight microsatellite loci and three mitochondrial genes. Using an F‐statistic …


[Accepted Article Manuscript Version (Postprint)] Plant Peroxisomes: Biogenesis And Function, Jianping Hu, Alison Baker, Bonnie Bartel, Nicole Linka, Robert Mullen, Sigrun Reumann, Bethany Zolman Jan 2012

[Accepted Article Manuscript Version (Postprint)] Plant Peroxisomes: Biogenesis And Function, Jianping Hu, Alison Baker, Bonnie Bartel, Nicole Linka, Robert Mullen, Sigrun Reumann, Bethany Zolman

Biology Department Faculty Works

Peroxisomes are eukaryotic organelles that are highly dynamic both in morphology and metabolism. Plant peroxisomes are involved in numerous processes, including primary and secondary metabolism, development, and responses to abiotic and biotic stresses. Considerable progress has been made in the identification of factors involved in peroxisomal biogenesis, revealing mechanisms that are both shared with and diverged from non-plant systems. Furthermore, recent advances have begun to reveal an unexpectedly large plant peroxisomal proteome and have increased our understanding of metabolic pathways in peroxisomes. Coordination of the biosynthesis, import, biochemical activity, and degradation of peroxisomal proteins allows for highly dynamic responses of …


Direct Infusion Mass Spectrometry Of Oxylipin-Containing Arabidopsis Membrane Lipids Reveals Varied Patterns In Different Stress Responses, Xuemin Wang, Hieu Sy Vu, Pamela Tamura, Nadezhda Galeva, Ratnesh Chaturvedi, Mary Roth, Todd Williams, Jyoti Shah, Ruth Welti Jan 2012

Direct Infusion Mass Spectrometry Of Oxylipin-Containing Arabidopsis Membrane Lipids Reveals Varied Patterns In Different Stress Responses, Xuemin Wang, Hieu Sy Vu, Pamela Tamura, Nadezhda Galeva, Ratnesh Chaturvedi, Mary Roth, Todd Williams, Jyoti Shah, Ruth Welti

Biology Department Faculty Works

Direct infusion electrospray ionization triple quadrupole precursor scanning for three oxidized fatty acyl anions revealed 86 mass spectral peaks representing polar membrane lipids in extracts from Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) infected with Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato DC3000 expressing AvrRpt2 (PstAvr). Quadrupole time-of-flight and Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry provided evidence for the presence of membrane lipids containing one or more oxidized acyl chains. The membrane lipids included molecular species of phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, digalactosyldiacylglycerol, monogalactosyldiacylglycerol, and acylated monogalactosyldiacylglycerol. The oxidized chains were identified at the level of chemical formula and included C(18)H(27)O(3) (abbreviated 18:4-O, to indicate four double bond …