Biology Commons^™

On Water Bears, Frank A. Romano Iii

Research, Publications & Creative Work

Tardigrades, or “water bears” are microscopic invertebrates that require water in their environment and are found in freshwater, marine and terrestrial habitats. The morphology and phylogeny of this “little known phylum” is described as are ways the naturalist might collect water bears. Examples of species distributions in different locations in the southeastern USA are given.

Protein And Dna In Systematic Biology, Selma Gülbi̇tti̇ Onarici, Si̇bel Sümer

Turkish Journal of Biology

Since the 1960s, biological macromolecules have occupied an increasingly important role in evolutionary and systematic studies. These biological macromolecules, used as sources of molecular characteristics, are proteins and various types of DNA such as a nuclear genome, nuclear ribosomal DNA, mitochondrial genome, and chloroplast genome. Electrophoresis and immunological techniques are used for generating systematic data from proteins. Generally, electrophoretic methods focus on two general forms of protein data, isozymes and allozymes, while the basis of immunological studies is antigen-antibody reactions. Basic methodologies for using DNA for systematic purposes include DNA-DNA hybridizations, restriction enzyme analysis, sequencing, cloning, PCR and PCR-based fingerprinting …

A Mitochondrial Dna Phylogeny Of The Leptodactylus Fuscus Species-Complex (Leptodactylidae: Anura, Arley Camargo

Master's Theses

Leptodactylus fuscus is a broadly distributed frog species in the Neotropical region. Previous allozymic evidence supported the hypothesis of L. fuscus as a composite of several species. However, morphological and advertisement call data supported the hypothesis of a single-species taxon. These competing hypotheses were evaluated using cladistic analyses of mitochondrial DNA sequences. Fragments of 12S rRNA, 16S rRNA, and ND1 protein-coding genes from 17 populations were sequenced. Phylogenetic analyses were performed using: maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian analysis. Data sets were analyzed separately and combined. Analyses of the combined data set show four exclusive clades of L. fuscus: …

Determining The Phylogenetic Relationships Among The Northern Pike (Esox Lucius), The Muskellunge (Esox Masquinongy), And The Silver Pike, Steven W. Foster

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Prioritization of taxa has become a necessity due to limited resources available for conservation. Conservation efforts are often concentrated on those threatened and endangered species with the highest taxonomic importance. The silver pike is a rare game fish, often accounting for less than 1% of a total pike population where it is found. Although silver pike are normally found in association with northern pike, they have distinct morphological characteristics and have not been shown to hybridize with the northern pike. Still, many fisheries biologists consider the silver pike to be a color variant of the northern pike, and to date …

Phylogenetic Reanalysis Of Strauch's Osteological Data Set For The Charadriiformes, Philip C. Chu

Biology Faculty Publications

Strauch's (1978) compatibility analysis of relationships among the shorebirds (Charadriiformes) was the first study to examine the full range of charadriiform taxa in a reproducible way. Subsequently Mickevich and Parenti (1980) leveled serious charges against Strauch's characters, method of phylogenetic inference, and results. To account for these charges, Strauch's characters were re-examined and recoded, and parsimony analyses were performed on the revised matrix. A parsimony analysis on 74 taxa from the revised matrix yielded 855 shortest trees, each length = 286 and consistency index = 0.385. In each shortest tree there were two major lineages, a lineage of sandpiper-like birds …

A Phylogenetic Analysis Of Vertebrate And Invertebrate Notch-Related Genes, Eleanor M. Maine, James L. Lissemore, William T. Starmer

Biology - All Scholarship

Members of the Notch gene family are thought to mediate inductive cell-cell interactions during develop ment of a wide variety of vertebrates and invertebrates. These genes encode transmembrane proteins that appear to act as receptors and contain three repeated sequence motifs. Two of these motifs (an epidermal growth factor like sequence and a cdc10/SW16/ankyrin sequence) have been found in a large number of unrelated proteins, while the third motif (a lin-12/Notch/glp-1 sequence) is unique to proteins of the Notch family. We present a phylogenetic analysis of 17 Notch-related genes from eight species that has implications as to the origins and …

Unstable And Stable Classifications Of Scombroid Fishes, Kent E. Carpenter, Bruce B. Collette, Joseph L. Russo

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Many cladists believe that a classification should strictly reflect a cladistic hypothesis. Consequently, they propose classifications that often differ markedly from existing ones and are potentially unstable due to phylogenetic uncertainty. This is problematic for economically or ecologically important organisms since changing classifications can cause confusion in their management as resources. The classification of the 44 genera of scombroid fishes (the mackerels, tunas, billfishes, and their relatives) illustrates this problem of instability. Previous cladistic analyses and analyses presented in this paper, using different data sets, result in many different cladistic hypotheses. In addition, the inferred cladograms are unstable because of …

Ultrastructural Variation In Enamel Of Australian Marsupials, C. F. Gilkeson, K. S. Lester

Scanning Microscopy

This paper initiates a survey of the enamel of fossil and extant Australian marsupials by scanning electron microscopy. Enamel was examined from 17 extant and 11 extinct marsupials. Assessment was made of prism packing pattern, prism course, tubule presence, tubule size and distribution. Values calculated were: prism diameter; prism axis ratio; cross-sectional prism area; cross-sectional ameloblast area; and numerical prism density.

Three different prism packing arrangements were found for extant and fossil marsupials within the classical Pattern 2. The Pattern 1 arrangement found in three extant species was relatively unexpected given the general acceptance of Marsupialia as having Pattern 2 …

Some Aspects Of Evolutionary Theory, George M. Robertson

Fort Hays Studies Series

The present contribution is not a unified account, but is a series of essays dealing with some aspects, but is a series of essays dealing with some aspects of evolutionary theory.