Evolution Commons^™

The Sting Of Mesobuthus Gibbosus (Scorpiones: Buthidae): Morphological And Ultrastructural Characterization, Nazife Yigit, Mehlika Benli

Euscorpius

The objective of our study is to characterize the morphological and ultrastructural features of the sting of scorpion species Mesobuthus gibbosus (Brullé, 1832) (Buthidae) by using light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The venom is delivered by venom ducts, passing through the sting and exiting from the venom pores. Each venom gland has its own venom duct and pore. The venom pores are situated on both sides of the tip of sting. venom ducts are identified in the transverse discussion in this study.

A New Species Of Ananteris Thorell, 1891 From Cordillera Central In Colombia, With Some Notes On The Taxonomy Of The Genus (Scorpiones: Buthidae), Rolando Teruel, Luis F. García H

Euscorpius

A new species of Ananteris Thorell, 1891 is herein described from a single locality placed in the Cordillera Central of Colombia, which represents the first record of this genus for Tolima department. This new taxon exhibits several singular features, and apparently represents a relict population inside an urbanized area. Also, some aspects on the taxonomy of the genus are briefly discussed, and its diagnosis is emended. With this addition, the total of Ananteris species described from Colombia is raised to six.

Complements To The Morphology Of Troglokhammouanus Steineri Lourenço, 2007 (Scorpiones: Pseudochactidae) Based On Scanning Electron Microscopy, Wilson R. Lourenço

Euscorpius

A detailed morphological description, based on scanning electron microscopy, is proposed for the recently described pseudochactid scorpion, Troglokhammouanus steineri Lourenço, 2007. As already indicated in the original description, the male (juvenile) paratype has been prepared for SEM studies, but the results are only presented in this publication.

A Revision Of The Genus Hottentotta Birula, 1908, With Descriptions Of Four New Species (Scorpiones, Buthidae), František Kovařík

Euscorpius

The genus Hottentotta is revised and a key to the species is provided. Subgenera Balfourianus Vachon, 1979 and Deccanobuthus Lourenço, 2000 are synonymized with the subgenus Hottentotta Birula, 1908. Four new species of Hottentotta are described: H. finneganae sp. n. from Pakistan, H. jabalpurensis sp. n. from India (Madhya Pradesh), H. jalalabadensis sp. n. from Afghanistan, and H. stockwelli sp. n. from India (Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra). The following species and subspecies are synonymized: Buthotus alticola kabulensis (Vachon, 1958) with H. buchariensis (Birula, 1897) comb. n.; Hottentotta caboverdensis Lourenço & Ythier, 2006 with H. hottentotta (Fabricius, 1787); H. acostai …

Mesobuthus Nigrocinctus (Ehrenberg, 1828) (Scorpiones: Buthidae) In Turkey: Distribution And Morphological Variation, Ayşegül Karataş

Euscorpius

Distribution of Mesobuthus nigrocinctus is studied and new geographical records are given. As a result of field studies, M. nigrocinctus is recorded from 17 confirmed localities from five provinces in Turkey. Comparative statistical analysis of morphology of M. nigrocinctus and M. gibbosus indicated highly significant differences between these two species. Student’s t-test analysis and Discriminant Function Analysis (DFA) showed that: (a) while all morphometric ratios demonstrated significant differences between M. nigrocinctus and M. gibbosus females, only selected ratios show significant difference in the males (Ca_L/W, Ch_L/W, Met-II_L/H, and Met- V_L/H); (b) among M. nigrocinctus, Adıyaman population was partly separated; …

The Population Structure Of Mesobuthus Gibbosus (Scorpiones: Buthidae) On Koufonisi Island (Central Aegean Archipelago, Greece), Dimitris Kaltsas, Moysis Mylonas

Euscorpius

The population structure of Mesobuthus gibbosus was studied over 261 night-hours of sampling during 29 consecutive nights on Koufonisi Island (central Aegean Archipelago, Greece) using the capture-recapture method. The studied population proved to be the densest of all studied scorpion populations in chaparral or intertidal habitats of Mediterranean type ecosystems and even comparable to some populations of desert scorpion species. The negative influence of moon phase on the general activity of the species and synchronization in parturition were the main factors that caused the fluctuations in population density and therefore in the percentage of active scorpions.

Description Of Tityus Mraceki Sp. N. From Colombia And Synonymization Of T. Meridanus González-Sponga With T. Nematochirus Mello-Leitão (Scorpiones: Buthidae), František Kovařík

Euscorpius

Tityus (Archaeotityus) mraceki sp. n. from Colombia is described. It differs from other species of the subgenus Archaeotityus by unique sexual dimorphism expressed in the male having a longer metasoma and a narrower chela of the pedipalp. The synonymization of T. meridanus González-Sponga, 1981 with T. nematochirus Mello-Leitão, 1941 is based on morphological and color variation present in a single litter consisting of 33 individuals.

Two New Species Of The Genus Compsobuthus Vachon, 1949 From Afghanistan And Pakistan (Scorpiones: Buthidae), František Kovařík, Zubair Ahmed

Euscorpius

Two new species of Compsobuthus from the werneri group are described. C. afghanus sp. n. is characterized chiefly by the combination of numerous rows of granules on the movable finger of pedipalp (14 rows) and a high number of pectinal teeth (29–31). C. pakistanus sp. n. is most similar to C. plutenkoi Kovařík, 2003 from Iran, from which it differs in having internal granules in all rows on the movable finger of pedipalp and 18–19 pectinal teeth. A key is provided for all species of the genus found in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and adjacent countries.

New Localities Of Iurus Dufoureius Dufoureius (Brullé, 1832) In The Peloponnese, Greece (Scorpiones: Iuridae), Diego Facheris

Euscorpius

New localities of Iurus dufoureius dufoureius (Brullé, 1832) are listed, found during a recent survey in the districts of Achaia, Messinia, and Arcadia in the Peloponnese, Greece. Notes on the habitat and a map are provided.

Sky Island Vaejovis: Two New Species And A Redescription Of V. Vorhiesi Stahnke (Scorpiones: Vaejovidae), Matthew R. Graham

Euscorpius

Two new scorpion species, Vaejovis cashi sp. nov. and V. feti sp. nov. are described and placed in the “mexicanus” group of the genus Vaejovis. These small scorpions were collected at high-elevations from the sky island archipelago of southern Arizona and New Mexico. Both new species are similar to V. vorhiesi Stahnke, a small mesic scorpion of the Huachuca and Santa Catalina Mountains. The original description of V. vorhiesi consists of a single uninformative paragraph and a holotype was never designated. This paper provides a redescription and lectotype designation for V. vorhiesi and describes the two new related species. …

The Genus Akrav Levy, 2007 (Scorpiones: Akravidae) Revisited, Victor Fet, Michael E. Soleglad, Sergei L. Zonstein

Euscorpius

Akrav israchanani, a relict chactoid scorpion from the famous Ayyalon Cave in Israel, is analyzed for the first time since its original description by Gershom Levy (2007). All scorpions found in this cave (20 specimens) were dead, represented by exoskeletons; they are mostly fragmented during collection, many incomplete, but extremely well preserved, and have no evidence of fossilization. Time and cause of death are unknown. Diagnostic characters described by Levy are largely confirmed, and some are further clarified. An exhaustive set of microscopic images is published, encompassing data from all best preserved specimens. Previously unpublished morphological details are illustrated …

One More New Species Of The Genus Orthochirus Karsch, 1891 From Africa (Scorpiones: Buthidae), Wilson R. Lourenço, Elise-Anne Leguin

Euscorpius

Following the recent considerations proposed on the African species of the genus Orthochirus Karsch, 1891, one new species is described from the south of Morocco. The total number of African species is now raised to six.

The Ecology And Evolution Of Rare, Soil Specialist Astragalus Plants In The Arid Western U.S., Joseph M. Statwick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Organisms that specialize in uncommon habitats are, by their very nature, inherently uncommon. Specialization has its advantages, namely reduced competition and predation, but it also incurs costs. Specialists often have small population sizes, narrow ranges, and fragmented habitat, all of which engender negative consequences on an evolutionary timescale. Herein, I examine benefits and costs of specialization in selenium-hyperaccumulating plants in the genus Astragalus (Fabaceae). These plants are disproportionately likely to be rare and of conservation concern. Thus, I optimized germination pretreatments for Astragalus species such that seed loss can be minimized during ex situ cultivation, and found that physical scarification …

The Domain Specificity Of Intertemporal Choice In Pinyon Jays, Jeffrey R. Stevens, Bryce Kennedy, Dina Morales, Marianna Burks

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

When choosing between a piece of cake now versus a slimmer waistline in the future, many of us have difficulty with self-control. Food-caching species, however, regularly hide food for later recovery, sometimes waiting months before retrieving their caches. It remains unclear whether these long-term choices generalize outside of the caching domain. We hypothesized that the ability to save for the future is a general tendency that cuts across different situations. To test this hypothesis, we measured and experimentally manipulated caching to evaluate its relationship with operant measures of self-control in pinyon jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus). We found no correlation …

Comparative Anatomy Of The Bony Labyrinth Of Extant And Extinct Porpoises (Cetacea: Phocoenidae), Rachel A. Racicot, William Gearty, Naoki Kohno, John J. Flynn

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The inner ear anatomy of cetaceans, now more readily accessible by means of nondestructive high-resolution X-ray computed tomographic (CT) scanning, provides a window into their acoustic abilities and ecological preferences. Inner ear labyrinths also may be a source for additional morphological characters for phylogenetic analyses. In this study, we explore digital endocasts of the inner ear labyrinths of representative species of extinct and extant porpoises (Mammalia: Cetacea: Phocoenidae), a clade of some of the smallest odontocete cetaceans, which produce some of the highest-frequency clicks for biosonar and communication. Metrics used to infer hearing ranges based on cochlear morphology indicate that …

A Single Strand Of Argument With Unfounded Conclusion, Robert W. Elwood

Animal Sentience

Key (2016) describes the neural system involved in human pain experience in an excellent fashion but then suggests that only that complete system can generate the experience of pain. Thus animals without all components will not feel pain. This argument has been refuted in the past by analogy to vision where it is clear that a broad range of taxa, vertebrate and invertebrate, have good visual abilities albeit with completely different central nervous systems and receptors. This known counterargument to Key’s main idea is not mentioned in the target article. Further criteria that might indicate pain and studies examining these …

What's In A Kiss? : The Role Of Kissing In Romantic Relationships, Kristina N. Spaulding

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

A strong understanding of the role of kissing has important theoretical implications; however little research has been done on kissing in romantic relationships. This study aimed to examine the role of kissing in (a) mate assessment, (b) initiating arousal and (c) maintenance of an emotional bond. Data were collected by surveying college students at a public university in the northeast. The first survey (n = 121) examined the memory of the first kiss compared to other sexual “firsts” as well as the relationship between the first kiss and relationship outcome. Memories of the first kiss were weaker than memories of …

Cortex Necessary For Pain — But Not In Sense That Matters, Adam J. Shriver

Animal Sentience

Certain cortical regions are necessary for pain in humans in the sense that, at particular times, they play a direct role in pain. However, it is not true that they are necessary in the more important sense that pain is never possible in humans without them. There are additional details from human lesion studies concerning functional plasticity that undermine Key’s (2016) interpretation. Moreover, no one has yet identified any specific behaviors that mammalian cortical pain regions make possible that are absent in fish.

Phenotypic And Genetic Analyses Of Adaptation To Geothermal Soils In Yellow Monkeyflowers Of Yellowstone National Park, Peter Breigenzer

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Microgeographic adaptation, which occurs on a spatial scale smaller than the dispersal distance of the evolving organisms, provides a fertile context for understanding the genetic processes that shape natural variation and contribute to biological diversity. In plants, mosaics of distinct soil conditions can select for microgeographic divergence in the face of gene flow, leading to major life history transitions and novel trait evolution. Mimulus (monkeyflowers) is an emerging model genus for ecological genomics, due to tremendous diversity, experimental tractability, and a wealth of genomic resources. In Yellowstone National Park, Mimulus guttatus occurs in both geothermal soils and nearby nonthermal bogs …

You Can't Catch A Fish With A Robot, R. Grant Gilmore Jr.

Gulf and Caribbean Research

Abstract

In this essay I will relate the challenges associated with deep sea ocean exploration as well as the advantages and disadvantages of today’s ocean technologies based on experience with most of these systems. After nearly five decades using robotic vehicles (Remotely Operated Vehicles = ROVs and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles = AUVs) and manned submarines for fish research, I thought it would be appropriate to briefly describe a career spent using these technologies as they were developed. Deep sea ichthyologists cannot effectively catch a swimming fish with a robot even 40 years after the development of the first ROV for …

Activity Patterns, Home Range, And Microhabitat Selection Of A Terrestrial Turtle (Rhinoclemmys Rubida Perixantha) In A Tropical Dry Forest, Taggert G. Butterfield

All Master's Theses

Turtles are in trouble worldwide, with nearly half recognized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as needing special protection. The Eurasian pond and Neotropical wood turtles of the family Geoemydidae are the most diverse turtles and comprise ¼ of all turtle species yet basic information on their natural history is lacking. Moreover, seasonal tropical dry forest (SDTF), where many geoemydids exist, is considered the most endangered ecosystem in the world. We investigated the activity patterns, home range size, and microhabitat selection of the Mexican Spotted Wood Turtle (Rhinoclemmys rubida perixantha) in its SDTF habitat by …

Resolving Gnetum Evolutionary History, Angela Mcfadden

All Master's Theses

Gnetum are non-flowering seed plants of the tropics, indigenous to South America, Africa, and Asia. This group of about 40 species is fascinating to botanists because it shares distinctive morphological characteristics with flowering plants, such as broad leaves, woody stems, and flower-like strobili. There are still questions surrounding the relationships within the genus of Gnetum. With that in mind, I focused my work on generating phylogenetic hypotheses, using two molecular data sets: a concatenation of over 60 different chloroplast genes (66,815 base pairs), and the whole chloroplast genome (128,772 base pairs). This allowed me to compare the two phylogenies …

Effective Drug Treatment Induces Drug Resistance Through Rapid Genome Alteration-Mediated Cancer Evolution, Steven Horne

Wayne State University Dissertations

The central paradox associated with current cancer therapeutic strategies is initially effective treatment, which eliminates a high tumor cell count, consistently results in successful drug resistance. Mathematical and evolutionary modeling have previously suggested that therapeutic intervention could provide selective pressure for the expansion of resistant variants. Drug-related stress has been associated with genome chaos, a common phenomenon in cancer characterized as rapid, stochastic genomic fragmentation and reorganization. Since cancer represents an evolutionary process, analysis within the context of genome-mediated cancer evolution can shed light on this key problem of therapeutics. We propose that genomic change is a general response to …

Population Genetic Structure Of Necturus Maculosus In Central And Eastern Kentucky, Mason Owen Murphy

Theses and Dissertations--Biology

Population structure is influenced by extrinsic factors, such as landscape architecture and dispersal barriers. Lotic network architecture is known to constrain ecological, demographic and evolutionary processes, including population genetic structure. I assessed the population structure of a widespread aquatic salamander, Necturus maculosus, across three river basins in central and eastern Kentucky. I examined the role of network architecture, anthropogenic barriers, and spatial scale on patterns of population structure. I also provided a review of N. maculosus capture methods and offer an improved trap design. I identified significant structuring between the combined Licking/Kinniconick basin and the Kentucky River basin, with …

The Evolution Of Aquatic Mammals Toward A Nearly Universal Large Size? Evidence From Phylogenetics And Fossils, William Gearty, Craig R. Mcclain, Jonathan Payne

School of Biological Sciences: Presentations

Most mammal species live on land, but the largest mammals live in the oceans. Aquatic and terrestrial habitats clearly impose differing selective pressures on body size. However, the quantitative study of body size evolution in mammals and other major animal clades typically focuses on either terrestrial or marine clades independently, thus failing to capture the dynamics of size evolution associated with the transition between land and water. Consequently, the extent to which the rate, magnitude, and outcome of size change associated with habitat transitions are shared among clades remains unknown, leaving open the question of whether the apparently common phenomenon …

Genome Wide Epigenetic Analyses Of Araptus Attenuatus, A Bark Beetle, Chitra Seshadri

Theses and Dissertations

Phylogeographic studies have relied on surveying neutral genetic variation in natural populations as a way of gaining better insights into the evolutionary processes shaping present day population demography. Recent emphasis on understanding putative adaptive variation have brought to light the role of epigenetic variation in influencing phenotypes and the mechanisms underlying local adaptation. While much is known about how methylation acts at specific loci to influence known phenotypes, there is little information on the spatial genetic structure of genome-wide patterns of methylation and the extent to which it can extend our understanding of both neutral and putatively adaptive processes. This …

Biogeographical Patterns In The Hard-Tick Genus Amblyomma Koch 1844 (Acari: Ixodidae), Matthew H. Seabolt

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Amblyomma Koch is a genus of hard-ticks with approximately 130 species. Its geographical range is typical for organisms with a Gondwanan origin. A majority of these species are endemic to the Neo- and Afrotropical regions, with the remaining taxa dispersed throughout Southeast Asia, Australia and the Pacific islands. Based on this distribution, we hypothesize that the genus dispersal patterns will mirror the fragmentation and continental drift of the Gondwanan supercontinent. Maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, Bayesian inference and node-dating analyses of nuclear 18S rDNA gene sequences reveal a more recent origin and radiation patterns within the genus and suggest that Amblyomma …

Transcriptional Regulation Of Specialized Metabolites In Arabidopsis Thaliana And Catharanthus Roseus, Craig M. Schluttenhofer

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

For millennia humans have utilized plant specialized metabolites for health benefits, fragrances, poisons, spices, and medicine. Valued metabolites are often produced in small quantities and may command high prices. Understanding when and how the plant synthesizes these compounds is important for improving their production. Phytohormone signaling cascades, such as jasmonate (JA) activate or repress transcription factors (TF) controlling expression of metabolite biosynthetic genes. TFs regulating specialized metabolite biosynthetic genes can be manipulated to engineer plants with increased metabolite production.

WRKY transcription factor are known components of both JA signaling cascades and regulation of specialized metabolism. The presence of WRKY binding …

Mediating Claims Through Critical Anthropomorphism, Gordon Burghardt

Animal Sentience

Key’s (2016) discussion of his claim that fish do not feel pain ignores the history of attempts to study the attribution of mental states to other species. Although willing to accept that mammals feel pain, Key claims that fish lack the mammalian neural mechanisms underlying pain and are unconscious of their experiences. Consequently, we do not need to be overly concerned about fishing practices that would otherwise be viewed as painful. Key uses a flawed anthropomorphic lens. All attributions of mental events to organisms other than oneself involve inferences derived from anthropomorphic processes through which we process physiological and behavioral …

Pain And Other Feelings In Humans And Animals, Antonio Damasio, Hanna Damasio

Animal Sentience

Evidence from neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neuropsychology suggests that the experience of feelings in humans does not depend exclusively on structures of the cerebral cortex. It does not seem warranted to deny the possibility of feeling in animals on the grounds that their cerebral cortices are not comparable to those of humans.