Evolution Commons^™

Changing Attitudes Towards Animals In The Wild And Speciesism, Oscar Horta

Animal Sentience

I argue that despite Ng’s claim that we should postpone the defense of those animals that live in the wild, we do have reasons to start spreading concern for them now. We can do it by (i) changing public attitude by heightening awareness of speciesism, by which we will also challenge animal exploitation; and (ii) by disseminating information about the situation of animals in the wild.

The Maintenance Of Phenotypic Divergence Through Sexual Selection: An Experimental Study In Barn Swallows Hirundo Rustica, Rebecca Safran, Yoni Vortman, Brittany R. Jenkins, Joanna K. Hubbard, Matt Wilkins, Rachel J. Bradley, Arnon Lotem

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Previous studies have shown that sexual signals can rapidly diverge among closely related species. However, we lack experimental studies to demonstrate that differences in trait-associated reproductive performance maintain sexual trait differences between closely related populations, in support for a role of sexual selection in speciation. Populations of Northern Hemisphere distributed barn swallows Hirundo rustica are closely related, yet differ in two plumage-based traits: ventral color and length of the outermost tail feathers (streamers). Here we provide experimental evidence that manipulations of these traits result in different reproductive consequences in two subspecies of barn swallow: (H. r. erythrogaster in North …

Proximate And Evolutionary Causes Of Sexual Size Dimorphism In The Crab Spider Mecaphesa Celer, Marie Claire Chelini

School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Animal species’ body sizes result from the balance between selection for survival and selection for reproduction. In species with sexual size dimorphism (SSD), this balance differs between females and males, resulting in distinct sizes despite similar constraints. I used an integrative approach to understand how sexual section, and differences in developmental trajectories and metabolic physiology, resulted in the female biased SSD of the crab spider Mecaphesa celer (Thomisidae). SSD in spiders is often assumed to be a consequence of selection for early male maturation, which should provide males with additional mating opportunities. My results allow us to discard mate …

Why We Should Not Postpone Awareness Of Wild Animal Suffering, Catia Faria

Animal Sentience

Ng (2016) restates his case for the importance of wild animal suffering (1995). Nevertheless, he suggests that the most effective way to reduce nonhuman suffering overall is to give short-term priority to the suffering of farmed animals. It is not clear that Ng puts forward a successful case. Our current efforts to prevent animal suffering overall should also include raising awareness of wild animal suffering now as well as promoting research on safe and feasible ways to prevent wild animal suffering in the future.

Scorpions Of The Horn Of Africa (Arachnida, Scorpiones). Part V. Two New Species Of Neobuthus Hirst, 1911 (Buthidae), From Ethiopia And Eritrea, Graeme Lowe, František Kovařík

Euscorpius

New information about the taxonomy and distribution of the genus Neobuthus Hirst, 1911 (Scorpiones: Buthidae) is presented, based on materials recently collected from Ethiopia and Eritrea. Emended diagnoses are provided for the genus Neobuthus, and for the species N. awashensis Kovařík et Lowe, 2012 and N. cloudsleythompsoni Lourenço, 2001. New records are given for N. awashensis in Ethiopia. We redescribe N. cloudsleythompsoni, and we describe two additional new species: N. eritreaensis sp. n. (the first record of the genus from Eritrea) and N. kutcheri sp. n. (southern Ethiopia, Somali State). We include a key …

The North American Grouse: Their Biology And Behavior, Paul A. Johnsgard

Zea E-Books Collection

The ten currently recognized species of grouse in North America have played an important role in America’s history, from the famous but ill-fated heath hen, a primary source of meat for the earliest New England immigrants, to the ruffed grouse, currently one of the most abundant and soughtafter upland game birds in more than 40 states and provinces. This book summarizes the ecology, reproductive biology, and social behavior of all ten of the extant North American grouse species. It also describes the current status of grouse populations, some of which are perilously close to extinction. The social behavior of grouse …

Identification, Characterization, And Life Cycle Of Intein-Associated Homing Endonucleases, Joshua J. Skydel

Honors Scholar Theses

Inteins are molecular parasites that have been identified in unicellular organisms from the three domains of life. The intein self-excises following translation of the host gene, and therefore incurs a fitness cost for its carrier. The symbiotic state of the intein to its host is dependent on the presence or absence of a homing endonuclease domain, which facilitates horizontal transfer of the molecule. Identification of this domain provides information on the evolutionary history of the intein, as well as patterns of horizontal gene transfer in microbial communities. I have therefore developed Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) to identify homing endonuclease domains …

Neotype Designation For Scorpiops Pachmarhicus Bastawade, 1992 (Scorpiones: Euscorpiidae), With Redescription And Notes On The Species, Zeeshan A. Mirza, Gaurang Gowande

Euscorpius

Scorpiops pachmarhicus Bastawade, 1992 was described based on specimens collected from Pachmarhi, Madhya Pradesh. An expedition to the type locality led to discovery of a population at the type locality which permit us to designate a neotype for the species as types of the species are presently not traceable.

Phylogenetic Analysis Of Human Cytomegalovirus Pus27 And Pus28: Ascertaining An Independent Or Linked Evolutionary History, Jessica A. Scarborough

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a widespread pathogen that is particularly skilled at evading immune detection and defense mechanisms, largely due to extensive co-evolution with its host’s immune system. One aspect of this co-evolution involves the acquisition of four virally encoded GPCR chemokine receptor homologs, products of the US27, US28, UL33 and UL78 genes. G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR) are the largest family of cell surface proteins, found in organisms from yeast to humans. In this research, phylogenetic analysis was used to investigate the origins of the US27 and US28 genes, which are adjacent in the viral genome. The results indicate that …

Rescuing Perishable Neuroanatomical Information From A Threatened Biodiversity Hotspot: Remote Field Methods For Brain Tissue Preservation Validated By Cytoarchitectonic Analysis, Immunohistochemistry, And X-Ray Microcomputed Tomography, Daniel Hughes, Ellen Walker, Paul Gignac, Anais Martinez, Kenichiro Negishi, Carl Lieb, Eli Greenbaum, Arshad Khan

Selected Works Temporary Series

Biodiversity hotspots, which harbor more endemic species than elsewhere on Earth, areincreasingly threatened. There is a need to accelerate collection efforts in these regionsbefore threatened or endangered species become extinct. The diverse geographical, ecological,genetic, morphological, and behavioral data generated from the on-site collection ofan individual specimen are useful for many scientific purposes. However, traditional methodsfor specimen preparation in the field do not permit researchers to retrieve neuroanatomicaldata, disregarding potentially useful data for increasing our understanding of braindiversity. These data have helped clarify brain evolution, deciphered relationships betweenstructure and function, and revealed constraints and selective pressures that provide contextabout the evolution …

Rescuing Perishable Neuroanatomical Information From A Threatened Biodiversity Hotspot: Remote Field Methods For Brain Tissue Preservation Validated By Cytoarchitectonic Analysis, Immunohistochemistry, And X-Ray Microcomputed Tomography, Hughes, Ellen Walker, Paul Gignac, Anais Martinez, Kenichiro Negishi, Carl Lieb, Eli Greenbaum, Arshad Khan

Departmental Papers (Biology)

Biodiversity hotspots, which harbor more endemic species than elsewhere on Earth, areincreasingly threatened. There is a need to accelerate collection efforts in these regionsbefore threatened or endangered species become extinct. The diverse geographical, ecological,genetic, morphological, and behavioral data generated from the on-site collection ofan individual specimen are useful for many scientific purposes. However, traditional methodsfor specimen preparation in the field do not permit researchers to retrieve neuroanatomicaldata, disregarding potentially useful data for increasing our understanding of braindiversity. These data have helped clarify brain evolution, deciphered relationships betweenstructure and function, and revealed constraints and selective pressures that provide contextabout the evolution …

Investigating The Nest Sanitation Hypothesis In A Rejecter Species: Is Sanitation A Proximate Link, Pre-Adaptation, Or By-Product Of Egg Ejection?, Alec B. Luro

Theses and Dissertations

Nest sanitation, a behavior similar in motor pattern to egg ejection, has been proposed repeatedly as a potential pre-adaptation to foreign egg ejection in avian brood parasites hosts. We found no support for the sanitation hypothesis--therefore we suggest egg ejection may have evolved independently of sanitation.

Tropical Trees As Islands: Diversity Accumulation Of Armored Scale Insects (Hemiptera: Diaspididae) On Trees As A Function Of Forest Age, Hannah Shapiro

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Armored scale insects (Hemiptera: Diaspididae) are some of the most invasive insects in the world. These cryptic plant parasites are most often encountered in managed agricultural ecosystems, but very little is known about their distribution, abundance, and diversity in tropical rainforest canopies, where they are likely to have their highest diversity. Because these ubiquitous insects are extreme generalists with undirected dispersal, their diversity (alpha and beta) accumulation can conceivably be modeled according to tenets derived from island biogeography theory. For example, one expectation is that older established trees should boast a higher species diversity and abundance than younger ones. Other …

Revelation Of Yin-Yang Balance In Microbial Cell Factories By Data Mining, Flux Modeling, And Metabolic Engineering, Gang Wu

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The long-held assumption of never-ending rapid growth in biotechnology and especially in synthetic biology has been recently questioned, due to lack of substantial return of investment. One of the main reasons for failures in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering is the metabolic burdens that result in resource losses. Metabolic burden is defined as the portion of a host cells resources either energy molecules (e.g., NADH, NADPH and ATP) or carbon building blocks (e.g., amino acids) that is used to maintain the engineered components (e.g., pathways). As a result, the effectiveness of synthetic biology tools heavily dependents on cell capability to …

The Origin And Expansion Of The Eastern Red Fox, Adrienne Egge Kasprowicz

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

When new populations are first identified in a region there are multiple potential sources: introduction of a non-native species, extra-range expansion of a nearby population, or demographic growth of a previously unnoticed species. Red foxes were absent or rare in the mid-eastern portion United States until the late 1800s. Their origins potentially include natural population increase/expansion, translocations from Europe, and, eventually, 20th century fur farming. In this study I attempt to identify the relative impact of native expansion versus human mediated introductions of both colonial era European foxes and early 20^th century fur-farm foxes on the establishment of red …

The End-Cretaceous Mass Extinction And The Deccan Traps Eruptions, Rebecca Teed

Earth and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications

This handout focuses on the evidence for the theory that a series of flood-basalt eruptions in northern India caused the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period. The dinosaurs and about 75% of all marine invertebrate species and many other organisms died abruptly at this time. This is one of a set of four articles on possible causes of the Permian and Cretaceous mass extinctions that can be used to organize classroom debates or to have students compare and contrast the events and their causes.

Through Genera And Generations:A Systematic Study Of Elasmobranch-Hosted Cestodes Of The Indo-Pacific, With Comments On Phylogenetic Relationships, Alison Koontz

University Scholar Projects

Collection of new material from the bamboosharks Chiloscyllium indicum Gmelin, 1789 and Chiloscyllium hasseltii Bleeker, 1852 from Indonesian and Malaysian Borneo prompted reevaluation of the identity and host associations of the cestode genus Carpobothrium Shipley & Hornell, 1906. Light microscopical examination of whole mounts, histological sections, and egg preparations, in combination with scanning electron microscopy of scoleces, led to redescription of the type species Carpobothrium chiloscyllii Shipley and Hornell, 1906 from C. indicum, as well as description of a new species from C. hasseltii. Examination of some of Southwell’s material identified as C. chiloscyllii from the batoid hosts …

Hybridization, Population Genetic Structure And Gene Expression In The Genus Boechera, Martin Peter Schilling

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

When we look at life on earth, we can see a lot of different life forms, but we still do not fully understand how these different life forms came to be and at which points in time these life forms began to be different enough from each other so we could call them by different names, or species. Some groups of species on earth, especially plants, seem to reproduce with each other, even though they are already very different from each other so that we call them different species. This process is called hybridization, and it can stir up the …

The End-Cretaceous Mass Extinction And The Chicxulub Impact, Rebecca Teed

Earth and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications

This handout focuses on the evidence for the theory that a massive meteor impact off the coast of Mexico caused the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period. The dinosaurs and about 75% of all marine invertebrate species and many other organisms died abruptly at this time. It is part of a set of four articles on possible causes of the Permian and Cretaceous mass extinctions that can be used to organize classroom debates or to have students compare and contrast the events and their causes.

The End-Permian Mass Extinction And A Possible Massive Impact, Rebecca Teed

Earth and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications

This handout examines the evidence for the theory that a massive meteor impact caused the mass extinction at the end of the Permian Period. This is the worst mass extinction known to geologists, and 90% or more of all species on Earth were wiped out. It is part of a set of four articles on possible causes of the Permian and Cretaceous mass extinctions that can be used to organize classroom debates or to have students compare and contrast the events and their causes.

The End-Permian Mass Extinction And The Siberian Traps Eruptions, Rebecca Teed

Earth and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications

This handout focuses on the evidence for the theory that a series of flood-basalt eruptions in Siberia caused the mass extinction at the end of the Permian Period. This is the worst mass extinction known to geologists, and 90% or more of all species on Earth were wiped out. It is part of a set of four articles on possible causes of the Permian and Cretaceous mass extinctions that can be used to organize classroom debates or to have students compare and contrast the events and their causes.

Estimating The Frequency Of Sexual Reproduction In The Diatom Stephanodiscus Niagarae, Ann W. Dickens

Biological Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

Diatoms are single-celled micro-algae with cell walls composed of silica, that reproduce in a way that results in a decrease in cell size after each round of mitotic (asexual) division. A cell cannot continue to shrink indefinitely, so when the average size of the population reaches a critical threshold, diatoms reproduce sexually and restore their maximal size. It is unclear, however, how frequently diatoms undergo sexual reproduction in nature. As a proxy for sexual reproduction, I monitored changes in cell size of a population of the diatom Stephanodiscus niagarae from the plankton community of Lake Fayetteville (Arkansas, USA). Weekly sampling …

Physiology And Genetics Of Starvation-Selected Drosophila Melanogaster, Christopher Michael Hardy

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In nature, organisms have evolved to survive in stressful environments. This has driven organisms to adopt a wide range of unique adaptations. Investigating the mechanistic basis of these adaptations is an important tool for discovery that has led to major advances in science and medicine.

We study how organisms survive life without food, or starvational stress. Environmental stressors have shaped the quantity and quality of food sources across the globe. This has led to vast differences in the ability of some organisms to tolerate starvation over others. Many researchers have used Drosophila melanogaster as a model to study global patterns …

Nuclear Architecture And Patterns Of Molecular Evolution Are Correlated In The Ciliate Chilodonella Uncinata, Xyrus X. X. Maurer-Alcala, Laura A. Katz

Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The relationship between nuclear architecture and patterns of molecular evolution in lineages across the eukaryotic tree of life is not well understood, partly because molecular evolution is traditionally explored as changes in base pairs along a linear sequence without considering the context of nuclear position of chromosomes. The ciliate Chilodonella uncinata is an ideal system to address the relationship between nuclear architecture and patterns of molecular evolution as the somatic macronucleus of this ciliate is composed of a peripheral DNA-rich area (orthomere) and a DNA-poor central region (paramere) to form a “heteromeric” macronucleus. Moreover, because the somatic chromosomes of C. …

Mass Extinctions Increase Evenness Of Genus Diversity Across Ecological Modes, Catherine Lau

Creative Activity and Research Day - CARD

In the Big Five mass extinctions, species were eliminated from ecological modes (groups of species in the same habitat with the same motility method and feeding strategy) with greater species diversity preceding these events. Using Knope et al.'s (2015) data set of 18,621 marine animal genera, I asked: When diversity rebounds, does it recover to a similar distribution of genus diversity across modes or to a more even distribution spanning different modes? With each event, the difference in diversity among modes decreases, so evenness increases over time. Mass extinctions contribute to the broad range of diversity we see today.

Virus-Host Co-Evolution: Determining The Origin Of Human Cytomegalovirus Us27 And Us28, Jessica A. Scarborough, Juliet Spencer, John Paul

Creative Activity and Research Day - CARD

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR) are the largest family of cell surface proteins, found in organisms from yeast to humans. Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a widespread pathogen that is particularly skilled at evading immune detection and defense mechanisms, largely due to extensive co-evolution with its host’s immune system. One aspect of this co-evolution involves the acquisition of four virally encoded GPCR homologs: US27, US28, UL33 and UL78. In this research, phylogenetic analysis was used to investigate the origins of the US27 and US28 genes, which are adjacent in the viral genome. The results indicate that both US27 and US28 share the …

A New Species Of Euscorpius Thorell, 1876 From Mount Honaz In Southwestern Turkey (Scorpiones: Euscorpiidae), Gioele Tropea, Ersen Aydın Yağmur, Lydia Karampatsou, Aristeidis Parmakelis, Fatih Yeşilyurt

Euscorpius

A new species of scorpion, Euscorpius honazicus sp. n., is described from Mount Honaz, in the province of Denizli, in southwestern Turkey, based on morphological and molecular evidence, increasing to 14 the Euscorpius species currently recognized in Turkey.

The First Record Of Malformed Pectines In Genus Euscorpius (Scorpiones: Euscorpiidae), Miroslav Šarić, Jovana Tomić

Euscorpius

A teratological change in a pectinal organ of Euscorpius cf. carpathicus (C. L. Koch, 1837) from Serbia had been examined using SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy), and compared to specimens with normally developed pectines. Possible reasons for this anomaly are discussed.

No Effect Of Blood Sampling Or Phytohaemagglutinin Injection On Postfledging Survival In A Wild Songbird, Emerson Keith Bowers, Charles F. Thompson, Scott K. Sakaluk

Faculty Publications – Biological Sciences

The injection of phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) and sampling of blood are widelyused in studies of wild vertebrates to assess components of immune and endo-crine function and health state and to obtain genetic material. Despite the per-vasive use of these techniques in the life sciences, their potential effects onsurvival are rarely considered. For example, whether injection of the immuno-gen PHA into body parts critical for locomotion (e.g., the prepatagium, or wingweb, in birds) affects survival has not been tested. Here, we test whether injec-tion of PHA into the wing web and blood sampling from nestling house wrensaffects their subsequent recruitment and survival …

Evotext: A New Tool For Analyzing The Biological Sciences, Grant Ramsey, Charles H. Pence

Faculty Publications

We introduce here evoText, a new tool for automated analysis of the literature in the biological sciences. evoText contains a database of hundreds of thousands of journal articles and an array of analysis tools for generating quantitative data on the nature and history of life science, especially ecology and evolutionary biology. This article describes the features of evoText, presents a variety of examples of the kinds of analyses that evoText can run, and offers a brief tutorial describing how to use it.