Evolution Commons^™

Somalibuthus Sabae Sp. N., A New Buthid Scorpion From Kenya (Scorpiones: Buthidae), František Kovařík, Laban Njoroge

Euscorpius

The poorly known buthid genus Somalibuthus Kovařík, 1998, is recorded for the first time from Kenya, with the description of a new species, S. sabae sp. n., from Kiwayu Island in the Kiunga Marine National Reserve. Based on a detailed study of the new materials, a revised diagnosis is given for the genus. Several generic characters suggest affinities with three other genera of small buthids found in the Horn of Africa: Neobuthus Hirst, 1911, Gint Kovařík, Lowe, Plíšková et Šťáhlavský, 2013, and Lanzatus Kovařík, 1998.

Testing The Climatic Variability Hypothesis With Coastal And Inland Populations Of Mimulus Guttatus And Implications For These Populations Under Climate Change, Alec Chiono

Master's Theses

How climate shapes the niche of a species is a core interest in evolution and ecology. Research on the evolution of climatic niches can inform us on the historical relationship between organisms and their climate, and, in an era of great environmental change, what that relationship may look like in the future. In this study, I tested an essential idea in the history of climate niche research, the Climatic Variability Hypothesis, by comparing the thermal niche breadth of coastal and inland populations of Mimulus guttatus. Using thermal performance results from this experiment, I also forecasted how the suitability of …

The Phylogeography And Molecular Systematics Of Woodrats (Genus: Neotoma) In The American Southwest, Katrina M. Derieg

Biology ETDs

The American Southwest is a region where many biomes converge, harboring a wide variety of habitats ranging from desert to alpine environments. Habitat heterogeneity and the confluence of multiple species ranges make the American Southwest a biodiversity hotspot. Climate cycling throughout the Quaternary has driven the dynamics of changes in species’ ranges that are recorded by genetic signatures. For example, range expansion may lead to secondary contact between previously isolated populations or species. Contact can result in multiple evolutionary outcomes, including hybridization or the reinforcement and maintenance of independent lineages. I used multi-locus species tree methods to re-examine the nominal …

The Effects Of Urbanization On Insect Morphology: A Meta-Analysis, Evann L. Bailey

Honors Theses

Urbanization has been shown to create a rapid change in the environment as you move from rural areas to urban areas. It can create a multitude of effects on the environment. Some examples include, land disturbance, pollution, increasing temperatures and a disturbance in vegetation and biodiversity. Insects are useful organisms that provide maintenance and upkeep for ecosystem functioning. The rapid development of urbanization and how it is changing the environment may impact insect morphology. Measuring morphological change in organisms have been used successfully as indicators of environmental and ecological disturbance. Changes that take place in an insect’s morphology may indicate …

An Experiment To Test For Rapid Evolution In An Introduced Ectomycorrhizal Symbiosis, Valerie Rewa

Honors Theses

The rapid evolution of introduced ectomycorrhizal-plant partnerships is an under- explored topic that may have immense impacts on ecosystems around the world. This experiment sought to identify and quantify this evolution and its impacts on both fungal colonization as well as plant growth. I used a laboratory experiment to analyze these factors in native and exotic genotypes of Suillus cothurnatus and Pinus species. Much of the data was not able to be collected, but that which was did not support the presence of rapid evolution in the mutualistic partnership. Pine species was seen to have a significant effect on plant …

Strike-Induced Chemosensory Searching, Kleptoparasitism, And The Possibility Of Chemical Crypsis In Rattlesnakes, Mark Scott Teshera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Predator-prey interactions shape the natural histories of both species as each tries to adapt and counter-adapt to the tactics of the other. This important evolutionary dynamic is crucial for ecosystem formation and stability. Predation is a fundamental aspect of life for most organisms, and many venomous reptiles, particularly ambush-foraging viperids, have evolved a prey-acquisition strategy that is highly effective in immobilizing prey, while minimizing possible counterattacks. Best studied in rattlesnakes, this remarkable behavioral sequence is known as strike-induced chemosensory searching (SICS). Throughout decades of research, the body of SICS literature on venomous reptiles has become fairly robust, particularly in rattlesnakes. …

The Role Of Nutrition And Hormone Signaling In Extended Larval Development And Obesity In Starvation-Selected Drosophila Melanogaster, Jennifer M. Clark

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Brief periods of starvation are a common stressor that most animals encounter in the wild and must be able to survive in order to maximize their fitness. Starvation resistance of the adult fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is thought to be primarily conferred by adult fat stores, body size, metabolic rate, behavior, and activity levels. Additionally, flies selected for starvation resistance also often show delayed pupariation, which is usually indicative of altered hormone signaling. How starvation selection extends development and if it contributes to adult starvation resistance remains incompletely studied. Identifying the targets of starvation selection that cause extended development and …

Dynamics Of Hybrid Zones At A Continental Scale, Bradley T. Martin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hybridization has traditionally been viewed as a happenstance that negatively impacts populations, but is now recognized as an important evolutionary mechanism that can substantially impact the evolutionary trajectories of gene pools, influence adaptive capacity, and contravene or reinforce divergence. Physiographic processes are important drivers of dispersal, alternately funneling populations into isolation, promoting divergence, or facilitating secondary contact of diverged populations, increasing the potential for hybridization. In North America, glacial-interglacial cycles and geomorphological changes have provided a dynamic backdrop over the last two million years that promoted such oscillations of population contraction and expansion. These biogeographic processes have resulted in regional …

Zebrafish (Danio Rerio) Hoxb6: An Exploration Into The Divergence Of Genomic Dna Sequence And Gene Expression Across Teleost Fishes Post-Genome Duplication, Amber Lynn Rittgers, Pierre Le Pabic, Adam Davis

Georgia Journal of Science

Hoxb6 is an evolutionarily conserved developmental regulatory gene that functions, in part, to pattern several organs and organ systems within the embryonic trunk during vertebrate embryogenesis. The cis-regulatory circuitry mediating trunk expression in mouse (Mus musculus) may be conserved across gnathostome vertebrates, as several other species show similar trunk expression patterns, including chicken (Gallus gallus), dogfish shark (Scyliorhinus canicula), and several teleost fishes. A whole genome duplication event that occurred in the lineage leading to teleost fishes has generated at least two Hoxb6 genes, hoxb6a and b6b. Two teleost fishes of the …

The Phoenix, Fernanda Perez-Alvarez

Montserrat Annual Writing Prize

This article uses a mythical creature, the phoenix, to examine and illustrate the biological principles for generation of an adult body plan from a single cell. Using the study of developmental biology, it explores the cellular and molecular biology that underpins the massive complexity of creating an adult body plan. It also explores the similarities and differences between different embryos, and how nature and evolution have shaped the biology of those embryos to create different body plans.

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 17: More On The South Asian Connection, Charles H. Smith

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

During his school years the arts and cultural historian and metaphysician Ananda Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) was clearly influenced by Alfred Russel Wallace, and is known later to have corresponded with, and supplied information to, him. Up to now the connections involved had been obscure, but a new investigation suggests that Wallace had previously interacted with Ananda’s mother and/or father.

Molecular And Morphological Consequences Of Post-Glacial Contact Among Lineages Of Northern Short-Tailed Shrews (Blarina Brevicauda) In Eastern North America, Ellen Michels

All NMU Master's Theses

During the Pleistocene, advancing glacial ice fragmented populations of species, which restricted populations from expanding, ultimately inhibiting gene flow. As glaciers receded, expansion out of unglaciated-isolated areas was possible. In addition to glacial barriers, landscape features such as rivers and mountain ranges served as barriers to dispersal of populations during the Pleistocene, influencing the phylogeography of multiple species. Though divergence between multiple lineages is a common feature of North American mammal diversity, circumstances that affected the post-glacial expansion of structured diversity within regions are less well-documented. Northern short-tailed shrews (Blarina brevicauda) are restricted to eastern North America, yet …

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 16: The Flexible Wallace, Charles H. Smith

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823−1913), though a naturalist of considerable renown, has sometimes been accused of inflexibility and inconsistency in his thinking. Many of his critics, however, ignore his basic approach to knowledge accumulation, which was explicitly incremental, based on a perceived need for constant reconsideration. Here, I: (1) identify five groups of Wallace critics who seem to be operating with prior agendas, and (2) provide lists of subjects on which he either changed his mind, or remained constant, according to individual situation.

A Spatially Explicit Model Of Stabilizing Selection For Improving Phylogenetic Inference, Jeremy M. Beaulieu, Brian C. O'Meara, Michael A. Gilchrist

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Ultraconserved elements (UCEs) are stretches of hundreds of nucleotides with highly conserved cores flanked by variable regions. Although the selective forces responsible for the preservation of UCEs are unknown, they are nonetheless believed to contain phylogenetically meaningful information from deep to shallow divergence events. Phylogenetic applications of UCEs assume the same degree of rate heterogeneity applies across the entire locus, including variable flanking regions. We present a Wright-Fisher model of selection on nucleotides (SeION) which includes the effects of mutation, drift, and spatially varying, stabilizing selection for an optimal nucleotide sequence. The SeION model assumes the strength of stabilizing selection …

Micro- And Macroevolution Of Drab Plumage Color In Birds, Rafael Marcondes

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

I address the evolution of drab bird colors at micro- and macroevolutionary scales. I use as a study system the Furnariida, a clade of >600 Neotropical passerine species that, despite tremendous ecological and morphological diversity, are colored almost exclusively in shades of brown and grey produced by melanin pigments.

In chapters two and three, I took a macroevolutionary approach and showed that (1) plumage colors in the Furnariida evolve at similar rates in a monochromatic clade, males of a dichromatic clade, and females of a dichromatic clade; (2) ventral plumage color evolves faster than dorsal; (3) bird species that occupy …

The Distribution In Native Populations From Mexico And Central America Of The C677t Variant In The Mthfr Gene, Lucio A. Reyes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Objectives: To explore evolutionary hypotheses for the high frequencies of a substitution in the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) gene, in Mexican and Central American Indigenous populations.

Materials and methods: We obtained allele frequencies for the C677T variant in the MTHFR gene and ecological information for 37 indigenous samples from Mexico and Central America. We calculated Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium and computed Fst statistics. We computed correlations between the samples' allele frequencies and ecological and geochemical variables.

Results: Many of the samples have extremely high frequencies of the T allele (q̄ = 0.62, median = 0.66). In this region, the frequency of the T …

Male Competition Reverses Female Preference For Male Chemical Cues, Z. Vilella-Pacheco, L. D. Mitchem, Vincent A. Formica, E. D. Brodie Iii

Biology Faculty Works

Females must choose among potential mates with different phenotypes in a variety of social contexts. Many male traits are inherent and unchanging, but others are labile to social context. Competition, for example, can cause physiological changes that reflect recent wins and losses that fluctuate throughout time. We may expect females to respond differently to males depending on the outcome of their most recent fight. In Bolitotherus cornutus (forked fungus beetles), males compete for access to females, but copulation requires female cooperation. In this study, we use behavioral trials to determine whether females use chemical cues to differentiate between males and …

Habitat Characteristics Of Two Scorpion Species, Liocheles Australasiae (Fabricius, 1775) And Isometrus Maculatus (De Geer, 1778) In Miyako Islands, Japan, Kazusa Kawai

Euscorpius

Scorpion surveys were conducted in the five islands: Miyakojima, Ikemajima, Kurimajima, Irabujima, and Shimojishima (Miyako Islands, part of Nansei/Ryukyu Islands of Japan). Eight individuals of Liocheles australasiae (Hormuridae) and 16 individuals of Isometrus maculatus (Buthidae) were observed in a total of 10 points on four islands, except Ikemajima. The localities of both species are recorded in this survey, focusing on altitude, distance from the nearest coast, and sunlight. The lowest temperatures in the habitat are also examined, and the cold tolerance of the species is discussed.

Scorpions Of The Horn Of Africa (Arachnida: Scorpiones). Part Xxvi. Records Of Hottentotta Polystictus (Pocock, 1896), With Descriptions Of H. Haudensis Sp. N. And H. Nigrimontanus Sp. N. (Buthidae) From Somaliland, František Kovařík, Graeme Lowe

Euscorpius

The distribution of Hottentotta polystictus (Pocock, 1896) is summarized according to recently confirmed records. Two new species, Hottentotta haudensis sp. n. and H. nigrimontanus sp. n. from the Somaliland, are described, compared with H. polystictus, and fully illustrated with color photos showing their morphology, habitus and collection areas. H. haudensis sp. n. is the smallest known species of the genus Hottentotta Birula, 1908, while H. nigrimontanus sp. n. is larger than H. polystictus.

Predation Of Ananteris Spp. (Scorpiones: Buthidae) By Ants And A Social Wasp (Hymenoptera: Formicidae, Vespidae) In Panama, Central America, Roberto Miranda, Luis F. De Armas, Roberto A. Cambra

Euscorpius

Two events of predation on Ananteris spp. were observed in the Parque Nacional Darién, Darién Province, Panama. The first case involved the social wasp Agelaia centralis (Cameron, 1907) (Vespidae); the second one, a ponerine ant Leptogenys cf. cuneata Lattke, 2011 (Formicidae). This is the first time that predation by a social wasp on a scorpion is observed. They also represent the first recorded predators for Panamanian Ananteris species.