Search results for "EVOLUTIONARY SIGNIFICANCE"
showing 5 items of 5 documents
A roadmap for understanding the evolutionary significance of structural genomic variation
2020
Author's accepted manuscript Structural genomic variants (SVs) take diverse forms and are ubiquitous drivers of ecological and evolutionary processes. Most studies of SVs focus on the adaptive significance of gene duplications and large inversions. Future studies should catalog SVs of all types and sizes and systematically test their evolutionary implications. We propose a roadmap and definitions for the study of SVs in ecological and evolutionary genomics. Best practices for SV detection are needed to facilitate comparisons across studies. Integrating population genomic, theoretical, and experimental approaches to SVs will more comprehensively characterize genomic variation, uncover the ad…
Placental endogenous retrovirus (ERV): structural, functional, and evolutionary significance
1998
Summary That endogenous retrovirus (ERV) is present within the placenta of humans and other mammals has been known for the past 25 years, but the significance of this observation is still not fully understood. Much molecular biological data have emerged in recent years to support the earlier electron microscopic data on the presence of placental ERV. The evidence for ERV in animal and human placental tissue is presented, then integrated with data on the the presence of ERV in a range of other tissues, in particular teratocarcinoma cells. Placental invasiveness and maternal immunosuppression are then discussed in relation to metalloproteinase secretion, the immunosuppressive potential of ret…
Fuel Load and Potential Flight Ranges of Passerine Birds Migrating through the Western Edge of the Pyrenees
2011
Abstract. The estimation of fuel load and the potential flight ranges of migrant birds are crucial to understanding the ecological and evolutionary significance of bird migration strategies. The movement of migrant birds between Iberia and the rest of Western Europe is thought to be shaped by the Pyrenees and nearby seas. Because of this area's unique geography, the routes of migrants that move to (autumn migration) or from (spring migration) Iberia tend to pass through the western and eastern edges of the Pyrenees. Fuel-load analyses and the assessment of potential flight ranges from these edges can provide insights about the extent of Iberia's use as a consistent stopover and fuelling are…
Ultraviolet reflectance of male nuptial colouration in sand lizards (Lacerta agilis) from the Pyrenees
2007
Abstract The evolutionary significance of lacertid colourations is relatively unexplored. However, several studies have demonstrated signalling by means of bright green colouration in Swedish Lacerta agilis males during the breeding season. Unfortunately, most of these studies have been based on human colour perception that differs in several ways from that of lizard. An important difference between human and lizard colour vision is the presence of an ultraviolet (UV) sensitive cone in lizards. The available evidence suggests that male sand lizards colorations do not reflect UV wavelengths, at least in Swedish populations. However, this study, based on objective (spectrophotometric) measur…
Diversity in warning coloration: selective paradox or the norm?
2019
Aposematic theory has historically predicted that predators should select for warning signals to converge on a single form, as a result of frequency-dependent learning. However, widespread variation in warning signals is observed across closely related species, populations and, most problematically for evolutionary biologists, among individuals in the same population. Recent research has yielded an increased awareness of this diversity, challenging the paradigm of signal monomorphy in aposematic animals. Here we provide a comprehensive synthesis of these disparate lines of investigation, identifying within them three broad classes of explanation for variation in aposematic warning signals: …