Search results for "evolutionary"

Energy and speleogenesis: Key determinants of terrestrial species richness in caves

2017

Abstract The aim of this study was to unravel the relative role played by speleogenesis (i.e., the process in which a cave is formed), landscape‐scale variables, and geophysical factors in the determination of species richness in caves. Biological inventories from 21 caves located in the southeastern Iberian Peninsula along with partial least square (PLS) regression analysis were used to assess the relative importance of the different explanatory variables. The caves were grouped according to the similarity in their species composition; the effect that spatial distance could have on similarity was also studied using correlation between matrices. The energy and speleogenesis of caves account…

Interstitial Telomeric-like Repeats (ITR) in Seed Plants as Assessed by Molecular Cytogenetic Techniques: A Review.

2021

The discovery of telomeric repeats in interstitial regions of plant chromosomes (ITRs) through molecular cytogenetic techniques was achieved several decades ago. However, the information is scattered and has not been critically evaluated from an evolutionary perspective. Based on the analysis of currently available data, it is shown that ITRs are widespread in major evolutionary lineages sampled. However, their presence has been detected in only 45.6% of the analysed families, 26.7% of the sampled genera, and in 23.8% of the studied species. The number of ITR sites greatly varies among congeneric species and higher taxonomic units, and range from one to 72 signals. ITR signals mostly occurs…

Droplet digital PCR as a tool for investigating dynamics of cryptic symbionts

2021

Abstract Interactions among symbiotic organisms and their hosts are major drivers of ecological and evolutionary processes. Monitoring the infection patterns among natural populations and identifying factors affecting these interactions are critical for understanding symbiont–host relationships. However, many of these interactions remain understudied since the knowledge about the symbiont species is lacking, which hinders the development of appropriate tools. In this study, we developed a digital droplet PCR (ddPCR) assay based on apicomplexan COX1 gene to detect an undescribed agamococcidian symbiont. We show that the method gives precise and reproducible results and enables detecting cryp…

The carabid Pterostichus melanarius uses chemical cues for opportunistic predation and saprophagy but not for finding healthy prey

2017

The sentinel prey method can quantify predation pressure in various habitats. Real prey is assumed to more realistically mimic the predator experience but the predator can rarely be identified. Artificial prey made of plasticine may lack real chemical cues, but provides information about predator identity. However, the relationship between predation pressure registered by artificial versus real prey is not clear. We tested the relative attractiveness of artificial caterpillars, and intact, wounded, or dead larvae of the cabbage moth (Mamestra brassicae) for the carabid predator Pterostichus melanarius Illiger (Coleoptera: Carabidae). P. melanarius adults were attracted to dead caterpillars …

Hybrid evolutionary multi-objective optimization with enhanced convergence and diversity

2011

Evolutionary Study of Disorder in Protein Sequences

2020

Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) contain regions lacking intrinsic globular structure (intrinsically disordered regions, IDRs). IDPs are present across the tree of life, with great variability of IDR type and frequency even between closely related taxa. To investigate the function of IDRs, we evaluated and compared the distribution of disorder content in 10,695 reference proteomes, confirming its high variability and finding certain correlation along the Euteleostomi (bony vertebrates) lineage to number of cell types. We used the comparison of orthologs to study the function of disorder related to increase in cell types, observing that multiple interacting subunits of protein comple…

Genomic divergence landscape in recurrently hybridizing Chironomus sister taxa suggests stable steady state between mutual gene flow and isolation

2021

Abstract Divergence is mostly viewed as a progressive process often initiated by selection targeting individual loci, ultimately resulting in ever increasing genomic isolation due to linkage. However, recent studies show that this process may stall at intermediate stable equilibrium states without achieving complete genomic isolation. We tested the extent of genomic isolation between two recurrently hybridizing nonbiting midge sister taxa, Chironomus riparius and Chironomus piger, by analyzing the divergence landscape. Using a principal component‐based method, we estimated that only about 28.44% of the genomes were mutually isolated, whereas the rest was still exchanged. The divergence land…

Age is not just a number : Mathematical model suggests senescence affects how fish populations respond to different fishing regimes

2021

Senescence is often described as an age-dependent increase in natural mortality (known as actuarial senescence) and an age-dependent decrease in fecundity (known as reproductive senescence), and its role in nature is still poorly understood. Based on empirical estimates of reproductive and actuarial senescence, we used mathematical simulations to explore how senescence affects the population dynamics of Coregonus albula, a small, schooling salmonid fish. Using an empirically based eco-evolutionary model, we investigated how the presence or absence of senescence affects the eco-evolutionary dynamics of a fish population during pristine, intensive harvest, and recovery phases. Our simulation …

Should dispersers be fast learners? Modeling the role of cognition in dispersal syndromes.

2021

Abstract Both cognitive abilities and dispersal tendencies can vary strongly between individuals. Since cognitive abilities may help dealing with unknown circumstances, it is conceivable that dispersers may rely more heavily on learning abilities than residents. However, cognitive abilities are costly and leaving a familiar place might result in losing the advantage of having learned to deal with local conditions. Thus, individuals which invested in learning to cope with local conditions may be better off staying at their natal place. In order to disentangle the complex relationship between dispersal and learning abilities, we implemented individual‐based simulations. By allowing for develo…

Implications of fisheries‐induced evolution for population recovery: Refocusing the science and refining its communication

2019

The argument that sufficiently high fishing mortality (selective or not) can effect genetic change in fished populations has gained considerable traction since the late 1970s. The intervening decades have provided compelling experimental and model‐based evidence that fisheries‐induced evolution (FIE) can cause genetic changes in life history, behaviour and body shape, given sufficiently high trait heritability, selection intensity and time. Fisheries‐induced evolution research has also identified or inferred negative implications to population recovery and sustainable yield, prompting calls for evolutionarily enlightened management to reduce the probability of FIE and mitigate its risks. Su…