Search results for "format"

Use of waggle dance information in honey bees is linked to gene expression in the antennae, but not in the brain.

2021

AbstractCommunication is essential for social animals, but deciding how to utilize information provided by conspecifics is a complex process that depends on environmental and intrinsic factors. Honey bees use a unique form of communication, the waggle dance, to inform nestmates about the location of food sources. However, as in many other animals, experienced individuals often ignore this social information and prefer to rely on prior experiences, i.e. private information. The neurosensory factors that drive the decision to use social information are not yet understood. Here we test whether the decision to use social dance information or private information is linked to gene expression diff…

Terpenoid bio-transformations and applications via cell/organ cultures: a systematic review.

2019

Structurally diverse natural products are valued for their targeted biological activity. The challenge of working with such metabolites is their low natural abundance and complex structure, often with multiple stereocenters, precludes large-scale or unsophisticated chemical synthesis. Since select plants contain the enzymatic machinery necessary to produce specialized compounds, tissue cultures can be used to achieve key transformations for large-scale chemical and/or pharmaceutical applications. In this context, plant tissue-culture bio-transformations have demonstrated great promise in the preparation of pharmaceutical products. This review describes the capacity of cultured plant cells t…

Next-generation cophylogeny: unravelling eco-evolutionary processes

2021

A fundamental question in evolutionary biology is how microevolutionary processes translate into species diversification. Cophylogeny provides an appropriate framework to address this for symbiotic associations, but historically has been primarily limited to unveiling patterns. We argue that it is essential to integrate advances from ecology and evolutionary biology into cophylogeny, to gain greater mechanistic insights and transform cophylogeny into a platform to advance understanding of interspecific interactions and diversification more widely. We discuss key directions, such as incorporating trait reconstruction and considering multiple scales of network organization, and highlight rece…

Changing of the guard: mixed specialization and flexibility in nest defense (Tetragonisca angustula)

2019

Abstract Task allocation is a central challenge of collective behavior in a variety of group-living species, and this is particularly the case for the allocation of social insect workers for group defense. In social insects, both benefits and considerable costs are associated with the production of specialized soldiers. We asked whether colonies mitigate costs of production of specialized soldiers by simultaneously employing behavioral flexibility in nonspecialist workers that can augment defense capabilities at short time scales. We studied colonies of the stingless bee Tetragonisca angustula, a species that has 2 discrete nest-guarding tasks typically performed by majors: hovering guardin…

2019

Honeybees use the waggle dance to share information about food-site locations with nestmates. However, the importance of this behavior in colony foraging success remains unclear. We tested whether spatial dance information affects colony foraging success in a human-modified temperate environment by comparing colonies with oriented and disoriented dances. Notably, colonies with disoriented dances had greater foraging success. Over time, bees exposed to disoriented dances showed reduced interest in dancing nestmates. This may explain why disoriented colonies had a higher foraging rate than oriented colonies, as bees did not waste time waiting for information. This change in information-use st…

Drosophila Evolution over Space and Time (DEST) - A New Population Genomics Resource

2021

Abstract Drosophila melanogaster is a leading model in population genetics and genomics, and a growing number of whole-genome datasets from natural populations of this species have been published over the last 20 years. A major challenge is the integration of these disparate datasets, often generated using different sequencing technologies and bioinformatic pipelines, which hampers our ability to address questions about the evolution and population structure of this species. Here we address these issues by developing a bioinformatics pipeline that maps pooled sequencing (Pool-Seq) reads from D. melanogaster to a hologenome consisting of fly and symbiont genomes and estimates allele frequenc…

Shape, size, and quantity of ingested external abrasives influence dental microwear texture formation in guinea pigs

2020

Food processing wears down teeth, thus affecting tooth functionality and evolutionary success. Other than intrinsic silica phytoliths, extrinsic mineral dust/grit adhering to plants causes tooth wear in mammalian herbivores. Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) is widely applied to infer diet from microscopic dental wear traces. The relationship between external abrasives and dental microwear texture (DMT) formation remains elusive. Feeding experiments with sheep have shown negligible effects of dust-laden grass and browse, suggesting that intrinsic properties of plants are more important. Here, we explore the effect of clay- to sand-sized mineral abrasives (quartz, volcanic ash, loess,…

Assessment of genetically modified maize 4114 for food and feed uses, under Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 (application EFSA‐GMO‐NL‐2014‐123)

2018

Abstract Maize 4114 was developed through Agrobacterium tumefaciens‐mediated transformation to provide protection against certain lepidopteran and coleopteran pests by expression of the Cry1F, Cry34Ab1 and Cry35Ab1 proteins derived from Bacillus thuringiensis, and tolerance to the herbicidal active ingredient glufosinate‐ammonium by expression of the PAT protein derived from Streptomyces viridochromogenes. The molecular characterisation data did not identify issues requiring assessment for food/feed safety. None of the compositional, agronomic and phenotypic differences identified between maize 4114 and the non‐genetically modified (GM) comparator(s) required further assessment. There were …

Phylogenomics Identifies an Ancestral Burst of Gene Duplications Predating the Diversification of Aphidomorpha

2019

Aphids (Aphidoidea) are a diverse group of hemipteran insects that feed on plant phloem sap. A common finding in studies of aphid genomes is the presence of a large number of duplicated genes. However, when these duplications occurred remains unclear, partly due to the high relatedness of sequenced species. To better understand the origin of aphid duplications we sequenced and assembled the genome of Cinara cedri, an early branching lineage (Lachninae) of the Aphididae family. We performed a phylogenomic comparison of this genome with 20 other sequenced genomes, including the available genomes of five other aphids, along with the transcriptomes of two species belonging to Adelgidae (a close…

Identification and molecular characterization of the high-affinity copper transporters family in Solanum lycopersicum

2021

Copper (Cu) plays a key role as cofactor in the plant proteins participating in essential cellular processes, such as electron transport and free radical scavenging. Despite high-affinity Cu transporters (COPTs) being key participants in Cu homeostasis maintenance, very little is known about COPTs in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) even though it is the most consumed fruit worldwide and this crop is susceptible to suboptimal Cu conditions. In this study, a six-member family of COPT (SlCOPT1-6) was identified and characterized. SlCOPTs have a conserved architecture consisting of three transmembrane domains and β-strains. However, the presence of essential methionine residues, a methionine-enri…