Search results for "models"
showing 10 items of 8211 documents
Social transmission of avoidance among predators facilitates the spread of novel prey.
2018
Warning signals are an effective defence strategy for aposematic prey, but only if they are recognized by potential predators. If predators must eat prey to associate novel warning signals with unpalatability, how can aposematic prey ever evolve? Using experiments with great tits (Parus major) as predators, we show that social transmission enhances the acquisition of avoidance by a predator population. Observing another predator’s disgust towards tasting one novel conspicuous prey item led to fewer aposematic than cryptic prey being eaten for the predator population to learn. Despite reduced personal encounters with unpalatable prey, avoidance persisted and increased over subsequent trials.…
Phenological and intrinsic predictors of mite and haemacoccidian infection dynamics in a Mediterranean community of lizards
2021
Ectotherms are vulnerable to environmental changes and their parasites are biological health indicators. Thus, parasite load in ectotherms is expected to show a marked phenology. This study investigates temporal host–parasite dynamics in a lizard community in Eastern Spain during an entire annual activity period. The hosts investigated were Acanthodactylus erythrurus, Psammodromus algirus and Psammodromus edwardsianus, three lizard species coexisting in a mixed habitat of forests and dunes, providing a range of body sizes, ecological requirements and life history traits. Habitat and climate were considered as potential environmental predictors of parasite abundance, while size, body conditi…
Origin and distribution of desert ants across the Gibraltar Straits
2017
The creation of geographic barriers has long been suspected to contribute to the formation of new species. We investigated the phylogeography of desert ants in the western Mediterranean basin in order to elucidate their mode of diversification. These insects which have a low dispersal capacity are recently becoming important model systems in evolutionary studies. We conducted an extensive sampling of species belonging to the Cataglyphis albicans group in the Iberian Peninsula (IP) and the northern Morocco (North Africa; NA). We then combined genetic, chemical and morphological analyses. The results suggest the existence of at least three and five clades in the IP and NA, respectively, whose…
The role of the Strait of Gibraltar in shaping the genetic structure of the Mediterranean Grenadier, Coryphaenoides mediterraneus, between the Atlant…
2017
24 pages, 4 figures, 4 tables, supplementary information https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174988.-- Data Availability: The mtDNA COI sequences can be accessed at BOLD systems through the sample ID: ME-9911; ME-11972; ME-13727; GLF011. New mtDNA COI sequences can be accessed at GenBank by the accession numbers KY345206 - KY345398. GenBank accession numbers for close related species of C. mediterraneus are: Coryphaenoides striaturus - KX656427.1, KX656428.1; Coryphaenoides murray - KX656411.1, KX656410.1; Coryphaenoides carapinus - KX656382.1, KX656381.1; Coryphaenoides brevibarbis - KX656377.1, KX656376.1, KX656375.1. An alignment in fasta with all the haplotypes and respective frequ…
Benefits of immune protection versus immunopathology costs: a synthesis from cytokine KO models.
2017
5 pages; International audience; The inflammatory response can produce damage to host tissues and in several infectious diseases the most severe symptoms are due to immunopathology rather than a direct effect of pathogen multiplication. One hypothesis for the persistence of inflammatory damage posits that the benefits of protection towards infection outweigh the costs. We used data on knocked-out (KO) cytokine models [and the corresponding wild-type (WT) controls] to test this hypothesis. We computed differences in pathogen load and host survival between WT and KO and divided them by the WT values. Using this ratio provides an internal control for variation in pathogen species, host strain,…
Phosphinotripeptidic Inhibitors of Leucylaminopeptidases
2021
Phosphinate pseudopeptide are analogs of peptides containing phosphinate moiety in a place of the amide bond. Due to this, the organophosphorus fragment resembles the tetrahedral transition state of the amide bond hydrolysis. Additionally, it is also capable of coordinating metal ions, for example, zinc or magnesium ions. These two properties of phosphinate pseudopeptides make them an ideal candidate for metal-related protease inhibitors. This research investigates the influence of additional residue in the P2 position on the inhibitory properties of phosphinopeptides. The synthetic strategy is proposed, based on retrosynthetic analysis. The N-C-P bond formation in the desired compounds is …
The Odorant-Binding Proteins of the Spider Mite Tetranychus urticae
2021
Spider mites are one of the major agricultural pests, feeding on a large variety of plants. As a contribution to understanding chemical communication in these arthropods, we have characterized a recently discovered class of odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) in Tetranychus urticae. As in other species of Chelicerata, the four OBPs of T. urticae contain six conserved cysteines paired in a pattern (C1–C6, C2–C3, C4–C5) differing from that of insect counterparts (C1–C3, C2–C5, C4–C6). Proteomic analysis uncovered a second family of OBPs, including twelve members that are likely to be unique to T. urticae. A three-dimensional model of TurtOBP1, built on the recent X-ray structure of Varroa destruc…
Temperature-dependent mutational robustness can explain faster molecular evolution at warm temperatures, affecting speciation rate and global pattern…
2015
Distribution of species across the Earth shows strong latitudinal and altitudinal gradients with the number of species decreasing with declining temperatures. While these patterns have been recognized for well over a century, the mechanisms generating and maintaining them have remained elusive. Here, we propose a mechanistic explanation for temperature-dependent rates of molecular evolution that can influence speciation rates and global biodiversity gradients. Our hypothesis is based on the effects of temperature and temperature-adaptation on stability of proteins and other catalytic biomolecules. First, due to the nature of physical forces between biomolecules and water, stability of biomo…
Evolutionary diversification of type-2 HDAC structure, function and regulation in Nicotiana tabacum
2018
Ministère de l'Education Nationale et de la Recherche ; Conseil Régional de Bourgogne (PARI AGRALE8) ; Association pour la Recherche sur les Nicotianacées ; Conseil Régional de Bourgogne; International audience; Type-2 HDACs (HD2s) are plant-specific histone deacetylases that play diverse roles during development and in responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. In this study we characterized the six tobacco genes encoding HD2s that mainly differ by the presence or the absence of a typical zinc finger in their C-terminal part. Of particular interest, these HD2 genes exhibit a highly conserved intron/exon structure. We then further investigated the phylogenetic relationships among the HD2 gen…
Molecular signatures of silencing suppression degeneracy from a complex RNA virus
2021
As genomic architectures become more complex, they begin to accumulate degenerate and redundant elements. However, analyses of the molecular mechanisms underlying these genetic architecture features remain scarce, especially in compact but sufficiently complex genomes. In the present study, we followed a proteomic approach together with a computational network analysis to reveal molecular signatures of protein function degeneracy from a plant virus (as virus-host protein-protein interactions). We employed affinity purification coupled to mass spectrometry to detect several host factors interacting with two proteins of Citrus tristeza virus (p20 and p25) that are known to function as RNA sil…