Search results for "research article"
showing 10 items of 4621 documents
Increasing temperature alters the within-host competition of viral strains and influences virus genetic variability
2021
Environmental conditions can affect viral accumulation, virulence and adaptation, which have implications in the disease outcomes and efficiency of control measures. Concurrently, mixed viral infections are relevant in plants, being their epidemiology shaped by within-host virus–virus interactions. However, the extent in which the combined effect of variations in abiotic components of the plant ecological niche and the prevalence of mixed infections affect the evolutionary dynamics of viral populations is not well understood. Here, we explore the interplay between ecological and evolutionary factors during viral infections and show that isolates of two strains of Pepino mosaic potexvirus co…
Transcriptome and proteome analysis of Pinctada margaritifera calcifying mantle and shell: focus on biomineralization
2010
Abstract Background The shell of the pearl-producing bivalve Pinctada margaritifera is composed of an organic cell-free matrix that plays a key role in the dynamic process of biologically-controlled biomineralization. In order to increase genomic resources and identify shell matrix proteins implicated in biomineralization in P. margaritifera, high-throughput Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) pyrosequencing was undertaken on the calcifying mantle, combined with a proteomic analysis of the shell. Results We report the functional analysis of 276 738 sequences, leading to the constitution of an unprecedented catalog of 82 P. margaritifera biomineralization-related mantle protein sequences. Component…
Efficient estimation of generalized linear latent variable models.
2019
Generalized linear latent variable models (GLLVM) are popular tools for modeling multivariate, correlated responses. Such data are often encountered, for instance, in ecological studies, where presence-absences, counts, or biomass of interacting species are collected from a set of sites. Until very recently, the main challenge in fitting GLLVMs has been the lack of computationally efficient estimation methods. For likelihood based estimation, several closed form approximations for the marginal likelihood of GLLVMs have been proposed, but their efficient implementations have been lacking in the literature. To fill this gap, we show in this paper how to obtain computationally convenient estim…
Adaptation of turnip mosaic potyvirus to a specific niche reduces its genetic and environmental robustness
2020
Robustness is the preservation of the phenotype in the face of genetic and environmental perturbations. It has been argued that robustness must be an essential fitness component of RNA viruses owed to their small and compacted genomes, high mutation rates and living in ever-changing environmental conditions. Given that genetic robustness might hamper possible beneficial mutations, it has been suggested that genetic robustness can only evolve as a side-effect of the evolution of robustness mechanisms specific to cope with environmental perturbations, a theory known as plastogenetic congruence. However, empirical evidences from different viral systems are contradictory. To test how adaptation…
Natural Selection Fails to Optimize Mutation Rates for Long-Term Adaptation on Rugged Fitness Landscapes
2008
The rate of mutation is central to evolution. Mutations are required for adaptation, yet most mutations with phenotypic effects are deleterious. As a consequence, the mutation rate that maximizes adaptation will be some intermediate value. Here, we used digital organisms to investigate the ability of natural selection to adjust and optimize mutation rates. We assessed the optimal mutation rate by empirically determining what mutation rate produced the highest rate of adaptation. Then, we allowed mutation rates to evolve, and we evaluated the proximity to the optimum. Although we chose conditions favorable for mutation rate optimization, the evolved rates were invariably far below the optimu…
A new flatworm species of Temnocephala (Rhabdocoela, Temnocephalidae) ectosymbiont on the freshwater crab Valdivia serrata (Decapoda, Trichodactylida…
2020
A new species of temnocephalan is described from the branchial chambers ofValdivia serratain Colombia asTemnocephala ivandarioisp. nov.The most distinctive characters of the new species are in the cirrus and the epidermal ‘excretory’ syncytial plates. In the present study, the terminology to describe the cirrus of species ofTemnocephalais updated. Comparison between the shape of the cirrus of the temnocephalans associated with trichodactylid crabs is also provided.
Short-term benefits, but transgenerational costs of maternal loss in an insect with facultative maternal care
2015
A lack of parental care is generally assumed to entail substantial fitness costs for offspring that ultimately select for the maintenance of family life across generations. However, it is unknown whether these costs arise when parental care is facultative, thus questioning their fundamental importance in the early evolution of family life. Here, we investigated the short-term, long-term and transgenerational effects of maternal loss in the European earwig Forficula auricularia , an insect with facultative post-hatching maternal care. We showed that maternal loss did not influence the developmental time and survival rate of juveniles, but surprisingly yielded adults of larger body and force…
Kinetic studies on protoporphyrinogen oxidase inhibition by diphenyl ether herbicides
1991
Diphenyl ethers (DPEs) and related herbicides are powerful inhibitors of protoporphyrinogen oxidase, an enzyme involved in the biosynthesis of haems and chlorophylls. The inhibition kinetics of protoporphyrinogen oxidase of various origins by four DPEs, (methyl)-5-[2-chloro-4-(trifluoromethyl)phenoxy]-2-nitrobenzoic acid (acifluorfen and its methyl ester, acifluorfen-methyl), methyl-5-[2-chloro-4-(trifluoromethyl) phenoxy]-2-chlorobenzoate (LS 820340) and methyl-5-[2-chloro-5-(trifluoromethyl)phenoxy]-2-nitrobenzoic acid (RH 5348), were studied. The inhibitions of the enzymes from maize (Zea mays) mitochondrial and etiochloroplastic membranes and mouse liver mitochondrial membranes were com…
NO contributes to cadmium toxicity in Arabidopsis thaliana by mediating an iron deprivation response
2009
Nitric oxide (NO) functions as a cell-signaling molecule in plants. In particular, a role for NO in the regulation of iron homeostasis and in the plant response to toxic metals has been proposed. Here, we investigated the synthesis and the role of NO in plants exposed to cadmium (Cd(2+)), a nonessential and toxic metal. We demonstrate that Cd(2+) induces NO synthesis in roots and leaves of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) seedlings. This production, which is sensitive to NO synthase inhibitors, does not involve nitrate reductase and AtNOA1 but requires IRT1, encoding a major plasma membrane transporter for iron but also Cd(2+). By analyzing the incidence of NO scavenging or inhibition of …
A large-scale, higher-level, molecular phylogenetic study of the insect order Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies).
2013
Background Higher-level relationships within the Lepidoptera, and particularly within the species-rich subclade Ditrysia, are generally not well understood, although recent studies have yielded progress. We present the most comprehensive molecular analysis of lepidopteran phylogeny to date, focusing on relationships among superfamilies. Methodology / Principal Findings 483 taxa spanning 115 of 124 families were sampled for 19 protein-coding nuclear genes, from which maximum likelihood tree estimates and bootstrap percentages were obtained using GARLI. Assessment of heuristic search effectiveness showed that better trees and higher bootstrap percentages probably remain to be discovered even …