Browsing FAS Scholarly Articles by Keyword "Evolutionary Biology"
Now showing items 21-40 of 50
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Genetic Diversity in the Interference Selection Limit
(Public Library of Science, 2014)Pervasive natural selection can strongly influence observed patterns of genetic variation, but these effects remain poorly understood when multiple selected variants segregate in nearby regions of the genome. Classical ... -
Genetic Surveillance Detects Both Clonal and Epidemic Transmission of Malaria following Enhanced Intervention in Senegal
(Public Library of Science, 2013)Using parasite genotyping tools, we screened patients with mild uncomplicated malaria seeking treatment at a clinic in Thiès, Senegal, from 2006 to 2011. We identified a growing frequency of infections caused by genetically ... -
Genome Features of “Dark-Fly”, a Drosophila Line Reared Long-Term in a Dark Environment
(Public Library of Science, 2012)Organisms are remarkably adapted to diverse environments by specialized metabolisms, morphology, or behaviors. To address the molecular mechanisms underlying environmental adaptation, we have utilized a Drosophila melanogaster ... -
Genomic Variation and Its Impact on Gene Expression in Drosophila Melanogaster
(Public Library of Science, 2012)Understanding the relationship between genetic and phenotypic variation is one of the great outstanding challenges in biology. To meet this challenge, comprehensive genomic variation maps of human as well as of model ... -
Indirect Evolution of Hybrid Lethality due to Linkage with Selected Locus in Mimulus guttatus
(Public Library of Science, 2013)Most species are superbly and intricately adapted to the environments in which they live. Adaptive evolution by natural selection is the primary force shaping biological diversity. Differences between closely related species ... -
Inferring Predator Behavior from Attack Rates on Prey-Replicas That Differ in Conspicuousness
(Public Library of Science, 2012)Behavioral ecologists and evolutionary biologists have long studied how predators respond to prey items novel in color and pattern. Because a predatory response is influenced by both the predator’s ability to detect the ... -
Influenza A H1N1 Pandemic Strain Evolution – Divergence and the Potential for Antigenic Drift Variants
(Public Library of Science, 2014)The emergence of a novel A(H1N1) strain in 2009 was the first influenza pandemic of the genomic age, and unprecedented surveillance of the virus provides the opportunity to better understand the evolution of influenza. We ... -
Loss and Recovery of Genetic Diversity in Adapting Populations of HIV
(Public Library of Science, 2014)The evolution of drug resistance in HIV occurs by the fixation of specific, well-known, drug-resistance mutations, but the underlying population genetic processes are not well understood. By analyzing within-patient ... -
Massive Mitochondrial Gene Transfer in a Parasitic Flowering Plant Clade
(Public Library of Science, 2013)Recent studies have suggested that plant genomes have undergone potentially rampant horizontal gene transfer (HGT), especially in the mitochondrial genome. Parasitic plants have provided the strongest evidence of HGT, which ... -
Molecular and Paleontological Evidence for a Post-Cretaceous Origin of Rodents
(Public Library of Science, 2012)The timing of the origin and diversification of rodents remains controversial, due to conflicting results from molecular clocks and paleontological data. The fossil record tends to support an early Cenozoic origin of ... -
Multigene Molecular Phylogeny and Biogeographic Diversification of the Earth Tongue Fungi in the Genera Cudonia and Spathularia (Rhytismatales, Ascomycota)
(Public Library of Science, 2014)The family Cudoniaceae (Rhytismatales, Ascomycota) was erected to accommodate the “earth tongue fungi” in the genera Cudonia and Spathularia. There have been no recent taxonomic studies of these genera, and the evolutionary ... -
Mutation Induced Extinction in Finite Populations: Lethal Mutagenesis and Lethal Isolation
(Public Library of Science, 2012)Reproduction is inherently risky, in part because genomic replication can introduce new mutations that are usually deleterious toward fitness. This risk is especially severe for organisms whose genomes replicate ... -
A New Species of Skin-Feeding Caecilian and the First Report of Reproductive Mode in Microcaecilia (Amphibia: Gymnophiona: Siphonopidae)
(Public Library of Science, 2013)A new species of siphonopid caecilian, Microcaecilia dermatophaga sp. nov., is described based on nine specimens from French Guiana. The new species is the first new caecilian to be described from French Guiana for more ... -
A New Take on John Maynard Smith's Concept of Protein Space for Understanding Molecular Evolution
(Public Library of Science, 2016)Much of the public lacks a proper understanding of Darwinian evolution, a problem that can be addressed with new learning and teaching approaches to be implemented both inside the classroom and in less formal settings. Few ... -
On the Prospect of Identifying Adaptive Loci in Recently Bottlenecked Populations
(Public Library of Science, 2014)Identifying adaptively important loci in recently bottlenecked populations – be it natural selection acting on a population following the colonization of novel habitats in the wild, or artificial selection during the ... -
Phenotypic Heterogeneity and the Evolution of Bacterial Life Cycles
(Public Library of Science, 2016)Most bacteria live in colonies, where they often express different cell types. The ecological significance of these cell types and their evolutionary origin are often unknown. Here, we study the evolution of cell differentiation ... -
A Phylogenomic Approach to Vertebrate Phylogeny Supports a Turtle-Archosaur Affinity and a Possible Paraphyletic Lissamphibia
(Public Library of Science, 2012)In resolving the vertebrate tree of life, two fundamental questions remain: 1) what is the phylogenetic position of turtles within amniotes, and 2) what are the relationships between the three major lissamphibian (extant ... -
Phylogeny of Elatinaceae and the Tropical Gondwanan Origin of the Centroplacaceae(Malpighiaceae, Elatinaceae) Clade
(Public Library of Science, 2016)The flowering plant family Elatinaceae is a widespread aquatic lineage inhabiting temperate and tropical latitudes, including ∼35(-50) species. Its phylogeny remains largely unknown, compromising our understanding of its ... -
Phylosymbiosis: Relationships and Functional Effects of Microbial Communities across Host Evolutionary History
(Public Library of Science, 2016)Phylosymbiosis was recently proposed to describe the eco-evolutionary pattern, whereby the ecological relatedness of host-associated microbial communities parallels the phylogeny of related host species. Here, we test the ... -
Positively Selected Sites in Cetacean Myoglobins Contribute to Protein Stability
(Public Library of Science, 2013)Since divergence ∼50 Ma ago from their terrestrial ancestors, cetaceans underwent a series of adaptations such as a ∼10–20 fold increase in myoglobin (Mb) concentration in skeletal muscle, critical for increasing oxygen ...