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Single Lineage (single + lineage)
Selected AbstractsTHE HISTORICAL BIOGEOGRAPHY OF TWO CARIBBEAN BUTTERFLIES (LEPIDOPTERA: HELICONIIDAE) AS INFERRED FROM GENETIC VARIATION AT MULTIPLE LOCIEVOLUTION, Issue 3 2002Neil Davies Abstract Mitochondrial DNA and allozyme variation was examined in populations of two Neotropical butterflies, Heliconius charithonia and Dryas iulia. On the mainland, both species showed evidence of considerable gene flow over huge distances. The island populations, however, revealed significant genetic divergence across some, but not all, ocean passages. Despite the phylogenetic relatedness and broadly similar ecologies of these two butterflies, their intraspecific biogeography clearly differed. Phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial DNA sequences revealed that populations of D. iulia north of St. Vincent are monophyletic and were probably derived from South America. By contrast, the Jamaican subspecies of H. charithonia rendered West Indian H. charithonia polyphyletic with respect to the mainland populations; thus, H. charithonia seems to have colonized the Greater Antilles on at least two separate occasions from Central America. Colonization velocity does not correlate with subsequent levels of gene flow in either species. Even where range expansion seems to have been instantaneous on a geological timescale, significant allele frequency differences at allozyme loci demonstrate that gene flow is severely curtailed across narrow ocean passages. Stochastic extinction, rapid (re)colonization, but low gene flow probably explain why, in the same species, some islands support genetically distinct and nonexpanding populations, while nearby a single lineage is distributed across several islands. Despite the differences, some common biogeographic patterns were evident between these butterflies and other West Indian taxa; such congruence suggests that intraspecific evolution in the West Indies has been somewhat constrained by earth history events, such as changes in sea level. [source] Human evolution at the Matuyama-Brunhes boundaryEVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2004Article first published online: 12 FEB 200, Giorgio Manzi Abstract The cranial morphology of fossil hominids between the end of the Early Pleistocene and the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene provides crucial evidence to understand the distribution in time and space of the genus Homo. This evidence is critical for evaluating the competing models regarding diversity within our genus. The debate focuses on two alternative hypotheses, one basically anagenetic and the other cladogenetic. The first suggests that morphological change is so diffused, slow, and steady that it is meaningless to apply species names to segments of a single lineage. The second is that the morphological variation observed in the fossil record can best be described as a number of distinct species that are not connected in a linear ancestor-descendant sequence. Today much more fossil evidence is available than was in the past to test these alternative hypotheses, as well as intermediate variants. Special attention must be paid to Africa because this is the most probable continental homeland for both the origin of the genus Homo (around 2.5,2 Ma),1 as well as the site, two million or so years later, of the emergence of the species H. sapiens.2 However, the African fossil record is very poorly represented between 1 Ma and 600 ka. Europe furnishes recent discoveries in this time range around the Matuyama-Brunhes chron boundary (780,000 years ago), a period for which, at present, we have no noteworthy fossil evidence in Africa or the Levant. Two penecontemporaneous sources of European fossil evidence, the Ceprano calvaria (Italy)3 and the TD6 fossil assemblage of Atapuerca (Spain)4 are thus of great interest for testing hypotheses about human evolution in the fundamental time span bracketed between the late Early and the Middle Pleistocene. This paper is based on a phenetic approach to cranial variation aimed at reviewing the Early-to-Middle Pleistocene trajectories of human evolution. The focus of the paper is on neither the origin nor the end of the story of the genus Homo, but rather its chronological and phylogenetic core. Elucidation of the evolutionary events that happened around 780 ka during the transition from the Early to Middle Pleistocene is one of the new frontiers for human paleontology, and is critical for understanding the processes that ultimately led to the origin of H. sapiens. [source] PHYLOGENETIC PLACEMENT OF BOTRYOCOCCUS BRAUNII (TREBOUXIOPHYCEAE) AND BOTRYOCOCCUS SUDETICUS ISOLATE UTEX 2629 (CHLOROPHYCEAE),JOURNAL OF PHYCOLOGY, Issue 2 2004Hoda H. Senousy The phylogenetic placement of four isolates of Botryococcus braunii Kützing and of Botryococcus sudeticus Lemmermann isolate UTEX 2629 was investigated using sequences of the nuclear small subunit (18S) rRNA gene. The B. braunii isolates represent the A (two isolates), B, and L chemical races. One isolate of B. braunii (CCAP 807/1; A race) has a group I intron at Escherichia coli position 1046 and isolate UTEX 2629 has group I introns at E. coli positions 516 and 1512. The rRNA sequences were aligned with 53 previously reported rRNA sequences from members of the Chlorophyta, including one reported for B. braunii (Berkeley strain). Phylogenetic trees were constructed using distance, weighted maximum parsimony, and maximum likelihood, and their reliability was estimated using bootstrap analysis for distance and parsimony and Bayesian inference for likelihood. All methods showed, with high bootstrap or credibility support, that the four isolates of B. braunii form a monophyletic group whose closest relatives are in the genus Choricystis in the Trebouxiophyceae, whereas the previously reported B. braunii sequence is from a member of the Chlamydomonadales in the Chlorophyceae and isolate UTEX 2629 is a member of the Sphaeropleales in the Chlorophyceae. Polyphyly of these sequences was confirmed by Kishino-Hasegawa tests on artificial trees in which sequences were moved to a single lineage. [source] Mitochondrial and Wolbachia markers for the sandfly Phlebotomus papatasi: little population differentiation between peridomestic sites and gerbil burrows in Isfahan province, IranMEDICAL AND VETERINARY ENTOMOLOGY, Issue 4 2003P. Parvizi Abstract., In Iran, Phlebotomus papatasi (Scopoli) (Diptera: Psychodidae) is the main vector of Leishmania major Yakimoff & Schokhor (Kinetoplastida: Trypanosomatidae), the causative agent of rural zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis. This sandfly is abundant both in villages and in the burrows of the main reservoir host, the gerbil Rhombomys opimus (Licht.) (Rodentia: Gerbillidae). Populations of P. papatasi were sampled from the edges of villages in Isfahan province, using CDC miniature light traps in peridomestic sites and sticky papers placed at the entrances to gerbil burrows. Single peridomestic sites in two northern provinces were also sampled. Individual sandflies were characterized by PCR amplification and sequencing of fragments of their mitochondrial cytochrome b gene and of the wsp gene of endosymbiotic Wolbachia pipientis Hertig (alpha-Proteobacteria: Rickettsiaceae). The distributions of the haplotypes of these two maternally inherited genes were analysed to assess the population differentiation of P. papatasi, knowledge of which will be needed for planning control measures. For the first time these markers were used to characterize P. papatasi from gerbil burrows, and they indicated the absence not only of sympatric cryptic species but also of any long-term differentiation of lineages in different habitats. A single lineage of cytochrome b haplotypes was found, and both sexes in all populations had a high infection rate of the same A-group strain of Wolbachia (wPap). The distributions of cytochrome b haplotypes were consistent with females dispersing more than males, which has been reported for P. papatasi in other countries. The widespread distribution of wPap suggests that Wolbachia could be used to spread transgenes between populations of P. papatasi in different habitats. [source] Morphological and Molecular Evidence of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungal Associations in Costa Rican Epiphytic Bromeliads,BIOTROPICA, Issue 2 2005Annette R. Rowe ABSTRACT Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi influence the growth, morphology, and fitness of a variety of plant species, but little is known of the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal associations of plant species in forest canopies. Plant species' associations with AM fungi are most often elucidated by examining the roots for fungal structures; however, morphological data may provide a limited resolution on a plant's mycorrhizal status. We combined a traditional staining technique with a molecular marker (the 18S ribosomal gene) to determine whether or not a variety of epiphytic bromeliads form arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal associations. Using these methods we show that the epiphytic bromeliad Vriesea werkleana forms arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal associations with members of the genus Glomus. AM fungal sequences of this plant species formed three distinct clades nested within a larger Glomus clade; two of the clades did not group with any previously sequenced lineage of Glomus. Novel clades may represent novel species. Although Vriesea werkleana is associated with multiple AM fungal species, each individual plant is colonized by a single lineage. The combination of morphological and molecular methods provides a practical approach to the characterization of the mycorrhizal status of epiphytic bromeliads, and perhaps other tropical epiphytes. [source] |