Molecular systematics of marine gregarine apicomplexans from Pacific tunicates, with descriptions of five novel species of Lankesteria

The eugregarines are a group of apicomplexan parasites that mostly infect the intestines of invertebrates. The high level of morphological variation found within and among species of eugregarines makes it difficult to find consistent and reliable traits that unite even closely related lineages. Based mostly on traits observed with light microscopy, the majority of described eugregarines from marine invertebrates has been classified into a single group, the Lecudinidae. Our understanding of the overall diversity and phylogenetic relationships of lecudinids is very poor, mainly because only a modest amount of exploratory research has been done on the group and very few species of lecudinids have been characterized at the molecular phylogenetic level. In an attempt to understand the diversity of marine gregarines better, we surveyed lecudinids that infect the intestines of Pacific ascidians (i.e. sea squirts) using ultrastructural and molecular phylogenetic approaches; currently, these species fall within one genus, Lankesteria. We collected lecudinid gregarines from six ascidian host species, and our data demonstrated that each host was infected by a different species of Lankesteria: (i) Lankesteria hesperidiiformis sp. nov., isolated from Distaplia occidentalis, (ii) Lankesteria metandrocarpae sp. nov., isolated from Metandrocarpa taylori, (iii) Lankesteria halocynthiae sp. nov., isolated from Halocynthia aurantium, (iv) Lankesteria herdmaniae sp. nov., isolated from Herdmania momus, (v) Lankesteria cf. ritterellae, isolated from Ritterella rubra, and (vi) Lankesteria didemni sp. nov., isolated from Didemnum vexillum. Visualization of the trophozoites with scanning electron microscopy showed that four of these species were covered with epicytic folds, whereas two of the species were covered with a dense pattern of epicytic knobs. The molecular phylogenetic data suggested that species of Lankesteria with surface knobs form a clade that is nested within a paraphyletic assemblage species of Lankesteria with epicytic folds.

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The Role of Botanical Families in Medicinal Ethnobotany: A Phylogenetic Perspective

Plants ◽

10.3390/plants10010163 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 163

Author(s):

Airy Gras ◽

Oriane Hidalgo ◽

Ugo D’Ambrosio ◽

Montse Parada ◽

Teresa Garnatje ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Diversity Indices ◽

Specific Level ◽

Medicinal Uses ◽

The Family ◽

Family Level ◽

Phylogenetic Level ◽

Molecular Phylogenetic ◽

Quantitative Analyses ◽

Medicinal Flora

Studies suggesting that medicinal plants are not chosen at random are becoming more common. The goal of this work is to shed light on the role of botanical families in ethnobotany, depicting in a molecular phylogenetic frame the relationships between families and medicinal uses of vascular plants in several Catalan-speaking territories. The simple quantitative analyses for ailments categories and the construction of families and disorders matrix were carried out in this study. A Bayesian approach was used to estimate the over- and underused families in the medicinal flora. Phylogenetically informed analyses were carried out to identify lineages in which there is an overrepresentation of families in a given category of use, i.e., hot nodes. The ethnobotanicity index, at a specific level, was calculated and also adapted to the family level. Two diversity indices to measure the richness of reported taxa within each family were calculated. A total of 47,630 use reports were analysed. These uses are grouped in 120 botanical families. The ethnobotanicity index for this area is 14.44% and the ethnobotanicity index at the family level is 68.21%. The most-reported families are Lamiaceae and Asteraceae and the most reported troubles are disorders of the digestive and nutritional system. Based on the meta-analytic results, indicating hot nodes of useful plants at the phylogenetic level, specific ethnopharmacological research may be suggested, including a phytochemical approach of particularly interesting taxa.

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The Most Effective Strategies and Approaches Towards Emerging Trends in Digital Marketing in India (With Special Reference to Bhopal Region)

COMMERCE TODAY ◽

10.29320/jnpgct.13.1.1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 13 (01) ◽

Author(s):

Kaustubh Jain ◽

Jinendra Kumar Jain

Keyword(s):

Digital Marketing ◽

Exploratory Research ◽

Indian Market ◽

Effective Strategies ◽

Emerging Trends ◽

Wide Range ◽

Current Scenario ◽

Marketing Activities ◽

High Level ◽

Digital Channels

The massive Indian market is changing fast. The pace of change is rapid with digital channels and constantly growing with volume and strength perpetually. Digital Marketing is really the High buzz in current scenario. It is one of those sectors in the marketing industry which is considered to be an experience an exponential growth due to this it makes studying about digital really interesting. At a high level, digital marketing refers to advertising of brands delivered through Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, mobile applications, website sales, social media, various e-mails to connect with current and prospective customers digitally. The term digital covers a wide range of marketing activities in current era, all of which are still not universally agreed upon, the current research focuses on the most common types of research which is known as exploratory research towards Digital Marketing in India. This issue raised is rarely been addressed by the academicians and researchers in Bhopal. The study used digital marketing parameters to measure the awareness and effectiveness of digital marketing among marketing professionals in Bhopal.

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What is a Wood-Warbler? Molecular Characterization of a Monophyletic Parulidae

The Auk ◽

10.1093/auk/119.3.695 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 119 (3) ◽

pp. 695-714 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

I. J. Lovette ◽

E. Bermingham

Keyword(s):

Dna Sequences ◽

Nuclear Dna ◽

Morphological Characters ◽

High Rate ◽

Nucleotide Substitutions ◽

Wood Warbler ◽

Wood Warblers ◽

Phylogenetic Level ◽

Molecular Phylogenetic

AbstractThe wood-warblers (family Parulidae) fall within a radiation of passerine birds commonly known as the New World nine-primaried oscines. Defining familial relationships within that radiation has previously been challenging because of its extremely high diversity, a paucity of phylogenetically informative morphological characters, and an apparent high rate of cladogenesis early in the radiation's history. Here, analyses of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences demonstrate that the 25 extant genera traditionally placed in the Parulidae do not form a monophyletic group. Instead, all reconstructions identify a well-resolved clade of 19 genera (Vermivora, Parula, Dendroica, Catharopeza, Mniotilta, Setophaga, Protonotaria, Helmitheros, Limnothlypis, Seiurus, Oporornis, Geothlypis, Wilsonia, Cardellina, Ergaticus, Myioborus, Euthlypis, Basileuterus, and Phaeothlypis) that are all morphologically typical wood-warblers traditionally placed in the Parulidae. Six genera traditionally assigned to the Parulidae—Microligea, Teretistris, Zeledonia, Icteria, Granatellus, and Xenoligea—fall outside this highly supported clade in all mtDNA-based and nuclear DNA-based reconstructions, and each is probably more closely allied to taxa traditionally placed in other nine-primaried oscine families. The long, well-supported, and independently confirmed internode at the base of this wood-warbler clade provides the opportunity to define a monophyletic Parulidae using several complementary molecular phylogenetic criteria. Support for those relationships comes from reconstructions based on a range of nucleotide-intensive (from 894 to 3,638 nucleotides per taxon) and taxon-intensive (45 to 128 species) analyses of mtDNA sequences, as well as independent reconstructions based on nucleotide substitutions in the nuclear-encoded c-mos gene. Furthermore, the 19 typical wood-warbler genera share a synapomorphic one-codon c-mos deletion not found in other passerines. At a slightly deeper phylogenetic level, our mtDNA-based reconstructions are consistent with previous morphologic and genetic studies in suggesting that many nine-primaried oscine taxa have unanticipated affinities, that many lineages arose during an early and explosive period of cladogenesis, and that the generation of a robust nine-primaried oscine phylogeny will require robust taxonomic sampling and extensive phylogenetic information.

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High potential for formation and persistence of chimeras following aggregated larval settlement in the broadcast spawning coral, Acropora millepora

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2011.1035 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 279 (1729) ◽

pp. 699-708 ◽

Cited By ~ 33

Author(s):

E. Puill-Stephan ◽

M. J. H. van Oppen ◽

K. Pichavant-Rafini ◽

B. L. Willis

Keyword(s):

Marine Invertebrates ◽

Larval Settlement ◽

Early Life History ◽

Experimental Conditions ◽

Broadcast Spawning ◽

Acropora Millepora ◽

Reef Corals ◽

Life History Stages ◽

Potential Benefits ◽

High Level

In sessile modular marine invertebrates, chimeras can originate from fusions of closely settling larvae or of colonies that come into contact through growth or movement. While it has been shown that juveniles of brooding corals fuse under experimental conditions, chimera formation in broadcast spawning corals, the most abundant group of reef corals, has not been examined. This study explores the capacity of the broadcast spawning coral Acropora millepora to form chimeras under experimental conditions and to persist as chimeras in the field. Under experimental conditions, 1.5-fold more larvae settled in aggregations than solitarily, and analyses of nine microsatellite loci revealed that 50 per cent of juveniles tested harboured different genotypes within the same colony. Significantly, some chimeric colonies persisted for 23 months post-settlement, when the study ended. Genotypes within persisting chimeric colonies all showed a high level of relatedness, whereas rejecting colonies displayed variable levels of relatedness. The nearly threefold greater sizes of chimeras compared with solitary juveniles, from settlement through to at least three months, suggest that chimerism is likely to be an important strategy for maximizing survival of vulnerable early life-history stages of corals, although longer-term studies are required to more fully explore the potential benefits of chimerism.

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A Virtual Reality Memory Palace Variant Aids Knowledge Retrieval from Scholarly Articles

10.31219/osf.io/259zy ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Fumeng Yang

Keyword(s):

Virtual Reality ◽

Recognition Performance ◽

Cognitive Tasks ◽

Exploratory Research ◽

Scientific Publications ◽

Mnemonic Devices ◽

Individual Memory ◽

Memory Palace ◽

Amount Of Knowledge ◽

High Level

We present exploratory research of virtual reality techniques and mnemonic devices to assist in retrieving knowledge from scholarly articles. We used abstracts of scientific publications to represent knowledge in scholarly articles; participants were asked to read, remember, and retrieve knowledge from a set of abstracts. We conducted an experiment to compare participants’ recall and recognition performance in three different conditions: a control condition without a pre-specified strategy to test baseline individual memory ability, a condition using an image-based variant of a mnemonic called a “memory palace,” and a condition using a virtual reality-based variant of a memory palace. Our analyses show that using a virtual reality-based memory palace variant greatly increased the amount of knowledge retrieved and retained over the baseline, and it shows a moderate improvement over the other image-based memory palace variant. Anecdotal feedback from participants suggested that personalizing a memory palace variant would be appreciated. Our results support the value of virtual reality for some high-level cognitive tasks and help improve future applications of virtual reality and visualization.

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Further polyphyly of pinnotheroid crabs: the molecular phylogenetic position of the polychaete-associated Aphanodactylidae

Invertebrate Systematics ◽

10.1071/is17038 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 32 (1) ◽

pp. 92 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Ling Ming Tsang ◽

Shane T. Ahyong ◽

Hsi-Te Shih ◽

Peter K. L. Ng

Keyword(s):

Marine Invertebrates ◽

Histone H3 ◽

Molecular Data ◽

Phylogenetic Position ◽

Monophyletic Origin ◽

The Family ◽

Molecular Phylogenetic ◽

Nuclear Histone ◽

Similar Body ◽

High Degree

Pea crabs of the superfamily Pinnotheroidea De Haan, 1833 are known for their obligate commensal relationships with other marine invertebrates. The concomitant specialisations and adaptations of pinnotheroids have resulted in superficially similar body forms that include a high degree of structural reduction. This has confounded interpretation of their phylogenetic position in the Brachyura and interrelationships within Pinnotheroidea, though all were nevertheless believed to be united by a monophyletic origin of obligate commensalism. The family Aphanodactylidae Ahyong & Ng, 2009 was proposed for a group of genera associated with tube-dwelling polychaetes formerly classified in Pinnotheridae, and provisionally retained in the Pinnotheroidea. We investigated the phylogenetic position of Aphanodactylidae using molecular data from three markers (mitochondrial 12S and 16S rRNAs, and nuclear histone H3) covering five of the 12 described aphanodactylid species and a total of 15 thoracotreme families. We found Aphanodactylidae to be monophyletic, but widely distant from Pinnotheridae and instead most closely related to Macrophthalmidae (Ocypodoidea) and Varunidae (Grapsoidea). Therefore, the family Aphanodactylidae is corroborated, but its placement in Pinnotheroidea is rejected. Instead, the phylogenetic position of Aphanodactylidae, as clearly distant from other pinnotheroids, demonstrates that obligate commensalism has evolved independently multiple times within Thoracotremata.

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Measuring Smart Building Readiness Index: A Case Study of Bandung City

Jurnal Manajemen Indonesia ◽

10.25124/jmi.v20i2.3201 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (2) ◽

pp. 133

Author(s):

Indrawati . ◽

Angdini Nurillaily ◽

Husni Amani ◽

S. K. B. Pillai

Keyword(s):

Energy Consumption ◽

Smart City ◽

Smart Cities ◽

Exploratory Research ◽

Smart Buildings ◽

Smart Building ◽

The Public ◽

Developing Cities ◽

High Level

Government and private players started focusing on developing cities in to smart cities due to increased level of urbanization in most of the countries around the world, including in Indonesia, by focusing on developing new smart buildings and upgrading old ones. Present paper tried to find out the Smart Building Readiness Index (SBRI) of Bandung City for knowing the level of awareness among the general public based on an exploratory research, the result of which enables the authorities to take strategic initiatives for improving the smart buildings and then to smart city status. Required data was collected by conducting in-depth interviews with 30 respondents and the result of the qualitative data revealed that Bandung’s SBRI comes to only 64.39, which is not a good indicator but within the limits of fairness and needs lot of improvement in future. The result also can be considered as an indicator that annual energy consumption in Bandung city is still at a high level and needs to focus on improving the quality of buildings in and around Bandung city for the purpose of overall reduction in energy consumption and improvement in quality of environment as well as quality of life. Respondents are also not fully aware of the smart building concept. Much needs to be done for making the public aware of the concept of smart building and its usefulness along with strategically developing smart buildings so that in future Bandung city transforms into a smart city with smart buildings. Keywords— Smart City; Smart Building Readiness Index; Bandung.

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AN EXPLORATION INTO THE CREATION OF ‘PRIVATELY OWNED PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE SPACES’ IN TORONTO, ONTARIO

10.32920/ryerson.14652600 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Claire Ricker

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Critical Review ◽

Growth And Development ◽

Open Space ◽

Exploratory Research ◽

Public And Private ◽

The Public ◽

The Creation ◽

High Level ◽

Privately Owned

An exploratory research investigation into the creation of ‘privately owned publicly accessible spaces’ (POPS) in Toronto, Ontario and a critical review of the process used to secure these spaces and the subsequent agreements made. This paper seeks to answer if land use planners are able to better mediate the use of POPS as a means of providing open space to communities in high-density areas. This report includes the timeline illustrating the development of Toronto’s POPS program followed by a discussion on Toronto’s increase growth and development and the suitability of POPS as a contributing strategy for diminishing new park and open space assets and a high level breakdown of the legal mechanisms currently in place to help facilitate new POP spaces. Interviews with individuals from both the public and private sectors were conducted, which produced a generalized model outlining how POPS in Toronto are secured.

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Molecular phylogeny of clade III nematodes reveals multiple origins of tissue parasitism

Parasitology ◽

10.1017/s0031182007002880 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 134 (10) ◽

pp. 1421-1442 ◽

Cited By ~ 101

Author(s):

S. A. NADLER ◽

R. A. CARRENO ◽

H. MEJÍA-MADRID ◽

J. ULLBERG ◽

C. PAGAN ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Posterior Probability ◽

Phylogenetic Analyses ◽

Multiple Alignment ◽

Multiple Origins ◽

Host Habitat ◽

Molecular Phylogenetic ◽

Taxonomic Groups ◽

High Level ◽

Inference Methods ◽

Alignment Ambiguity

SUMMARYMolecular phylogenetic analyses of 113 taxa representing Ascaridida, Rhigonematida, Spirurida and Oxyurida were used to infer a more comprehensive phylogenetic hypothesis for representatives of ‘clade III’. The posterior probability of multiple alignment sites was used to exclude or weight characters, yielding datasets that were analysed using maximum parsimony, likelihood, and Bayesian inference methods. Phylogenetic results were robust to differences among inference methods for most high-level taxonomic groups, but some clades were sensitive to treatments of characters reflecting differences in alignment ambiguity. Taxa representing Camallanoidea, Oxyurida, Physalopteroidea, Raphidascarididae, and Skrjabillanidae were monophyletic in all 9 analyses whereas Ascaridida, Ascarididae, Anisakidae, Cosmocercoidea, Habronematoidea, Heterocheilidae, Philometridae, Rhigonematida and Thelazioidea were never monophyletic. Some clades recovered in all trees such as Dracunculoidea and Spirurina included the vast majority of their sampled species, but were non-monophyletic due to the consistent behaviour of one or few ‘rogue’ taxa. Similarly, 102 of 103 clade III taxa were strongly supported as monophyletic, yet clade III was paraphyletic due to the grouping of Truttaedacnitis truttae with the outgroups. Mapping of host ‘habitat’ revealed that tissue-dwelling localization of nematode adults has evolved independently at least 3 times, and relationships among Spirurina and Camallanina often reflected tissue predilection rather than taxonomy.

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Mammal madness: is the mammal tree of life not yet resolved?

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2015.0140 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 371 (1699) ◽

pp. 20150140 ◽

Cited By ~ 115

Author(s):

Nicole M. Foley ◽

Mark S. Springer ◽

Emma C. Teeling

Keyword(s):

Comparative Studies ◽

Common Ancestor ◽

Divergence Time ◽

Tree Of Life ◽

Phylogenetic Studies ◽

Molecular Studies ◽

Molecular Phylogenetic ◽

High Level

Most molecular phylogenetic studies place all placental mammals into four superordinal groups, Laurasiatheria (e.g. dogs, bats, whales), Euarchontoglires (e.g. humans, rodents, colugos), Xenarthra (e.g. armadillos, anteaters) and Afrotheria (e.g. elephants, sea cows, tenrecs), and estimate that these clades last shared a common ancestor 90–110 million years ago. This phylogeny has provided a framework for numerous functional and comparative studies. Despite the high level of congruence among most molecular studies, questions still remain regarding the position and divergence time of the root of placental mammals, and certain ‘hard nodes’ such as the Laurasiatheria polytomy and Paenungulata that seem impossible to resolve. Here, we explore recent consensus and conflict among mammalian phylogenetic studies and explore the reasons for the remaining conflicts. The question of whether the mammal tree of life is or can be ever resolved is also addressed.This article is part of the themed issue ‘Dating species divergences using rocks and clocks’.

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