scholarly journals Understanding the Evolution of Nutritive Taste in Animals: Insights from Biological Stoichiometry and Nutritional Geometry

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee M. Demi ◽  
Brad W. Taylor ◽  
Benjamin J. Reading ◽  
Michael G. Tordoff ◽  
Robert R. Dunn

AbstractA major conceptual gap in taste biology is the lack of a general framework for understanding the evolution of different taste modalities among animal species. We turn to two complementary nutritional frameworks, biological stoichiometry theory and nutritional geometry, to develop hypotheses for the evolution of different taste modalities in animals. We describe how the attractive tastes of Na, Ca, P, N and C containing compounds are consistent with principles of both frameworks based on their shared focus on nutritional imbalances and consumer homeostasis. Specifically, we suggest that the evolution of multiple nutritive taste modalities can be predicted by identifying individual elements that are typically more concentrated in the tissues of animals than plants. Additionally, we discuss how consumer homeostasis can inform our understanding of why some taste compounds (i.e., Na, Ca and P salts) can be either attractive or aversive depending on concentration. We also discuss how these complementary frameworks can help to explain the phylogenetic distribution of different taste modalities and improve our understanding of the mechanisms that lead to loss of taste capabilities in some animal lineages. The ideas presented here will stimulate research that bridges the fields of evolutionary biology, sensory biology and ecology.

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Bartoszek

An ongoing debate in evolutionary biology is whether phenotypic change occurs predominantly around the time of speciation or whether it instead accumulates gradually over time. In this work I propose a general framework incorporating both types of change, quantify the effects of speciational change via the correlation between species and attribute the proportion of change to each type. I discuss results of parameter estimation of Hominoid body size in this light. I derive mathematical formulae related to this problem, the probability generating functions of the number of speciation events along a randomly drawn lineage and from the most recent common ancestor of two randomly chosen tip species for a conditioned Yule tree. Additionally I obtain in closed form the variance of the distance from the root to the most recent common ancestor of two randomly chosen tip species.


2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (33) ◽  
pp. 8829-8834 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair G. B. Poore ◽  
Shane T. Ahyong ◽  
James K. Lowry ◽  
Erik E. Sotka

About half of the world’s animal species are arthropods associated with plants, and the ability to consume plant material has been proposed to be an important trait associated with the spectacular diversification of terrestrial insects. We review the phylogenetic distribution of plant feeding in the Crustacea, the other major group of arthropods that commonly consume plants, to estimate how often plant feeding has arisen and to test whether this dietary transition is associated with higher species numbers in extant clades. We present evidence that at least 31 lineages of marine, freshwater, and terrestrial crustaceans (including 64 families and 185 genera) have independently overcome the challenges of consuming plant material. These plant-feeding clades are, on average, 21-fold more speciose than their sister taxa, indicating that a shift in diet is associated with increased net rates of diversification. In contrast to herbivorous insects, most crustaceans have very broad diets, and the increased richness of taxa that include plants in their diet likely results from access to a novel resource base rather than host-associated divergence.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 656-672 ◽  
Author(s):  
THANH HAI NGUYEN ◽  
ENRICO PONTELLI ◽  
TRAN CAO SON

AbstractEvolutionary Biologists have long struggled with the challenge of developing analysis workflows in a flexible manner, thus facilitating the reuse of phylogenetic knowledge. An evolutionary biology workflow can be viewed as a plan which composes web services that can retrieve, manipulate, and produce phylogenetic trees. The Phylotastic project was launched two years ago as a collaboration between evolutionary biologists and computer scientists, with the goal of developing an open architecture to facilitate the creation of such analysis workflows. While composition of web services is a problem that has been extensively explored in the literature, including within the logic programming domain, the incarnation of the problem in Phylotastic provides a number of additional challenges. Along with the need to integrate preferences and formal ontologies in the description of the desired workflow, evolutionary biologists tend to construct workflows in an incremental manner, by successively refining the workflow, by indicating desired changes (e.g., exclusion of certain services, modifications of the desired output). This leads to the need of successive iterations of incremental replanning, to develop a new workflow that integrates the requested changes while minimizing the changes to the original workflow. This paper illustrates how Phylotastic has addressed the challenges of creating and refining phylogenetic analysis workflows using logic programming technology and how such solutions have been used within the general framework of the Phylotastic project.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia Carter ◽  
Bruno Swinderen ◽  
David Leopold ◽  
Shaun Collin ◽  
Alex Maier

Author(s):  
A. Trillo

There are conflicting reports regarding some fine structural details of arteries from several animal species. Buck denied the existence of a sub-endothelial space, while Karrer and Keech described a space of variable width which separates the endothelium from the underlying internal elastic lamina in aortas of aging rats and mice respectively.The present communication deals with the ultrastrueture of the interface between the endothelial cell layer and the internal elastic lamina as observed in carotid arteries from rabbits of varying ages.


Author(s):  
W. Kuenzig ◽  
M. Boublik ◽  
J.J. Kamm ◽  
J.J. Burns

Unlike a variety of other animal species, such as the rabbit, mouse or rat, the guinea pig has a relatively long gestation period and is a more fully developed animal at birth. Kuenzig et al. reported that drug metabolic activity which increases very slowly during fetal life, increases rapidly after birth. Hepatocytes of a 3-day old neonate metabolize drugs and reduce cytochrome P-450 at a rate comparable to that observed in the adult animal. Moreover the administration of drugs like phenobarbital to pregnant guinea pigs increases the microsomal mixed function oxidase activity already in the fetus.Drug metabolic activity is, generally, localized within the smooth endoplasmic reticulum (SER) of the hepatocyte.


Author(s):  
Alfredo Feria-Velasco ◽  
Guadalupe Tapia-Arizmendi

The fine structure of the Harderian gland has been described in some animal species (hamster, rabbit, mouse, domestic fowl and albino rats). There are only two reports in the literature dealing on the ultrastructure of rat Harderian gland in adult animals. In one of them the author describes the myoepithelial cells in methacrylate-embbeded tissue, and the other deals with the maturation of the acinar cells and the formation of the secretory droplets. The aim of the present work is to analize the relationships among the acinar cell components and to describe the two types of cells located at the perifery of the acini.


2000 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan R. Templeton ◽  
Stephanie D. Maskas ◽  
Mitchell B. Cruzan

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Strelau

This paper presents Pavlov's contribution to the development of biological-oriented personality theories. Taking a short description of Pavlov's typology of central nervous system (CNS) properties as a point of departure, it shows how, and to what extent, this typology influenced further research in the former Soviet Union as well as in the West. Of special significance for the development of biologically oriented personality dimensions was the conditioned reflex paradigm introduced by Pavlov for studying individual differences in dogs. This paradigm was used by Russian psychologists in research on types of nervous systems conducted in different animal species as well as for assessing temperament in children and adults. Also, personality psychologists in the West, such as Eysenck, Spence, and Gray, incorporated the CR paradigm into their theories. Among the basic properties of excitation and inhibition on which Pavlov's typology was based, strength of excitation and the basic indicator of this property, protective inhibition, gained the highest popularity in arousaloriented personality theories. Many studies have been conducted in which the Pavlovian constructs of CNS properties have been related to different personality dimensions. In current research the behavioral expressions of the Pavlovian constructs of strength of excitation, strength of inhibition, and mobility of nervous processes as measured by the Pavlovian Temperament Survey (PTS) have been related to over a dozen of personality dimensions, mostly referring to temperament.


2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 206-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Verónica Sevillano ◽  
Susan T. Fiske

Abstract. Nonhuman animals are typically excluded from the scope of social psychology. This article presents animals as social objects – targets of human social responses – overviewing the similarities and differences with human targets. The focus here is on perceiving animal species as social groups. Reflecting the two fundamental dimensions of humans’ social cognition – perceived warmth (benign or ill intent) and competence (high or low ability), proposed within the Stereotype Content Model ( Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002 ) – animal stereotypes are identified, together with associated prejudices and behavioral tendencies. In line with human intergroup threats, both realistic and symbolic threats associated with animals are reviewed. As a whole, animals appear to be social perception targets within the human sphere of influence and a valid topic for research.


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