scholarly journals Integration of ethnobotany and population genetics uncovers the agrobiodiversity of date palms of Siwa Oasis (Egypt) and their importance to the evolutionary history of the species

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muriel Gros-Balthazard ◽  
Vincent Battesti ◽  
Sarah Ivorra ◽  
Laure Paradis ◽  
Frédérique Aberlenc ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Population Genetics ◽  
Time Scale ◽  
Date Palm ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Diversity Management ◽  
Short Time Scale ◽  
North African ◽  
Date Palms ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

AbstractCrop diversity is shaped by biological and social processes interacting at different spatiotemporal scales. Here we combined population genetics and ethnobotany to investigate date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) diversity in Siwa Oasis, Egypt. Based on interviews with farmers and observation of practices in the field, we collected 149 date palms from Siwa Oasis and 27 uncultivated date palms from abandoned oases in the surrounding desert. Using genotyping data from 18 nuclear and plastid microsatellite loci, we confirmed that some named types each constitute a clonal line, i.e. a true-to-type cultivar. We also found that others are collections of clonal lines, i.e. ethnovarieties, or even unrelated samples, i.e. local categories. This alters current assessments of agrobiodiversity, which are visibly underestimated, and uncovers the impact of low-intensity, but highly effective, farming practices on biodiversity. These hardly observable practices, hypothesized by ethnographic survey and confirmed by genetic analysis, are enabled by the way Isiwans conceive and classify living beings in their oasis, which do not quite match the way biologists do: a classic disparity of etic vs. emic categorizations. In addition, we established that Siwa date palms represent a unique and highly diverse genetic cluster, rather than a subset of North African and Middle Eastern palm diversity. As previously shown, North African date palms display evidence of introgression by the wild relative Phoenix theophrasti, and we found that the uncultivated date palms from the abandoned oases share even more alleles with this species than cultivated palms in this region. The study of Siwa date palms could hence be a key to the understanding of date palm diversification in North Africa. Integration of ethnography and population genetics promoted the understanding of the interplay between diversity management in the oasis (short-time scale), and the origins and dynamic of diversity through domestication and diversification (long-time scale).

scholarly journals Archaeogenomics of a ~2,100-year-old Egyptian leaf provides a new timestamp on date palm domestication

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar A. Pérez-Escobar ◽  
Sidonie Bellot ◽  
Muriel Gros-Balthazard ◽  
Jonathan M. Flowers ◽  
Mark Nesbitt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gene Flow ◽  
Date Palm ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Phoenix Dactylifera ◽  
List Type ◽  
North African ◽  
Date Palms ◽  
Genomic Studies ◽  
African Agriculture ◽  
The Persian Gulf

AbstractThe date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) has been a cornerstone of Middle Eastern and North African agriculture for millennia. It is presumed that date palms were first domesticated in the Persian Gulf and subsequently introduced into North Africa, where their evolution in the latter region appears to have been influenced by gene flow from the wild relative P. theophrasti, which is restricted to Crete and Turkey. However, the timing of gene flow from P. theophrasti to P. dactylifera remains unknown due to the limited archaeobotanical evidence of P. theophrasti and their exclusion from population genomic studies.We addressed this issue by investigating the relatedness and ancestry of a ~2,100-year-old P. dactylifera leaf from Saqqara (Egypt), combining genome sequencing of this ancient specimen with a broad sample of date palm cultivars and closely related species.The ancient Saqqara date palm shares close genetic ancestry with North African date palm populations. We find clear genomic admixture between the Saqqara date palm, P. theophrasti and the closest known relative P. sylvestris.Our study highlights that gene flow from P. theophrasti and P. sylvestris to North African date palms had already occurred at least ~2,100 years ago, providing a minimum timestamp for hybridisation between species.

The impact of demographic factors on the way lesbian and gay employees manage their sexual orientation at work

2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (9) ◽  
pp. 992-1015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Köllen
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
Demographic Factors ◽  
Diversity Management ◽  
Coping Resources ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence demographic factors have on the way lesbians and gay men manage their sexual orientation at work. Design/methodology/approach – Based on data taken from a cross-sectional survey of 1,308 gay and lesbian employees working in Germany, four regression models are proposed. The means of handling one’s homosexuality at work was measured by the 31 items containing Workplace Sexual Identity Management Measure from Anderson et al. (2001). Findings – Results indicate that being in a relationship is related to increased openness about one’s homosexuality at work. Furthermore, it appears that the older and the more religious lesbian and gay employees are, the more open (and therefore less hidden) about their sexuality they are. Having a migratory background is related to being more guarded about one’s sexual orientation, whereas personal mobility within the country is not related to the way one manages one’s sexual orientation at work. Lesbians tend to be a little more open and less guarded about their homosexuality compared to gay men. Research limitations/implications – The focus of this research (and the related limitations) offers several starting and connecting points for more intersectional research on workforce diversity and diversity management. Practical implications – The study’s findings indicate the need for an intersectional approach to organizational diversity management strategies. Exemplified by the dimension “sexual orientation”, it can be shown that the impact each dimension has for an employee’s everyday workplace experiences and behavior in terms of a certain manifestation of one dimension of diversity can only be understood in terms of its interplay with other dimensions of diversity. Originality/value – It is shown that manifestations of demographic factors that tend to broaden the individual’s coping resources for stigma-relevant stressors lead to more openness about one’s homosexuality in the workplace.

scholarly journals Numerical modelling of microburst with Large-Eddy Simulation

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 24345-24370
Author(s):  
V. Anabor ◽  
U. Rizza ◽  
G. A. Degrazia ◽  
E. de Lima Nascimento
Keyword(s):  
Large Eddy Simulation ◽  
Time Scale ◽  
Doppler Radar ◽  
Leading Edge ◽  
Ring Vortex ◽  
Short Time Scale ◽  
Eddy Simulation ◽  
Cloud Models ◽  
Large Eddy ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. An isolated and stationary microburst is simulated using a 3-D time-dependent, high resolution Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) model. The microburst downdraft is initiated by specifying a simplified cooling source at the top of the domain near 2 km. The modelled time scale for this damaging wind (30 m/s) is of order of few min with a spatial scale enclosing a region with 500 m radius around the impact point. These features are comparable with results obtained from full-cloud models. The simulated flow shows the principal features observed by Doppler radar and others observational full-scale downburst events. In particular are observed the expansion of the primary and secondary cores, the presence of the ring vortex at the leading edge of the cool outflow, and finally an accelerating outburst of surface winds. This result evidences the capability of LES to reproduce complexes phenomena like a Microburst and indicates the potential of LES for utilization in atmospheric phenomena situated below the storm scale and above the microscale, which generally involves high velocities in a short time scale.

scholarly journals Mechanistic modelling of COVID-19 and the impact of lockdowns on a short-time scale

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. e0258084
Author(s):  
Danish A. Ahmed ◽  
Ali R. Ansari ◽  
Mudassar Imran ◽  
Kamal Dingle ◽  
Michael B. Bonsall
Keyword(s):  
Time Scale ◽  
Population Distribution ◽  
Contact Process ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
Service Industries ◽  
Spatial Proximity ◽  
Short Time Scale ◽  
Susceptible Host ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The Impact

Background To mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, some countries have adopted more stringent non-pharmaceutical interventions in contrast to those widely used. In addition to standard practices such as enforcing curfews, social distancing, and closure of non-essential service industries, other non-conventional policies also have been implemented, such as the total lockdown of fragmented regions, which are composed of sparsely and highly populated areas. Methods In this paper, we model the movement of a host population using a mechanistic approach based on random walks, which are either diffusive or super-diffusive. Infections are realised through a contact process, whereby a susceptible host is infected if in close spatial proximity of the infectious host with an assigned transmission probability. Our focus is on a short-time scale (∼ 3 days), which is the average time lag time before an infected individual becomes infectious. Results We find that the level of infection remains approximately constant with an increase in population diffusion, and also in the case of faster population dispersal (super-diffusion). Moreover, we demonstrate how the efficacy of imposing a lockdown depends heavily on how susceptible and infectious individuals are distributed over space. Conclusion Our results indicate that on a short-time scale, the type of movement behaviour does not play an important role in rising infection levels. Also, lock-down restrictions are ineffective if the population distribution is homogeneous. However, in the case of a heterogeneous population, lockdowns are effective if a large proportion of infectious carriers are distributed in sparsely populated sub-regions.

scholarly journals Phages associated with horses provide new insights into the dominance of lateral gene transfer in virulent bacteriophages evolution in natural systems

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
V.V. Babenko ◽  
A.K. Golomidova ◽  
P.A. Ivanov ◽  
M.A. Letarova ◽  
E.E. Kulikov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Scale ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Point Mutations ◽  
Major Effect ◽  
Model Systems ◽  
Laboratory Model ◽  
Short Time Scale ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The Impact

AbstractTailed bacteriophages (Caudovirales order) are omnipresent on our planet. Their impressive ecological and evolutionary success largely relies on the bacteriophage potential to adapt to great variety of the environmental conditions found in the Biosphere. It is believed that the adaptation of bacteriophages, including short time scale adaptation, is achieved almost exclusively via the (micro)evolution processes. In order to analyze the major mechanisms driving adaptation of phage genomes in a natural habitat we used comparative genomics of G7C-like coliphage isolates obtained during 7 years period from the feces of the horses belonging to a local population. The data suggest that even at this relatively short time scale the impact of various recombination events overwhelms the impact of the accumulation of point mutations. The access to the large pool of the genes of a complex microbial and viral community of the animal gut had major effect on the evolutionary trajectories of these phages. Thus the “real world” bacteriophage evolution mechanisms may differ significantly from those observed in the simplified laboratory model systems.

Short-Time-Scale Thermal Mapping of Microdevices Using a Scanning Thermoreflectance Technique

1998 ◽  
Vol 120 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. S. Ju ◽  
K. E. Goodson
Keyword(s):  
Temperature Distribution ◽  
Time Scale ◽  
Silicon On Insulator ◽  
Temperature Fields ◽  
Scanning Laser ◽  
Transient Temperature ◽  
Drift Region ◽  
Short Time Scale ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The Impact

The performance and reliability of microdevices can be strongly influenced by the peak temperature rise and spatial temperature distribution during brief electrical overstress (EOS) phenomena, which can occur at sub-microsecond time scales. The present study investigates short-time-scale laser reflectance thermometry of micro devices by examining the impact of passivation overlayers on the thermoreflectance signal and by demonstrating a calibration method suitable for metallization. This manuscript also describes a scanning laser thermometry facility that captures temperature fields in microdevices with 10 ns temporal resolution and 1 μm spatial resolution. The facility combines scanning laser optics with electrical stressing capability to allow simultaneous interrogation of the thermal and electrical behavior of devices. Data show the transient temperature distribution along the drift region of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) power transistors and along metal interconnects subjected to brief electrical stresses. The theory and experimental capability developed in this study are useful for studying short-time-scale thermal phenomena in microdevices and verifying models employed for their simulation.

scholarly journals Cross-species hybridization and the origin of North African date palms

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (5) ◽  
pp. 1651-1658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan M. Flowers ◽  
Khaled M. Hazzouri ◽  
Muriel Gros-Balthazard ◽  
Ziyi Mo ◽  
Konstantina Koutroumpa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Date Palm ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Introgressive Hybridization ◽  
Nucleotide Polymorphisms ◽  
North African ◽  
Mixed Ancestry ◽  
History Of

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is a major fruit crop of arid regions that were domesticated ∼7,000 y ago in the Near or Middle East. This species is cultivated widely in the Middle East and North Africa, and previous population genetic studies have shown genetic differentiation between these regions. We investigated the evolutionary history of P. dactylifera and its wild relatives by resequencing the genomes of date palm varieties and five of its closest relatives. Our results indicate that the North African population has mixed ancestry with components from Middle Eastern P. dactylifera and Phoenix theophrasti, a wild relative endemic to the Eastern Mediterranean. Introgressive hybridization is supported by tests of admixture, reduced subdivision between North African date palm and P. theophrasti, sharing of haplotypes in introgressed regions, and a population model that incorporates gene flow between these populations. Analysis of ancestry proportions indicates that as much as 18% of the genome of North African varieties can be traced to P. theophrasti and a large percentage of loci in this population are segregating for single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are fixed in P. theophrasti and absent from date palm in the Middle East. We present a survey of Phoenix remains in the archaeobotanical record which supports a late arrival of date palm to North Africa. Our results suggest that hybridization with P. theophrasti was of central importance in the diversification history of the cultivated date palm.

Optimism in Times of Crisis

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Germano
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
North African ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Developing Regions ◽  
National Economic ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Impact

Using a variety of survey datasets, this chapter explores the impact of remittances in fifty Latin American, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, North African, and sub-Saharan African countries. The first part of this chapter provides an overview of trends in the flow of migrants and remittances throughout these developing regions. The remainder of the chapter uses survey data to analyze the effects of remittances on economic grievances during the global food and financial crises that struck many economies between 2008 and 2011. The results indicate that remittances are strongly associated with feelings of economic security and optimism. Remittance recipients are less likely to describe their personal economic circumstances or national economic conditions negatively. They are furthermore less likely to predict that their personal economic circumstances or the national economic conditions will deteriorate in the future.

Iranian Jews and Israel

2018 ◽  
pp. 63-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lior B. Sternfeld
Keyword(s):  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Jewish Intellectual ◽  
Indigenous Movement ◽  
Global Movement ◽  
Local Movement ◽  
Intellectual Elites ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines the roots and effects of Zionism in Iran. It analyzes Zionism first as an indigenous movement that emerged in Iran as a response to the needs of Iranian Jews (with relation to the global movement of Zionism) and transformed itself as the needs of Iranian Jews changed in the course of the century. After 1948 and the establishment of Israel, Zionism could no longer be taken as a local movement alone. The contact with Israel and Israeli emissaries and the impact of state-sponsored Zionist activities ignited a new set of emotions and means of identification with or antagonism to Zionism, as well as a whole range of reactions in between. This chapter examines the way Israel dealt with the case of Iranian Jews, which was atypical compared with other Middle Eastern communities. In addition, this chapter examines the responses to Zionism among the non-Jewish intellectual elites in Iran.

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