First North African record of a melanistic common genet (Genetta genetta Linnaeus, 1758)

Mammalia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mourad Ahmim ◽  
Hafid Aroudj ◽  
Farouk Aroudj ◽  
Saaid Saidi ◽  
Samir Aroudj
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
North African ◽  
Mammal Species ◽  
Genetta Genetta ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
True Occurrence

Abstract The common genet (Genetta genetta Linnaeus, 1758) is a rare and protected mammal species in Algeria. We report the first melanistic individual of this species ever recorded in North Africa. Such animals have only been recorded in Spain and Portugal so far. It is unclear why melanistic common genets seem to be so rare in its African range. More research is needed to determine the true occurrence of melanistic individuals, and what the evolutionary history of melanism is in common genets.

scholarly journals The evolutionary history of the two karyotypic groups of the common shrew, Sorex araneus, in Poland

Heredity ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 88 (4) ◽  
pp. 235-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Ratkiewicz ◽  
S Fedyk ◽  
A Banaszek ◽  
L Gielly ◽  
W Chȩtnicki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Common Shrew ◽  
Sorex Araneus ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Shrew Sorex Araneus

scholarly journals The evolutionary history of a mammal species with a highly fragmented range: the phylogeography of the European snow vole

2009 ◽  
Vol 279 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Castiglia ◽  
F. Annesi ◽  
B. Kryštufek ◽  
M. G. Filippucci ◽  
G. Amori
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Mammal Species ◽  
History Of

scholarly journals Tribalism Is Human Nature

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 587-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cory J. Clark ◽  
Brittany S. Liu ◽  
Bo M. Winegard ◽  
Peter H. Ditto
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Partisan Bias ◽  
Selective Pressures ◽  
Group Loyalty ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Political Spectrum

Humans evolved in the context of intense intergroup competition, and groups comprised of loyal members more often succeeded than groups comprised of nonloyal members. Therefore, selective pressures have sculpted human minds to be tribal, and group loyalty and concomitant cognitive biases likely exist in all groups. Modern politics is one of the most salient forms of modern coalitional conflict and elicits substantial cognitive biases. The common evolutionary history of liberals and conservatives gives little reason to expect protribe biases to be higher on one side of the political spectrum than the other. This evolutionarily plausible null hypothesis has been supported by recent research. In a recent meta-analysis, liberals and conservatives showed similar levels of partisan bias, and several protribe cognitive tendencies often ascribed to conservatives (e.g., intolerance toward dissimilar other people) were found in similar degrees in liberals. We conclude that tribal bias is a natural and nearly ineradicable feature of human cognition and that no group—not even one’s own—is immune.

scholarly journals The evolutionary history of haptophytes and cryptophytes: phylogenomic evidence for separate origins

2012 ◽  
Vol 279 (1736) ◽  
pp. 2246-2254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabien Burki ◽  
Noriko Okamoto ◽  
Jean-François Pombert ◽  
Patrick J. Keeling
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Expressed Sequence Tag ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Guillardia Theta ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Genome Level ◽  
Phylogenomic Analyses ◽  
New Hypothesis ◽  
Expressed Sequence

An important missing piece in the puzzle of how plastids spread across the eukaryotic tree of life is a robust evolutionary framework for the host lineages. Four assemblages are known to harbour plastids derived from red algae and, according to the controversial chromalveolate hypothesis, these all share a common ancestry. Phylogenomic analyses have consistently shown that stramenopiles and alveolates are closely related, but haptophytes and cryptophytes remain contentious; they have been proposed to branch together with several heterotrophic groups in the newly erected Hacrobia. Here, we tested this question by producing a large expressed sequence tag dataset for the katablepharid Roombia truncata , one of the last hacrobian lineages for which genome-level data are unavailable, and combined this dataset with the recently completed genome of the cryptophyte Guillardia theta to build an alignment composed of 258 genes. Our analyses strongly support haptophytes as sister to the SAR group, possibly together with telonemids and centrohelids. We also confirmed the common origin of katablepharids and cryptophytes, but these lineages were not related to other hacrobians; instead, they branch with plants. Our study resolves the evolutionary position of haptophytes, an ecologically critical component of the oceans, and proposes a new hypothesis for the origin of cryptophytes.

Morphology, songs and genetics identify two new cicada species from Morocco: Tettigettalna afroamissa sp. nov. and Berberigetta dimelodica gen. nov. & sp. nov. (Hemiptera: Cicadettini)

Zootaxa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 4237 (3) ◽  
pp. 517
Author(s):  
GONÇALO JOÃO COSTA ◽  
VERA L. NUNES ◽  
EDUARDO MARABUTO ◽  
RAQUEL MENDES ◽  
TELMA G. LAURENTINO ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
New Genus ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Phylogenetic Analyses ◽  
Habitat Preferences ◽  
Dna Barcode ◽  
Genetic Data ◽  
North African ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

Morocco has been the subject of very few expeditions on the last century with the objective of studying small cicadas. In the summer of 2014 an expedition was carried out to Morocco to update our knowledge with acoustic recordings and genetic data of these poorly known species. We describe here two new small-sized cicadas that could not be directly assigned to any species of North African cicadas: Tettigettalna afroamissa sp. nov. and Berberigetta dimelodica gen. nov. & sp. nov. In respect to T. afroamissa it is the first species of the genus to be found outside Europe and we frame this taxon within the evolutionary history of the genus. Acoustic analysis of this species allows us to confidently separate T. afroamissa from its congeners. With B. dimelodica, a small species showing a remarkable calling song characterized by an abrupt frequency modulation, a new genus had to be erected. Bayesian inference and maximum likelihood phylogenetic analyses with DNA-barcode sequences of Cytochrome C Oxidase 1 support the monophyly of both species, their distinctness and revealed genetic structure within B. dimelodica. Alongside the descriptions we also provide GPS coordinates of collection points, distributions and habitat preferences. 

The Decolonization of North African History

1968 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 643-650 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Wansbrough
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
General Problem ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
African History ◽  
North African ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

Since independence the countries of North Africa have been occupied almost exclusively with the establishment of a new society. An important part of this activity has been directed towards a solution to the problem of symbols and values: the construction of an image of themselves for their own contemplation and for export to the world outside. One aspect of this general problem of acculturation is concerned with interpretations of history and the evaluation of one's own place in historical evolution. Starting from the premiss that North African history has largely been a monopoly of French scholarship since 1830, contemporary historical writers in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco have found it essential, before entering upon problems of historical interpretation, to rewrite their own history. Discovery of this first requisite has generated a spirit shared by all those writers preoccupied with this problem, however much they might disagree on solutions to it, which is best expressed by the phrase ‘décoloniser l'histoire’. The subject is vast, and I should like here only to indicate several of the problems, with their proposed solutions, so far treated by writers dealing with the history of Algeria.

scholarly journals Evolutionary history of the two North African hedgehogs (Mammalia: Erinaceidae) Atelerix algirus and Paraechinus aethiopicus based on phylogeography and species distribution modelling

2021 ◽  
Vol 71 ◽  
pp. 799-811
Author(s):  
Haithem El-Farhati ◽  
Mourad Khaldi ◽  
Alexis Ribas ◽  
Mohamed Wassim Hizem ◽  
Saïd Nouira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Species Distribution Modelling ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Climatic Suitability ◽  
North African ◽  
Niche Modelling ◽  
Distribution Modelling ◽  
The North ◽  
Low Genetic Diversity ◽  
History Of

Abstract Two species of hedgehogs are known to occur in northern part of Africa: the Algerian hedgehog Atelerix algirus and the Ethiopian hedgehog Paraechinus aethiopicus. Within each species several subspecies were described based on morphometrical data and pelage coloration, but all these subspecies have enigmatic and unclear definitions. We investigated the phylogeographical history and taxonomy of these two species based on mitochondrial DNA data covering the entire geographical distribution of A. algirus and the North African distribution of P. aethiopicus. We also used climatic niche modelling to make inferences about their evolutionary history. Low genetic diversity was recovered in both species. While no phylogeographic pattern was found in P. aethiopicus, two haplogroups were identified within A. algirus. This could be explained by the fact that continuous high or moderate climatic suitability occurred throughout most of the Saharan desert since the LGM (Last Glacial Maximum) for the first species, while during the LGM there were several disconnected areas of high climatic suitability for A. algirus: one in South-West Morocco, one at the coastal Moroccan-Algerian border and one in Tunisia-coastal Libya. Our genetic results confirm that A. algirus recently colonized Spain, Balearic and Canary Islands, and that this colonization was probably mediated by humans. Suitable climatic conditions occurred throughout most of the Southern and Eastern Iberian Peninsula during the last 6,000 years which could have favored the spatial expansion of the Algerian hedgehog after its arrival in Europe. According to our molecular results subspecific recognition within North Africa is unwarranted for both species.

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.

The Economics of Authoritarianism in North Africa

2014 ◽  
pp. 674-688
Author(s):  
Raj M. Desai ◽  
Anders Olofsgård ◽  
Tarik M. Yousef
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Policy Mix ◽  
North African ◽  
Origin And Evolution ◽  
Social Contracts ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fiscal Austerity ◽  
To Come

This chapter examines the origin and evolution of the authoritarian bargain, or the provision of government welfare in exchange for political control, in North Africa. Following independence, North African states supported significant economic intervention and redistribution. Despite initial successes, these arrangements proved unsustainable and were to come under severe stress in subsequent decades. Fiscal austerity, along with reforms to governing social contracts, created a more durable system with its own internal logic, but also with internal contradictions. Recent upheaval in North Africa, the birthplace of the so-called Arab Spring protests, may be traced to resulting structural rigidities, coupled with the governments’ poor record in responding to a variety of crises. The recent economic history of North Africa, finally, shows how the policy mix that favors redistribution, equity, and security over growth has taken an increasing toll on precisely the social sectors it was intended to protect.

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