scholarly journals Eggs of echinoids separated by the Isthmus of Panama harbor divergent microbiota

2020 ◽  
Vol 648 ◽  
pp. 169-177
Author(s):  
TJ Carrier ◽  
HA Lessios ◽  
AM Reitzel

Relationships between animals and their associated microbiota are dependent on both the evolutionary history of the host and on the environment. The majority of studies tend to focus on either one of these factors but rarely consider how both determine the community composition of the associated microbiota. One ‘natural experiment’ to test how evolutionary history, shared environments, and the interaction between these factors drive community composition is to compare geminate species pairs. Echinoids separated by the Isthmus of Panama are suitable for this comparison due to their known evolutionary history and differences in the oceanographic characteristics of the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. By comparing the bacterial communities of the eggs of Echinometra and Diadema geminate species pairs, we show that each pair of geminate species associates with a distinct bacterial community in a pattern consistent with phylosymbiosis, and that the interaction between the evolutionary history of the host and the environment best explains differences in these communities. Moreover, we found that the relative abundance of particular bacterial taxa differed considerably between the 2 bodies of water and that the 2 Caribbean Echinometra species were dominated by unclassified bacterial taxa within the phototrophic Oxyphotobacteria. Taken together, data presented here support the hypothesis that the bacterial communities associated with geminate species are another characteristic of these species that have diverged in ~2.8 million years of isolation.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler J. Carrier ◽  
Harilaos A. Lessios ◽  
Adam M. Reitzel

AbstractRelationships between animals and their associated microbiota is dependent on the evolutionary history of the host and on the environment. The majority of studies tend to focus on one of these factors and rarely consider how both determine the community composition of the associated bacteria. One “natural experiment” to test how evolutionary history, shared environments, and the interaction between these factors drive community composition is to compare geminate species pairs. Echinoids separated by the Isthmus of Panama are suitable for this comparison due to the known evolutionary history and differences in oceanographic characteristics of the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. By comparing the egg-associated microbiota for the Echinometra and Diadema geminate species pairs, we show that both pairs of geminate species associate with distinct bacterial communities in patterns consistent with phylosymbiosis, and that the interaction between the evolutionary history of the host and the environment best explain differences in these communities. Moreover, we find that particular microbial taxa differed considerably between, but not within, oceans and that the microbiota of the two Caribbean Echinometra species were dominated by the phototrophic Oxyphotobacteria.


1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 641-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. V. Scammell

For centuries Europeans were fascinated by rumours and legends of the wealth and wonders of the Orient and by stories of the supposed existence there of realms free from all those tiresome taboos and restrictions that prevailed in the West. Long before the arrival of Vasco da Gama, renegades were serving the Mongols in Iran and Marco Polo had been in the entourage of the Grand Khan himself. The Portuguese pioneers were disconcerted to encounter in 1501 a certain Benvenuto de Abano who had spent the previous twenty-five years sailing the seas of Asia, and his contemporary, the Muslim Khoja Safar Salmâni, an erstwhile Genoese or Albanian. But this was nothing compared with the flow that followed western penetration of the maritime economy of the East, scattering European adventurers and outlaws throughout the Orient anywhere from the shores of the Persian Gulf to those of the Pacific Ocean. And very soon these hopefuls were joined by European pirates, some working from ports in their mother countries, some from the Caribbean and North America, and some from bases in the Indian Ocean, of which Madagascar was, according to taste, the most celebrated or the most notorious. Such men, frequently of remarkable skills and fearsome abilities, exercised a considerable influence on the maritime history of the East in the early modern centuries, and it is with the origins, aspirations and activities of these elusive—indeed often anonymous—but nevertheless highly significant figures that this paper is concerned.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Davis Reimer ◽  
Colin Foord ◽  
Yuka Irei

Shallow water zooxanthellate zoanthids are a common component of the coral reef ecosystems of the Caribbean. Despite this, their species diversity remains poorly understood. In this study, collectedPalythoa, Zoanthus, Isaurus, andTerrazoanthusspecimens from the waters of Florida were phylogenetically examined to obtain a better understanding of zoanthid species diversity in the Caribbean. Surprisingly, the results from analyses utilizing three DNA markers (mitochondrial 16S ribosomal DNA, cytochrome oxidase subunit I, and the internal transcribed spacer of ribosomal DNA) showed the presence of at least eleven species, of which up to four appear undescribed. Additionally, the presence of the genusTerrazoanthusin the Caribbean was confirmed for the first time. Attempts to match phylogenetic species or clades with original literature were hampered by vague and short original descriptions, and it is clear that for AtlanticPalythoaandZoanthusspecies an in-depth and multidisciplinary investigation is needed to reconcile recent phylogenetic results such as in this study with traditional taxonomy. Furthermore, most shallow water zoanthid species from Florida were observed to have close, sister-species relationships with previously investigated species in the Pacific Ocean. These results indicate that many brachycnemic zoanthid species likely had a Caribbean-Pacific distribution until the formation of the Isthmus of Panama. However, due to inadvertent redescriptions, overall species diversity in these two common genera is likely much lower than literature indicates.


2010 ◽  
Vol 84 (4) ◽  
pp. 709-719
Author(s):  
Tatsuhiko Yamaguchi ◽  
James L. Goedert

Cythere ikeyanoriyukii n. sp., an extant phytal ostracode genus, was obtained from the Middle Eocene McIntosh Formation in the Doty Hills, western Washington State, USA. It was associated with eleven taxa, which are extant phytal and shelfal genera such as Loxocorniculum, Xestoleberis, Ambostracon, Coquimba, and Acanthocythereis. The presence of Cythere in this assemblage is surprising and indicates that the first appearance of this genus was middle Eocene time at the latest, or at least 20 Ma earlier than previously thought. Cythere did not originate in the Pacific Ocean around Japan as previously thought, but instead must have migrated from the northeastern Pacific to the northwestern Pacific between middle Eocene and early Miocene time.


1970 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-125
Author(s):  
David R. Radell

It is not surprising that prior to the construction of the Panama Canal, Nicaragua was considered of strategic importance to the world's major sea powers. Together the Río San Juan and Lake Nicaragua provide a water passage from the Caribbean Sea to within 20 kilometers of the Pacific Ocean (see map). In addition to its obvious inter-oceanic canal potential, this water passage was primarily useful for hundreds of years as an alternate route for the pirate-threatened Central American colonial commerce.A remarkable number of historical and geographical misconceptions have appeared in the literature concerning this river. The recent publication of the seventeen-volume Colección Somoza containing documents relating to the history of Nicaragua from 1503 to 1550 does much to clarify this period of exploration and navigation.


BioScience ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Roff

Abstract Modern-day Indo-Pacific coral reefs are characterized by rapid recovery driven by pulses of coral recruitment, but Caribbean reefs exhibit low rates of recruitment and poor recovery following a wide range of disturbance events. The contrasting evolutionary history of coral taxa offers key insight into biogeographic patterns of coral resilience. Following the closure of the Isthmus of Panama approximately 2.8 million years ago, widespread extinction of Caribbean corals led to an evolutionary bottleneck that favored large and long-lived species with a relatively high reliance on asexual versus sexual reproduction. In contrast, adaptive radiation led to the evolution of superrecruiting tabular, digitate, and corymbose corals that drive the rapid recovery of modern-day Indo-Pacific reefs following disturbance. The dominance of branching growth forms and evolutionary absence of superrecruiting growth forms throughout the entire evolutionary history of the Caribbean (approximately 38 million years ago to present) may explain the exceptionally high recruitment rates on modern-day Indo-Pacific reefs and low historical recruitment on Caribbean reefs. The evolutionary history of the Caribbean coral reef-building taxa implies that, even with a reversal of ecosystem state, widespread recovery of Caribbean reefs may be limited.


Zootaxa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4881 (3) ◽  
pp. 482-498
Author(s):  
MARCO CURINI-GALLETTI ◽  
MARCELLA CARCUPINO ◽  
GIACINTA A. STOCCHINO ◽  
FRANCESCA LEASI ◽  
JON L. NORENBURG

Eight new species of Duplominona (Platyhelminthes, Proseriata, Monocelididae) are described from the Pacific coast of Panama. They differ from their congeners in the detailed morphology of hard structures associated with the copulatory organ. Duplominona basidilatata n. sp. has a cirrus provided with 5–6 rows of triangular spines, 3–8 μm long, with a large, flat, poorly sclerotized basis. D. hystricina n. sp. has 10–12 rows of needle-shaped spines, 3.5–15 μm long, with a swollen basis. The cirrus of D. hyperhystricina n. sp. is provided with 20–25 rows of slender spines 1.5–9 μm long, with a recurved distal tip. In D. veracruzensis n. sp., cirrus spines increase abruptly in size, from 1.5–2 μm to 6–7 μm. D. uniserta n. sp. has a very long seminal vesicle and a small cirrus, provided with one girdle of hook-shaped spines, 3–5 μm long. D. macrodon n. sp. has one girdle of large, triangular spines, 8–18 μm long. Both D. trimera n. sp. and D. pseudotrimera n. sp. have a tripartite tail, and their cirrus is provided with a stylet. In D. trimera n. sp., the stylet is surrounded by 15–20 rows of spines, 6.5–10 μm long, while D. pseudotrimera n. sp. has 6–8 rows of large spines, 7–22 μm long. D. uniserta n. sp. and D. aduncospina Curini-Galletti, 2019 from the Caribbean coast of Panama have few rows of morphologically nearly identical spines, and are possible candidates as trans-isthmian geminate species. The presence of species with a tripartite tail on both sides of the Isthmus of Panama suggests the possibility of further geminate species pairs; however, no support could be obtained on the basis of the morphology of their hard structures. Five of the eight new species of Duplominona have been found in a single locality, and the diversity of genus along the Pacific coast of Panama may be far higher than present contribution suggests.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicky M. Wright ◽  
◽  
Maria Seton ◽  
Simon E. Williams ◽  
R. Dietmar Müller

2021 ◽  
Vol 108 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas C. Majure ◽  
Duniel Barrios ◽  
Edgardo Díaz ◽  
Bethany A. Zumwalde ◽  
Weston Testo ◽  
...  

Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 585
Author(s):  
Rebecca M. Grimwood ◽  
Edward C. Holmes ◽  
Jemma L. Geoghegan

Rubella virus (RuV) is the causative agent of rubella (“German measles”) and remains a global health concern. Until recently, RuV was the only known member of the genus Rubivirus and the only virus species classified within the Matonaviridae family of positive-sense RNA viruses. Recently, two new rubella-like matonaviruses, Rustrela virus and Ruhugu virus, have been identified in several mammalian species, along with more divergent viruses in fish and reptiles. To screen for the presence of additional novel rubella-like viruses, we mined published transcriptome data using genome sequences from Rubella, Rustrela, and Ruhugu viruses as baits. From this, we identified a novel rubella-like virus in a transcriptome of Tetronarce californica—order Torpediniformes (Pacific electric ray)—that is more closely related to mammalian Rustrela virus than to the divergent fish matonavirus and indicative of a complex pattern of cross-species virus transmission. Analysis of host reads confirmed that the sample analysed was indeed from a Pacific electric ray, and two other viruses identified in this animal, from the Arenaviridae and Reoviridae, grouped with other fish viruses. These findings indicate that the evolutionary history of the Matonaviridae is more complex than previously thought and highlights the vast number of viruses that remain undiscovered.


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