scholarly journals Flower Diversification Across “Pollinator Climates”: Sensory Aspects of Corolla Color Evolution in the Florally Diverse South American Genus Jaborosa (Solanaceae)

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcela Moré ◽  
Ana C. Ibañez ◽  
M. Eugenia Drewniak ◽  
Andrea A. Cocucci ◽  
Robert A. Raguso

Flower phenotype may diverge within plant lineages when moving across “pollinator climates” (geographic differences in pollinator abundance or preference). Here we explored the potential importance of pollinators as drivers of floral color diversification in the nightshade genus Jaborosa, taking into account color perception capabilities of the actual pollinators (nocturnal hawkmoths vs. saprophilous flies) under a geographic perspective. We analyzed the association between transitions across environments and perceptual color axes using comparative methods. Our results revealed two major evolutionary themes in Jaborosa: (1) a “warm subtropical sphingophilous clade” composed of three hawkmoth-pollinated species found in humid lowland habitats, with large white flowers that clustered together in the visual space of a model hawkmoth (Manduca sexta) and a “cool-temperate brood-deceptive clade” composed of largely fly-pollinated species with small dark flowers found at high altitudes (Andes) or latitudes (Patagonian Steppe), that clustered together in the visual space of a model blowfly (Lucilia sp.) and a syrphid fly (Eristalis tenax). Our findings suggest that the ability of plants to colonize newly formed environments during Andean orogeny and the ecological changes that followed were concomitant with transitions in flower color as perceived by different pollinator functional groups. Our findings suggest that habitat and pollination mode are inextricably linked in the history of this South American plant lineage.

Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 1512
Author(s):  
Marcela Moré ◽  
Florencia Soteras ◽  
Ana C. Ibañez ◽  
Stefan Dötterl ◽  
Andrea A. Cocucci ◽  
...  

Floral scent is a key communication channel between plants and pollinators. However, the contributions of environment and phylogeny to floral scent composition remain poorly understood. In this study, we characterized interspecific variation of floral scent composition in the genus Jaborosa Juss. (Solanaceae) and, using an ecological niche modelling approach (ENM), we assessed the environmental variables that exerted the strongest influence on floral scent variation, taking into account pollination mode and phylogenetic relationships. Our results indicate that two major evolutionary themes have emerged: (i) a ‘warm Lowland Subtropical nectar-rewarding clade’ with large white hawkmoth pollinated flowers that emit fragrances dominated by oxygenated aromatic or sesquiterpenoid volatiles, and (ii) a ‘cool-temperate brood-deceptive clade’ of largely fly-pollinated species found at high altitudes (Andes) or latitudes (Patagonian Steppe) that emit foul odors including cresol, indole and sulfuric volatiles. The joint consideration of floral scent profiles, pollination mode, and geoclimatic context helped us to disentangle the factors that shaped floral scent evolution across “pollinator climates” (geographic differences in pollinator abundance or preference). Our findings suggest that the ability of plants in the genus Jaborosa to colonize newly formed habitats during Andean orogeny was associated with striking transitions in flower scent composition that trigger specific odor-driven behaviors in nocturnal hawkmoths and saprophilous fly pollinators.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas C. Wheeler ◽  
Boswell A. Wing ◽  
Stacey D. Smith

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 48-65
Author(s):  
Alan G. Hartman

Abstract Colombia is a South American nation that has captured the imagination of the world. It is a land of beautiful colonial cities and towns, famous for coffee production, rich emerald mines, and the literature of José Asunción Silva and Gabriel García Márquez. Colombia’s beauty and rich literary history, however, are often overshadowed by the memory of Pablo Escobar, a notorious drug lord, and numerous deadly guerilla groups. Their roles in the international drug trade made Colombia the top producer and exporter of cocaine, which resulted in terrorism and violence that left the country one of the world’s most dangerous.1 In this article, I will explore how violence in Colombia has perpetuated the theme of hopelessness in the nation’s literature beginning in the mid-twentieth century. I will show this in three parts. Firstly, I will trace the history of violence in Colombia through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and show that a literary genre of violence was absent in the nation until 1946, when the period known as “la Violencia” commenced. Secondly, I will explore how hopelessness resulted from violence in Colombia beginning in the period of “la Violencia.” Thirdly, I will show how violence is depicted as an evil that traps the protagonists of the contemporary Colombian novels La Virgen de Los Sicarios and Satanás in a state of hopelessness due to their powerlessness to truly change themselves because of the frustrated society in which they live.


2018 ◽  
Vol 91 (2) ◽  
pp. 881-891 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Andrew Nunnery ◽  
Sherilyn C. Fritz ◽  
Paul A. Baker ◽  
Wout Salenbien

AbstractVarious paleoclimatic records have been used to reconstruct the hydrologic history of the Altiplano, relating this history to past variability of the South American summer monsoon. Prior studies of the southern Altiplano, the location of the world’s largest salt flat, the Salar de Uyuni, and its neighbor, the Salar de Coipasa, generally agree in their reconstructions of the climate history of the past ∼24 ka. Some studies, however, have highly divergent climatic records and interpretations of earlier periods. In this study, lake-level variation was reconstructed from a ∼14-m-long sediment core from the Salar de Coipasa. These sediments span the last ∼40 ka. Lacustrine sediment accumulation was apparently continuous in the basin from ∼40 to 6 ka, with dry or very shallow conditions afterward. The fossil diatom stratigraphy and geochemical data (δ13C, δ15N, %Ca, C/N) indicate fluctuations in lake level from shallow to moderately deep, with the deepest conditions correlative with the Heinrich-1 and Younger Dryas events. The stratigraphy shows a continuous lake of variable depth and salinity during the last glacial maximum and latter stages of Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 3 and is consistent with environmental inferences and the original chronology of a drill core from Salar de Uyuni.


1999 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-382
Author(s):  
Cristina Altman

Summary When mention is made of Brazil in connection with American linguistics, it usually amounts to a reference to the Linguistic Circle of New York, where Roman Jakobson (1896–1982) and Claude Lévi-Strauss (b.1908), who had come from Brazil where he had done ethnological work, met and exchanged ideas. This singular event has cast a shadow on other contacts between Brazil and American linguistics, of which, the one between Jakobson and the Brazilian linguist Joaquim Mattoso Câmara (1904–1970) was much more consequential, at least as far as the implementation of structural linguistics in Brazil and in South America generally during the 1950s and the 1960s is concerned. Mattoso Câmara came to the United States and spent most of his time in New York City (September 1943 till April 1944), where he got exposure to Praguean type structuralism, notably through Jakobson’s lectures he attended at Columbia University and at the École Libre of New York, which had been established by European refugees at the time. He also participated in the first meetings of the Linguistic Circle of New York in 1943 as one of its co-founders. Following his return to Rio de Janeiro, Mattoso Câmara proposed, in 1949, as his doctoral thesis a phonemic description of Brazilian Portuguese. The work was published a few years later, in 1953. His most influential work, Princípios de Lingüística Gerai, first published in 1954, had two more revised and updated editions (1958, 1967) and served to introduce several generations of Brazilian as well as other South American students to structural linguistics during the 1950s and 1960s.


mBio ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy D. Read ◽  
Sandeep J. Joseph ◽  
Xavier Didelot ◽  
Brooke Liang ◽  
Lisa Patel ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Chlamydia psittaci is an obligate intracellular bacterium. Interest in Chlamydia stems from its high degree of virulence as an intestinal and pulmonary pathogen across a broad range of animals, including humans. C. psittaci human pulmonary infections, referred to as psittacosis, can be life-threatening, which is why the organism was developed as a bioweapon in the 20th century and is listed as a CDC biothreat agent. One remarkable recent result from comparative genomics is the finding of frequent homologous recombination across the genome of the sexually transmitted and trachoma pathogen Chlamydia trachomatis. We sought to determine if similar evolutionary dynamics occurred in C. psittaci. We analyzed 20 C. psittaci genomes from diverse strains representing the nine known serotypes of the organism as well as infections in a range of birds and mammals, including humans. Genome annotation revealed a core genome in all strains of 911 genes. Our analyses showed that C. psittaci has a history of frequently switching hosts and undergoing recombination more often than C. trachomatis. Evolutionary history reconstructions showed genome-wide homologous recombination and evidence of whole-plasmid exchange. Tracking the origins of recombinant segments revealed that some strains have imported DNA from as-yet-unsampled or -unsequenced C. psittaci lineages or other Chlamydiaceae species. Three ancestral populations of C. psittaci were predicted, explaining the current population structure. Molecular clock analysis found that certain strains are part of a clonal epidemic expansion likely introduced into North America by South American bird traders, suggesting that psittacosis is a recently emerged disease originating in New World parrots. IMPORTANCE Chlamydia psittaci is classified as a CDC biothreat agent based on its association with life-threatening lung disease, termed psittacosis, in humans. Because of the recent remarkable findings of frequent recombination across the genome of the human sexually transmitted and ocular trachoma pathogen Chlamydia trachomatis, we sought to determine if similar evolutionary dynamics occur in C. psittaci. Twenty C. psittaci genomes were analyzed from diverse strains that may play a pathogenic role in human disease. Evolution of the strains revealed genome-wide recombination occurring at a higher rate than for C. trachomatis. Certain strains were discovered to be part of a recent epidemic clonal expansion originating in South America. These strains may have been introduced into the United States from South American bird traders, suggesting that psittacosis is a recently emerged disease originating in New World parrots. Our analyses indicate that C. psittaci strains have a history of frequently switching hosts and undergoing recombination.


Viruses ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique L. Chaput ◽  
David Bass ◽  
Md. Mehedi Alam ◽  
Neaz Al Hasan ◽  
Grant D. Stentiford ◽  
...  

Tilapia lake virus (TiLV), a negative sense RNA virus with a 10 segment genome, is an emerging threat to tilapia aquaculture worldwide, with outbreaks causing over 90% mortality reported on several continents since 2014. Following a severe tilapia mortality event in July 2017, we confirmed the presence of TiLV in Bangladesh and obtained the near-complete genome of this isolate, BD-2017. Phylogenetic analysis of the concatenated 10 segment coding regions placed BD-2017 in a clade with the two isolates from Thailand, separate from the Israeli and South American isolates. However, phylogenetic analysis of individual segments gave conflicting results, sometimes clustering BD-2017 with one of the Israeli isolates, and splitting pairs of isolates from the same region. By comparing patterns of topological difference among segments of quartets of isolates, we showed that TiLV likely has a history of reassortment. Segments 5 and 6, in particular, appear to have undergone a relatively recent reassortment event involving Ecuador isolate EC-2012 and Israel isolate Til-4-2011. The phylogeny of TiLV isolates therefore depends on the segment sequenced. Our findings illustrate the need to exercise caution when using phylogenetic analysis to infer geographic origin and track the movement of TiLV, and we recommend using whole genomes wherever possible.


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