scholarly journals Phylogenetic Comparative Methods can Provide Important Insights into the Evolution of Toxic Weaponry

Toxins ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Arbuckle
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Comparative Methods ◽  
Phylogenetic Comparative Methods ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Venom Composition ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Ecological View ◽  
Evolutionary View ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
Analytical Tools

The literature on chemical weaponry of organisms is vast and provides a rich understanding of the composition and mechanisms of the toxins and other components involved. However, an ecological or evolutionary perspective has often been lacking and is largely limited to (1) molecular evolutionary studies of particular toxins (lacking an ecological view); (2) comparisons across different species that ignore phylogenetic relatedness (lacking an evolutionary view); or (3) descriptive studies of venom composition and toxicology that contain post hoc and untested ecological or evolutionary interpretations (a common event but essentially uninformative speculation). Conveniently, comparative biologists have prolifically been developing and using a wide range of phylogenetic comparative methods that allow us to explicitly address many ecological and evolutionary questions relating to venoms and poisons. Nevertheless, these analytical tools and approaches are rarely used and poorly known by biological toxinologists and toxicologists. In this review I aim to (1) introduce phylogenetic comparative methods to the latter audience; (2) highlight the range of questions that can be addressed using them; and (3) encourage biological toxinologists and toxicologists to either seek out adequate training in comparative biology or seek collaboration with comparative biologists to reap the fruits of a powerful interdisciplinary approach to the field.

scholarly journals Phylogenetic Comparative Methods: A User’s Guide for Paleontologists

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Soul ◽  
David Wright
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Comparative Methods ◽  
Model Fit ◽  
Phylogenetic Comparative Methods ◽  
Sources Of Uncertainty ◽  
History Of ◽  
Statistical Approaches ◽  
Evolutionary Tempo And Mode ◽  
Fossil Data ◽  
Analytical Tools

Recent advances in statistical approaches called Phylogenetic Comparative Methods (PCMs) have provided paleontologists with a powerful set of analytical tools for investigating evolutionary tempo and mode in fossil lineages. However, attempts to integrate PCMs with fossil data often present workers with practical challenges or unfamiliar literature. In this paper, we present guides to the theory behind, and application of, PCMs with fossil taxa. Based on an empirical dataset of Paleozoic crinoids, we present example analyses to illustrate common applications of PCMs to fossil data, including investigating patterns of correlated trait evolution, and macroevolutionary models of morphological change. We emphasize the importance of accounting for sources of uncertainty, and discuss how to evaluate model fit and adequacy. Finally, we discuss several promising methods for modelling heterogenous evolutionary dynamics with fossil phylogenies. Integrating phylogeny-based approaches with the fossil record provides a rigorous, quantitative perspective to understanding key patterns in the history of life.

scholarly journals Gold–Carbon Nanocomposites for Environmental Contaminant Sensing

Micromachines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 719
Author(s):  
Shahrooz Rahmati ◽  
William Doherty ◽  
Arman Amani Babadi ◽  
Muhamad Syamim Akmal Che Mansor ◽  
Nurhidayatullaili Muhd Julkapli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Pollutants ◽  
High Sensitivity ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
World Population ◽  
Chemical Contaminants ◽  
Carbon Nanocomposites ◽  
Minimal Sample ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
And Control ◽  
Analytical Tools

The environmental crisis, due to the rapid growth of the world population and globalisation, is a serious concern of this century. Nanoscience and nanotechnology play an important role in addressing a wide range of environmental issues with innovative and successful solutions. Identification and control of emerging chemical contaminants have received substantial interest in recent years. As a result, there is a need for reliable and rapid analytical tools capable of performing sample analysis with high sensitivity, broad selectivity, desired stability, and minimal sample handling for the detection, degradation, and removal of hazardous contaminants. In this review, various gold–carbon nanocomposites-based sensors/biosensors that have been developed thus far are explored. The electrochemical platforms, synthesis, diverse applications, and effective monitoring of environmental pollutants are investigated comparatively.

scholarly journals Explaining large-scale patterns of vertebrate diversity

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 20150506 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Wiens
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Comparative Methods ◽  
Phylogenetic Comparative Methods ◽  
Metabolic Rates ◽  
Diversification Rates ◽  
Richness Patterns ◽  
Current Species

The major clades of vertebrates differ dramatically in their current species richness, from 2 to more than 32 000 species each, but the causes of this variation remain poorly understood. For example, a previous study noted that vertebrate clades differ in their diversification rates, but did not explain why they differ. Using a time-calibrated phylogeny and phylogenetic comparative methods, I show that most variation in diversification rates among 12 major vertebrate clades has a simple ecological explanation: predominantly terrestrial clades (i.e. birds, mammals, and lizards and snakes) have higher net diversification rates than predominantly aquatic clades (i.e. amphibians, crocodilians, turtles and all fish clades). These differences in diversification rates are then strongly related to patterns of species richness. Habitat may be more important than other potential explanations for richness patterns in vertebrates (such as climate and metabolic rates) and may also help explain patterns of species richness in many other groups of organisms.

scholarly journals Psychology, Meaning Making, and the Study of Worldviews

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Taves ◽  
Egil Asprem ◽  
Elliott Daniel Ihm
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Cognitive Level ◽  
Multidisciplinary Study ◽  
Human Ability ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Ways Of Life

To get beyond the solely negative identities signaled by atheism and agnosticism, we have to conceptualize an object of study that includes religions and non-religions. We advocate a shift from “religions” to “worldviews” and define worldviews in terms of the human ability to ask and reflect on “big questions” ([BQs], e.g., what exists? how should we live?). From a worldviews perspective, atheism, agnosticism, and theism are competing claims about one feature of reality and can be combined with various answers to the BQs to generate a wide range of worldviews. To lay a foundation for the multidisciplinary study of worldviews that includes psychology and other sciences, we ground them in humans’ evolved world-making capacities. Conceptualizing worldviews in this way allows us to identify, refine, and connect concepts that are appropriate to different levels of analysis. We argue that the language of enacted and articulated worldviews (for humans) and world-making and ways of life (for humans and other animals) is appropriate at the level of persons or organisms and the language of sense making, schemas, and meaning frameworks is appropriate at the cognitive level (for humans and other animals). Viewing the meaning making processes that enable humans to generate worldviews from an evolutionary perspective allows us to raise news questions for psychology with particular relevance for the study of nonreligious worldviews.

scholarly journals Overall Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Wenzhong Shi ◽  
Michael F. Goodchild ◽  
Michael Batty ◽  
Mei-Po Kwan ◽  
Anshu Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Information Technologies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Urban Systems ◽  
Data Infrastructure ◽  
Urban Informatics ◽  
New Information ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Urban Science ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractUrban informatics is an interdisciplinary approach to understanding, managing, and designing the city using systematic theories and methods based on new information technologies. Integrating urban science, geomatics, and informatics, urban informatics is a particularly timely way of fusing many interdisciplinary perspectives in studying city systems. This edited book aims to meet the urgent need for works that systematically introduce the principles and technologies of urban informatics. The book gathers over 40 world-leading research teams from a wide range of disciplines, who provide comprehensive reviews of the state of the art and the latest research achievements in their various areas of urban informatics. The book is organized into six parts, respectively covering the conceptual and theoretical basis of urban informatics, urban systems and applications, urban sensing, urban big data infrastructure, urban computing, and prospects for the future of urban informatics. This introductory chapter provides a definition of urban informatics and an outline of the book’s structure and scope.

scholarly journals Syndrome of inappropriate secretion of antidiuretic hormone in the practice of endocrinologist

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 4-12
Author(s):  
Agunda V. Dzagaxova ◽  
Nino N. Katamadze ◽  
Ekaterina A. Pigarova
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Antidiuretic Hormone ◽  
Clinical Guidelines ◽  
Length Of Hospital Stay ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Electrolyte Balance ◽  
Electrolyte Disorders ◽  
Inappropriate Secretion ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Water And Electrolyte Balance

Hyponatremia is the most common disorder of water and electrolyte balance encountered in clinical practice. Conditions associated with hyponatremia require hospitalization in 15–20% of cases. Hyponatremia is a predictor of poor outcome in a wide range of diseases and therefore requires an interdisciplinary approach. This problem leads to an increase in complications and the length of hospital stay and mortality. The review focuses on the syndrome of inappropriate secretion of antidiuretic hormone (SIADH), which accounts for approximately one third of all cases of hyponatremia and is more common in endocrinology than other fluid and electrolyte disorders along with central diabetes insipidus. The article presents modern approaches to the treatment of SIADH based on international clinical guidelines.

An Evolutionary View of Homeostasis

2019 ◽  
pp. 119-131
Author(s):  
Robert Perlman
Keyword(s):  
Life History Theory ◽  
Physiological Responses ◽  
Metabolic Energy ◽  
Regulatory Mechanisms ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Bodily Fluids ◽  
Physiological Processes ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Evolutionary View ◽  
Homeostatic Mechanisms

Physiologists and evolutionary biologists have traditionally investigated different but complementary aspects of biological phenomena. Homeostasis, the maintenance of approximately constant conditions in bodily fluids, has been the purview of physiology. Evolutionary insights can, however, deepen our knowledge of homeostatic regulatory mechanisms. Bioenergetics has been of central concern to both physiology and evolution. Physiologists have been interested in the energetic content of foods, in the metabolic transformations of the energy derived from foods, and in the energetic costs of physiological processes, while evolutionary life history theory addresses the ways that organisms have evolved to acquire and allocate metabolic energy throughout their life course. Engineering control theory highlights the limitations as well as the benefits of different regulatory mechanisms and so helps to explain why we have evolved multiple integrated and cooperative homeostatic mechanisms. The physiological responses to pregnancy illustrate the ways in which an evolutionary perspective enriches our understanding of homeostasis.

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