scholarly journals The role of dispersal for shaping phylogeographical structure of flightless beetles from the Andes

PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e7226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofia I. Muñoz-Tobar ◽  
Michael S. Caterino

Background Páramo is a tropical alpine ecosystem present in the northern Andes. Its patchy distribution imposes limits and barriers to specialist inhabitants. We aim to assess the effects of this habitat distribution on divergence across two independently flightless ground beetle lineages, in the genera Dyscolus and Dercylus. Methods One nuclear and one mitochondrial gene from 110 individuals from 10 sites across the two lineages were sequenced and analyzed using a combination of phylogenetics, population genetic analyses, and niche modeling methods. Results The two lineages show different degrees of population subdivision. Low levels of gene flow were found in Dyscolus alpinus, where one dominant haplotype is found in four out of the six populations analyzed for both molecular markers. However, complete population isolation was revealed in species of the genus Dercylus, where high levels of differentiation exist at species and population level for both genes. Maximum entropy models of species in the Dercylus lineage show overlapping distributions. Still, species distributions appear to be restricted to small areas across the Andes. Conclusion Even though both beetle lineages are flightless, the dispersal ability of each beetle lineage appears to influence the genetic diversity across fragmented páramo populations, where Dyscolus alpinus appears to be a better disperser than species in the genus Dercylus.

ZooKeys ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 915 ◽  
pp. 59-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateo Basantes ◽  
Nicolás Tinoco ◽  
Paúl M. Velazco ◽  
Melinda J. Hofmann ◽  
Miguel E. Rodríguez-Posada ◽  
...  

The Stripe-headed Round-eared bat, Tonatia saurophila, includes three subspecies: Tonatia saurophila saurophila (known only from subfossil records in Jamaica), Tonatia saurophila bakeri (distributed from southeastern Mexico to northern Colombia, Venezuela west and north of the Cordillera de Mérida, and northwestern Ecuador), and Tonatia saurophila maresi (distributed in Venezuela east and south of the Cordillera de Mérida, the Guianas, Trinidad and Tobago, northeastern Brazil, and along the upper Amazon basin in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia). The last two subspecies are an attractive example to test predictions about the historical role of the Andes in mammalian diversification. Based on morphological descriptions, morphometric analyses, and phylogenetic reconstruction using the mitochondrial gene Cyt-b and the nuclear exon RAG2, this study evaluates the intraspecific relationships within Tonatia saurophila and the taxonomic status of the taxon. The three subspecies of T. saurophila are recognizable as full species: Tonatia bakeri, Tonatia maresi, and Tonatia saurophila. The latter is restricted to its type locality and possibly is extinct. Tonatia bakeri, in addition to being larger than T. maresi, is morphologically distinguishable by possessing an acute apex at the posterior edge of the skull, a well-developed clinoid process, and relatively robust mandibular condyles, and by lacking a diastema between the canine and the first lower premolar. The genetic distance between T. bakeri and T. maresi is 7.65%.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Chiao Kuwana ◽  
Hiroyuki Fujita ◽  
Masataka Tagami ◽  
Takanori Matsuo ◽  
Ikuo Miura

The sex chromosomes of most anuran amphibians are characterized by homomorphy in both sexes, and evolution to heteromorphy rarely occurs at the species or geographic population level. Here, we report sex chromosome heteromorphy in geographic populations of the Japanese Tago’s brown frog complex (2n = 26), comprising Rana sakuraii and R. tagoi. The sex chromosomes of R. sakuraii from the populations in western Japan were homomorphic in both sexes, whereas chromosome 7 from the populations in eastern Japan were heteromorphic in males. Chromosome 7 of R. tagoi, which is distributed close to R. sakuraii in eastern Japan, was highly similar in morphology to the Y chromosome of R. sakuraii. Based on this and on mitochondrial gene sequence analysis, we hypothesize that in the R. sakuraii populations from eastern Japan the XY heteromorphic sex chromosome system was established by the introduction of chromosome 7 from R. tagoi via interspecies hybridization. In contrast, chromosome 13 of R. tagoi from the 2 large islands in western Japan, Shikoku and Kyushu, showed a heteromorphic pattern of constitutive heterochromatin distribution in males, while this pattern was homomorphic in females. Our study reveals that sex chromosome heteromorphy evolved independently at the geographic lineage level in this species complex.


Oecologia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng He ◽  
Pierre-Olivier Montiglio ◽  
Marius Somveille ◽  
Mauricio Cantor ◽  
Damien R. Farine

AbstractBy shaping where individuals move, habitat configuration can fundamentally structure animal populations. Yet, we currently lack a framework for generating quantitative predictions about the role of habitat configuration in modulating population outcomes. To address this gap, we propose a modelling framework inspired by studies using networks to characterize habitat connectivity. We first define animal habitat networks, explain how they can integrate information about the different configurational features of animal habitats, and highlight the need for a bottom–up generative model that can depict realistic variations in habitat potential connectivity. Second, we describe a model for simulating animal habitat networks (available in the R package AnimalHabitatNetwork), and demonstrate its ability to generate alternative habitat configurations based on empirical data, which forms the basis for exploring the consequences of alternative habitat structures. Finally, we lay out three key research questions and demonstrate how our framework can address them. By simulating the spread of a pathogen within a population, we show how transmission properties can be impacted by both local potential connectivity and landscape-level characteristics of habitats. Our study highlights the importance of considering the underlying habitat configuration in studies linking social structure with population-level outcomes.


Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Paill ◽  
Stephan Koblmüller ◽  
Thomas Friess ◽  
Barbara-Amina Gereben-Krenn ◽  
Christian Mairhuber ◽  
...  

The last ice age considerably influenced distribution patterns of extant species of plants and animals, with some of them now inhabiting disjunct areas in the subarctic/arctic and alpine regions. This arctic-alpine distribution is characteristic for many cold-adapted species with a limited dispersal ability and can be found in many invertebrate taxa, including ground beetles. The ground beetle Pterostichus adstrictus Eschscholtz, 1823 of the subgenus Bothriopterus was previously known to have a holarctic-circumpolar distribution, in Europe reaching its southern borders in Wales and southern Scandinavia. Here, we report the first findings of this species from the Austrian Ötztal Alps, representing also the southernmost edge of its currently known distribution, confirmed by the comparison of morphological characters to other Bothriopterus species and DNA barcoding data. Molecular data revealed a separation of the Austrian and Finish specimens with limited to no gene flow at all. Furthermore, we present the first data on habitat preference and seasonality of P. adstrictus in the Austrian Alps.


2001 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross W. Jamieson

As one of the most common artifact categories found on Spanish colonial sites, the wheel-made, tin-glazed pottery known as majolica is an important chronological and social indicator for archaeologists. Initially imported from Europe, several manufacturing centers for majolica were set up in the New World by the late sixteenth century. The study of colonial majolica in the Viceroyalty of Peru, which encompassed much of South America, has received less attention than ceramic production and trade in the colonial Caribbean and Mesoamerica. Prior to 1650 the Viceroyalty of Peru was supplied with majolica largely produced in the city of Panama Vieja, on the Pacific. Panama Vieja majolica has been recovered from throughout the Andes, as far south as Argentina. Majolica made in Panama Vieja provides an important chronological indicator of early colonial archaeological contexts in the region. The reproduction of Iberian-style majolica for use on elite tables was symbolically important to the imposition of Spanish rule, and thus Panamanian majolicas also provide an important indicator of elite status on Andean colonial sites.


The Lancet ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 394 ◽  
pp. S28
Author(s):  
Heather Brown ◽  
Luke Munford ◽  
Anna Wilding ◽  
Tomos Robinson ◽  
Paula Holland ◽  
...  

1983 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-379
Author(s):  
M Wesolowski ◽  
C Palleschi ◽  
L Frontali ◽  
H Fukuhara

In yeast mitochondria, most of the isoaccepting species of tyrosyl tRNA are coded by a mitochondrial gene, tyrA. A particular isoaccepting species is coded by a second mitochondrial gene, tyrB. This gene is not expressed in certain strains of yeast which show no deficient phenotype. Genetic crosses between strains expressing or not expressing the tyrB gene demonstrate that expression is controlled by specific nuclear genes and that a mutation of the tyrA gene can be bypassed when the tyrB gene is operative.


2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (48) ◽  
pp. 12313-12318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gang Wu ◽  
Marc D. Ruben ◽  
Robert E. Schmidt ◽  
Lauren J. Francey ◽  
David F. Smith ◽  
...  

Skin is the largest organ in the body and serves important barrier, regulatory, and sensory functions. The epidermal layer shows rhythmic physiological responses to daily environmental variation (e.g., DNA repair). We investigated the role of the circadian clock in the transcriptional regulation of epidermis using a hybrid experimental design, in which a limited set of human subjects (n = 20) were sampled throughout the 24-h cycle and a larger population (n = 219) were sampled once. We found a robust circadian oscillator in human epidermis at the population level using pairwise correlations of clock and clock-associated genes in 298 epidermis samples. We then used CYCLOPS to reconstruct the temporal order of all samples, and identified hundreds of rhythmically expressed genes at the population level in human epidermis. We compared these results with published time-series skin data from mice and found a strong concordance in circadian phase across species for both transcripts and pathways. Furthermore, like blood, epidermis is readily accessible and a potential source of biomarkers. Using ZeitZeiger, we identified a biomarker set for human epidermis that is capable of reporting circadian phase to within 3 hours from a single sample. In summary, we show rhythms in human epidermis that persist at the population scale and describe a path to develop robust single-sample circadian biomarkers.


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