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Speciation and evolutionary genetics

This section considers studies into speciation and the role of inheritance and variation in individuals and among populations in evolution.

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  1. Homo sapiens have experienced admixture many times in the last few thousand years. To examine how admixture affects local adaptation, we investigated genomes of modern Polynesians, who are shaped through admixtur...

    Authors: Mariko Isshiki, Izumi Naka, Ryosuke Kimura, Nao Nishida, Takuro Furusawa, Kazumi Natsuhara, Taro Yamauchi, Minato Nakazawa, Takafumi Ishida, Tsukasa Inaoka, Yasuhiro Matsumura, Ryutaro Ohtsuka and Jun Ohashi
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:179
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  2. Chinese grass shrimp (Palaemonetes sinensis) is an important species widely distributed throughout China, which is ecologically relevant and possesses ornamental and economic value. These organisms have experienc...

    Authors: Yingying Zhao, Xiaochen Zhu, Ye Jiang, Zhi Li, Xin Li, Weibin Xu, Hua Wei, Yingdong Li and Xiaodong Li
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:167
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  3. As flatfish, turbot undergo metamorphosis as part of their life cycle. In the larval stage, turbot live at the ocean surface, but after metamorphosis they move to deeper water and turn to benthic life. Thus, t...

    Authors: Yunong Wang, Li Zhou, Lele Wu, Changbin Song, Xiaona Ma, Shihong Xu, Tengfei Du, Xian Li and Jun Li
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:114
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  4. Relapsing fever (RF) borreliae are arthropod-borne spirochetes and some of them cause human diseases, which are characterized by relapsing or recurring episodes of fever. Recently, it has been classified into ...

    Authors: Ranna Nakao, Kentaro Kasama, Bazartseren Boldbaatar, Yoshitoshi Ogura, Hiroki Kawabata, Atsushi Toyoda, Tetsuya Hayashi, Ai Takano and Ken Maeda
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:105
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  5. Animal mitochondria play a central role in energy production in the cells through the oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) pathway. Recent studies of selection on different mitochondrial OXPHOS genes have reveal...

    Authors: Asma Awadi, Hichem Ben Slimen, Helmut Schaschl, Felix Knauer and Franz Suchentrunk
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:100
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  6. Mitochondrial genes encode proteins involved in oxidative phosphorylation. Variations in lifestyle and ecological niche can be directly reflected in metabolic performance. Subterranean rodents represent a good...

    Authors: Olga V. Bondareva, Nadezhda A. Potapova, Kirill A. Konovalov, Tatyana V. Petrova and Natalia I. Abramson
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:92
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  8. There has been a rapid increase in the brain size relative to body size during mammalian evolutionary history. In particular, the enlarged and globular brain is the most distinctive anatomical feature of moder...

    Authors: Nashaiman Pervaiz, Hongen Kang, Yiming Bao and Amir Ali Abbasi
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:76
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  9. Climate heterogeneity not only indirectly shapes the genetic structures of plant populations, but also drives adaptive divergence by impacting demographic dynamics. The variable localized climates and topograp...

    Authors: Hang Ye, Zhi Wang, Huimin Hou, Jiahui Wu, Yue Gao, Wei Han, Wenming Ru, Genlou Sun and Yiling Wang
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:56
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  10. Black rockfish (Sebastes schlegelii) is a viviparous teleost. We proposed that the rockfish ovarian wall had a similar function to the uterus of mammals previously. In the present study, the well-developed vascul...

    Authors: Jingjing Niu, Weihao Song, Rui Li, Haiyang Yu, Jian Guan, Jie Qi and Yan He
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:44
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  11. The circadian clock is a biological timing system that improves the ability of organisms to deal with environmental fluctuations. At the molecular level it consists of a network of transcription-translation fe...

    Authors: João M. Moreno, Tiago F. Jesus, Maria M. Coelho and Vitor C. Sousa
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:38
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  12. Hemocyanin is the oxygen transporter of most molluscs. Since the oxygen affinity of hemocyanin is strongly temperature-dependent, this essential protein needs to be well-adapted to the environment. In Tectiple...

    Authors: Gabriela Giannina Schäfer, Veronika Pedrini-Martha, Daniel John Jackson, Reinhard Dallinger and Bernhard Lieb
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:36
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  13. Thamnophilidae birds are the result of a monophyletic radiation of insectivorous Passeriformes. They are a diverse group of 225 species and 45 genera and occur in lowlands and lower montane forests of Neotropi...

    Authors: Talita Fernanda Augusto Ribas, Julio Cesar Pieczarka, Darren K. Griffin, Lucas G. Kiazim, Cleusa Yoshiko Nagamachi, Patricia Caroline Mary O´Brien, Malcolm Andrew Ferguson-Smith, Fengtang Yang, Alexandre Aleixo and Rebecca E. O’Connor
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:34
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  14. We analyzed a combined segment (2032-bp) of the sex-determining region and the testis-specific protein of the Y-chromosome (Y-DNA) gene to clarify the gene flow and phylogenetic relationships of the long-taile...

    Authors: Jeffrine J. Rovie-Ryan, Faisal Ali Anwarali Khan and Mohd Tajuddin Abdullah
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:26
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  15. The mammalian testis is an important male exocrine gland and spermatozoa-producing organ that usually lies in extra-abdominal scrotums to provide a cooler environment for spermatogenesis and sperm storage. Tes...

    Authors: Simin Chai, Ran Tian, Juanjuan Bi, Shixia Xu, Guang Yang and Wenhua Ren
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:22
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  16. Exploring hybrid zone dynamics at different spatial scales allows for better understanding of local factors that influence hybrid zone structure. In this study, we tested hypotheses about drivers of introgress...

    Authors: Logan M. Maxwell, Jennifer Walsh, Brian J. Olsen and Adrienne I. Kovach
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:14
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  17. The Scolopacidae family (Suborder Scolopaci, Charadriiformes) is composed of sandpipers and snipes; these birds are long-distance migrants that show great diversity in their behavior and habitat use. Cytogenet...

    Authors: Melquizedec Luiz Silva Pinheiro, Cleusa Yoshiko Nagamachi, Talita Fernanda Augusto Ribas, Cristovam Guerreiro Diniz, Patricia Caroline Mary O´Brien, Malcolm Andrew Ferguson-Smith, Fengtang Yang and Julio Cesar Pieczarka
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:8
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  18. In the Tropical Eastern Pacific (TEP), four species of parrotfishes with complex phylogeographic histories co-occur in sympatry on rocky reefs from Baja California to Ecuador: Scarus compressus, S. ghobban, S. pe...

    Authors: David B. Carlon, D. Ross Robertson, Robert L. Barron, John Howard Choat, David J. Anderson, Sonja A. Schwartz and Carlos A. Sánchez-Ortiz
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:7
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  19. Syngnathid fishes (Actinopterygii, Syngnathidae) are flagship species strongly associated with seaweed and seagrass habitats. Seahorses and pipefishes are highly vulnerable to anthropogenic and environmental d...

    Authors: Miquel Planas, Cristina Piñeiro-Corbeira, Carmen Bouza, Inés Castejón-Silvo, Manuel Vera, Marcos Regueira, Verónica Ochoa, Ignacio Bárbara, Jorge Terrados, Alexandro Chamorro, Rodolfo Barreiro, Jorge Hernández-Urcera, Irene Alejo, Miguel Nombela, Manuel Enrique García, Belén G. Pardo…
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:4
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  20. The huntingtin-associated protein 40 (HAP40) abundantly interacts with huntingtin (HTT), the protein that is altered in Huntington’s disease (HD). Therefore, we analysed the evolution of HAP40 and its interact...

    Authors: Manuel Seefelder, Vikram Alva, Bin Huang, Tatjana Engler, Wolfgang Baumeister, Qiang Guo, Rubén Fernández-Busnadiego, Andrei N. Lupas and Stefan Kochanek
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:162
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  21. Evolutionary transitions from terrestrial to aquatic life history cause drastic changes in sensory systems. Indeed, the drastic changes in vision have been reported in many aquatic amniotes, convergently. Rece...

    Authors: Takashi Seiko, Takushi Kishida, Mina Toyama, Takahiko Hariyama, Takashi Okitsu, Akimori Wada, Mamoru Toda, Yoko Satta and Yohey Terai
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:158
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  22. The process of speciation involves differentiation of whole genome sequences between a pair of diverging taxa. In the absence of a geographic barrier and in the presence of gene flow, genomic differentiation m...

    Authors: Kiwoong Nam, Sandra Nhim, Stéphanie Robin, Anthony Bretaudeau, Nicolas Nègre and Emmanuelle d’Alençon
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:152
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  23. The northeastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) presents a high number of plateau loach species. As one of the three major groups of fishes distributed on the QTP, plateau loach has high ecological va...

    Authors: Tai Wang, Yan-ping Zhang, Zhuo-yu Yang, Zhe Liu and Yan-yan Du
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:151
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  25. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder. PD associated human UCHL1 (Ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1) gene belongs to the family of deubiquitinases and is known to be highly...

    Authors: Muhammad Saqib Nawaz, Razia Asghar, Nashaiman Pervaiz, Shahid Ali, Irfan Hussain, Peiqi Xing, Yiming Bao and Amir Ali Abbasi
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:130
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  26. Mitochondrial function requires numerous genetic interactions between mitochondrial- and nuclear- encoded genes. While selection for optimal mitonuclear interactions should result in coevolution between both g...

    Authors: Tuc H. M. Nguyen, Sargunvir Sondhi, Andrew Ziesel, Swati Paliwal and Heather L. Fiumera
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:128
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  27. The family Labridae made up of 519 species in the world. The functional evolution of the feeding-related jaws leaded to differentiation of species, and the pharyngeal jaw apparatus evolved independently, but e...

    Authors: Dong Liu, Yuanyuan Zhang, Ming Zhang, Jinquan Yang and Wenqiao Tang
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:125
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  28. Hybridization is a central mechanism in evolution, producing new species or introducing important genetic variation into existing species. In plant-pathogenic fungi, adaptation and specialization to exploit a ...

    Authors: Britta Bueker, Marco Alexandre Guerreiro, Michael E. Hood, Andreas Brachmann, Sven Rahmann and Dominik Begerow
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:123
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  29. The majority of parthenogenetic vertebrates derive from hybridization between sexually reproducing species, but the exact number of hybridization events ancestral to currently extant clonal lineages is difficu...

    Authors: David Tarkhnishvili, Alexey Yanchukov, Mehmet Kürşat Şahin, Mariam Gabelaia, Marine Murtskhvaladze, Kamil Candan, Eduard Galoyan, Marine Arakelyan, Giorgi Iankoshvili, Yusuf Kumlutaş, Çetin Ilgaz, Ferhat Matur, Faruk Çolak, Meriç Erdolu, Sofiko Kurdadze, Natia Barateli…
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:122
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  30. The three main subspecies of house mice, Mus musculus castaneus, Mus musculus domesticus, and Mus musculus musculus, are estimated to have diverged ~ 350-500KYA. Resolution of the details of their evolutionary hi...

    Authors: Megan Phifer-Rixey, Bettina Harr and Jody Hey
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:120
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  31. Many species are threatened with extinction as their population sizes decrease with changing environments or face novel pathogenic threats. A reduction of genetic diversity at major histocompatibility complex (MH...

    Authors: Christelle Vangenot, José Manuel Nunes, Gaby M. Doxiadis, Estella S. Poloni, Ronald E. Bontrop, Natasja G. de Groot and Alicia Sanchez-Mazas
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:119
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  32. Deep mitochondrial divergences were observed in Scandinavian populations of the terrestrial to semi-aquatic annelid Fridericia magna (Clitellata: Enchytraeidae). This raised the need for testing whether the taxon...

    Authors: Svante Martinsson, Mårten Klinth and Christer Erséus
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:116
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  33. Understanding the structure and variability of adaptive loci such as the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes is a primary research goal for evolutionary and conservation genetics. Typically, classical...

    Authors: Medardo Cruz-López, Guillermo Fernández, Helen Hipperson, Eduardo Palacios, John Cavitt, Daniel Galindo-Espinosa, Salvador Gómez del Angel, Raya Pruner, Oscar Gonzalez, Terry Burke and Clemens Küpper
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:114
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  35. The Caribbean offers a unique opportunity to study evolutionary dynamics in insular mammals. However, the recent extinction of most Caribbean non-volant mammals has obstructed evolutionary studies, and poor DN...

    Authors: Roseina Woods, Samuel T. Turvey, Selina Brace, Christopher V. McCabe, Love Dalén, Emily J. Rayfield, Mark J. F. Brown and Ian Barnes
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:106
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  36. Microbiomes can have profound impacts on host biology and evolution, but to date, remain vastly understudied in spiders despite their unique and diverse predatory adaptations. This study evaluates closely rela...

    Authors: Sara J. Dunaj, Brian R. Bettencourt, Jessica E. Garb and Robert M. Brucker
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:104
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  37. Many animals rely heavily on olfaction to navigate their environment. Among rodents, olfaction is crucial for a wide range of social behaviors. The vomeronasal olfactory system in particular plays an important...

    Authors: Caitlin H. Miller, Polly Campbell and Michael J. Sheehan
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:99
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  38. East African lake cichlids are one of the most impressive examples of an adaptive radiation. Independently in Lake Victoria, Tanganyika, and Malawi, several hundreds of species arose within the last 10 million...

    Authors: Luca Penso-Dolfin, Angela Man, Tarang Mehta, Wilfried Haerty and Federica Di Palma
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:69
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  39. Mygalomorph spiders represent a diverse, yet understudied lineage for which genomic level data has only recently become accessible through high-throughput genomic and transcriptomic sequencing methods. The Aptost...

    Authors: Nicole L. Garrison, Michael S. Brewer and Jason E. Bond
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:68
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  40. Alternative splicing (AS) generates various transcripts from a single gene and thus plays a significant role in transcriptomic diversity and proteomic complexity. Alu elements are primate-specific transposable el...

    Authors: Se-Hee Choe, Sang-Je Park, Hyeon-Mu Cho, Hye-Ri Park, Ja-Rang Lee, Young-Hyun Kim and Jae-Won Huh
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:66
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  41. Invasion of organisms into new ecosystems is increasingly common, due to the global trade in commodities. One of the most complex post-invasion scenarios occurs when an invasive species is related to a native ...

    Authors: Erick M. G. Cordeiro, Laura M. Pantoja-Gomez, Julia B. de Paiva, Antônio R. B. Nascimento, Celso Omoto, Andrew P. Michel and Alberto S. Correa
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:61
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  43. Chromosomal rearrangements are thought to be an important driving force underlying lineage diversification, but their link to speciation continues to be debated. Antarctic teleost fish of the family Notothenii...

    Authors: Juliette Auvinet, Paula Graça, Agnès Dettai, Angel Amores, John H. Postlethwait, H. William Detrich III, Catherine Ozouf-Costaz, Olivier Coriton and Dominique Higuet
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:39
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  45. Modularity is important for evolutionary innovation. The recombination of existing units to form larger complexes with new functionalities spares the need to create novel elements from scratch. In proteins, th...

    Authors: Elias Dohmen, Steffen Klasberg, Erich Bornberg-Bauer, Sören Perrey and Carsten Kemena
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:30
    Content type: Research Article Published on:

  46. Recent human transcriptomic analyses revealed a very large number of testis-enriched genes, many of which are involved in spermatogenesis. This comprehensive transcriptomic data lead us to the question whether...

    Authors: Helmut Schaschl and Bernard Wallner
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:27
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  47. The need for enhancing the productivity of fisheries in Africa triggered the introduction of non-native fish, causing dramatic changes to local species. In East Africa, the extensive translocation of Nile tila...

    Authors: Papius Dias Tibihika, Manuel Curto, Esayas Alemayehu, Herwig Waidbacher, Charles Masembe, Peter Akoll and Harald Meimberg
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:16
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  48. The piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that specifically repress transposable elements (TEs) in the germline of Drosophila. Despite our expanding understanding of TE:piRNA interaction, wheth...

    Authors: Shiqi Luo, Hong Zhang, Yuange Duan, Xinmin Yao, Andrew G. Clark and Jian Lu
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:14
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  49. Understanding the genomic basis of phenotypic diversity can be greatly facilitated by examining adaptive radiations with hypervariable traits. In this study, we focus on a rapidly diverged species group of mor...

    Authors: Mauricio Losilla, David Michael Luecke and Jason R. Gallant
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:6
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  50. Ecological speciation is a prominent mechanism of diversification but in many evolutionary radiations, particularly in invertebrates, it remains unclear whether supposedly critical ecological traits drove or f...

    Authors: Bert Van Bocxlaer, Claudia M. Ortiz-Sepulveda, Pieter R. Gurdebeke and Xavier Vekemans
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:5
    Content type: Research article Published on:
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