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Using information from physics, biomechanics and evolutionary biology, we explore the implications of physical constraints on sperm performance, and review empirical evidence for links between sperm length and...
The mosquito Anopheles irenicus, a member of the Anopheles punctulatus group, is geographically restricted to Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. It shows remarkable morphological similarities to one of its sibli...
Commonly used phylogenetic models assume a homogeneous evolutionary process throughout the tree. It is known that these homogeneous models are often too simplistic, and that with time some properties of the ev...
Clostridial neurotoxins (CNTs) are the most deadly toxins known and causal agents of botulism and tetanus neuroparalytic diseases. Despite considerable progress in understanding CNT structure and function, the...
The Hawaiian honeycreepers (Drepanidinae) are one of the best-known examples of an adaptive radiation, but their persistence today is threatened by the introduction of exotic pathogens and their vector, the mo...
The mitochondria of contemporary organisms contain fewer genes than the ancestral bacteria are predicted to have contained. Because most of the mitochondrial proteins are encoded in the nucleus, the genes woul...
Abyssal microorganisms have evolved particular features that enable them to grow in their extreme habitat. Genes belonging to specific functional categories are known to be particularly susceptible to high-pre...
In the past decade or more, the emphasis for reconstructing species phylogenies has moved from the analysis of a single gene to the analysis of multiple genes and even completed genomes. The simplest method of...
Sox genes encode transcription factors that function in a wide range of developmental processes across the animal kingdom. To better understand both the evolution of the Sox family and the roles of these genes...
The Australian scincid clade Lerista provides perhaps the best available model for studying limb reduction in squamates (lizards and snakes), comprising more than 75 species displaying a remarkable variety of dig...
In the Anopheles gambiae complex, paracentric chromosomal inversions are non-randomly distributed along the complement: 18/31 (58%) of common polymorphic inversions are on chromosome arm 2R, which represents only...
Group I introns are found in the nuclear small subunit ribosomal RNA gene (SSU rDNA) of some species of the genus Porphyra (Bangiales, Rhodophyta). Size polymorphisms in group I introns has been interpreted as th...
Evolution of synonymous codon usage is thought to be determined by a balance between mutation, genetic drift and natural selection on translational efficiency. However, natural selection on codon usage is cons...
The uncoupling protein (UCP) genes belong to the superfamily of electron transport carriers of the mitochondrial inner membrane. Members of the uncoupling protein family are involved in thermogenesis and deter...
Endo-1,4-beta-glucanases or cellulases from the glycosyl hydrolase family 5 (GHF5) have been found in numerous bacteria and fungi, and recently also in higher eukaryotes, particularly in plant-parasitic nemato...
Cyanelles, the peptidoglycan-armored plastids of glaucocystophytes, occupy a unique bridge position in between free-living cyanobacteria and chloroplasts. In some respects they side with cyanobacteria whereas ...
Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic source of variation in quantitative traits that results from monoallelic gene expression, where commonly either only the paternally- or the maternally-derived allele is expr...
Sequences homologous to the gypsy retroelement from Drosophila melanogaster are widely distributed among drosophilids. The structure of gypsy includes an open reading frame resembling the retroviral gene env, whi...
Evolutionary genetics provides a rich theoretical framework for empirical studies of phylogeography. Investigations of intraspecific genetic variation can uncover new putative species while allowing inference ...
As originally defined, orthologous genes implied a reflection of the history of the species. In recent years, many studies have examined the concordance between orthologous gene trees and species trees in bact...
Increasing evidence from DNA sequence data has revealed that phylogenies based on different genes may drastically differ from each other. This may be due to either inter- or intralineage processes, or to metho...
China, with around 30 unique breeds, has a diverse duck genetic pool. Currently, there is no systematic report which investigates the genetic diversity, phylogenetic relationship, and matrilineal genetic struc...
The study of inbreeding depression has major relevance for many disciplines, including conservation genetics and evolutionary biology. Still, the molecular genetic basis of this phenomenon remains poorly chara...
Since Darwin's pioneering work, evolutionary changes in isolated island populations of vertebrates have continued to provide the strongest evidence for the theory of natural selection. Besides macro-evolutiona...
Quantifying the amount of standing genetic variation in fitness represents an empirical challenge. Unfortunately, the shortage of detailed studies of the genetic architecture of fitness has hampered progress i...
Histone methylation can dramatically affect chromatin structure and gene expression and was considered irreversible until recent discoveries of two families of histone demethylases, the KDM1 (previously LSD1) ...
A major challenge for evolutionary biology is explaining altruism, particularly when it involves death of one party and occurs across species. Chimeric fruiting bodies of Dictyostelium discoideum and Dictyosteliu...
PSA (promastigote surface antigen) is one of the major classes of membrane proteins present at the surface of the parasitic protozoan Leishmania. While it harbours leucine rich repeats, which are suggestive of it...
The Wuschel related homeobox (WOX) family proteins are key regulators implicated in the determination of cell fate in plants by preventing cell differentiation. A recent WOX phylogeny, based on WOX homeodomain...
Members of the eukaryote/archaea specific eRF1 and eRF3 protein families have central roles in translation termination. They are also central to various mRNA surveillance mechanisms, together with the eRF1 par...
Effective population size (N e ) is related to genetic variability and is a basic parameter in many models of population genetics. A number of methods for inferring current a...
There is accumulating evidence that polymorphism in Toll-like receptor (TLR) genes might be associated with disease resistance or susceptibility traits in livestock. Polymorphic sites affecting TLR function shoul...
In recent years it has been found that the combination of evolutionary game theory with population structures modelled in terms of dynamical graphs, in which individuals are allowed to sever unwanted social ti...
The major birch pollen allergen, Bet v 1, is a member of the ubiquitous PR-10 family of plant pathogenesis-related proteins. In recent years, a number of diverse plant proteins with low sequence similarity to ...
Creating new protein domain arrangements is a frequent mechanism of evolutionary innovation. While some domains always form the same combinations, others form many different arrangements. This ability, which i...
Recent work has revealed that many biological systems keep functioning in the face of mutations and therefore can be considered genetically robust. However, several issues related to robustness remain poorly u...
Sperm morphology can be highly variable among species, but less is known about patterns of population differentiation within species. Most studies of sperm morphometric variation are done in species with inter...
Populations of the teleost fish Fundulus heteroclitus appear to flourish in heavily polluted and geographically separated Superfund sites. Populations from three Superfund sites (New Bedford Harbor, MA, Newark Ba...
The evolutionary origin of strong altruism (where the altruist pays an absolute cost in terms of fitness) towards non-kin has never been satisfactorily explained since no mechanism (except genetic drift) seems...
Plant genomes contain a high proportion of duplicated genes as a result of numerous whole, segmental and local duplications. These duplications lead up to the formation of gene families, which are the usual ma...
Globin isoforms with variant properties and functions have been found in the pseudocoel, body wall and cuticle of various nematode species and even in the eyespots of the insect-parasite Mermis nigrescens. In fac...
DNA encoding for ribosomal RNA (rDNA) is arranged in tandemly-repeated subunits, each containing ribosomal genes and non-coding spacers. Because tandemly-repeated, rDNA evolves under a balanced influence of se...
The bacterium Listeria monocytogenes is a saprotroph as well as an opportunistic human foodborne pathogen, which has previously been shown to consist of at least two widespread lineages (termed lineages I and II)...
The origin of vertebrate retroviruses (Retroviridae) is yet to be thoroughly investigated, but due to their similarity and identical gag-pol (and env) genome structure, it is accepted that they evolve from Ty3/Gy...
Different regions in a genome evolve at different rates depending on structural and functional constraints. Some genomic regions are highly conserved during metazoan evolution, while other regions may evolve r...
Host-parasite coevolution can result in balancing selection, which maintains genetic variation in the susceptibility of hosts to parasites. It has been suggested that variation in a thioester-containing protei...
Related species, such as humans and chimpanzees, often experience the same disease with varying degrees of pathology, as seen in the cases of Alzheimer's disease, or differing symptomatology as in AIDS. Furthe...
Despite a large agreement between ribosomal RNA and concatenated protein phylogenies, the phylogenetic tree of the bacterial domain remains uncertain in its deepest nodes. For instance, the position of the hyp...
The Mus musculus musculus/M. m. domesticus contact zone in Europe is characterised by sharp frequency discontinuities for sex chromosome markers at the centre of wider clines in allozyme frequencies.
Moths have evolved highly successful mating systems, relying on species-specific mixtures of sex pheromone components for long-distance mate communication. Acyl-CoA desaturases are key enzymes in the biosynthe...
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