Biological Sciences: Recent submissions
Now showing items 101-120 of 126
The players in a mutualistic symbiosis: insects, bacteria, viruses, and virulence genes
(2019-08-08)
Aphids maintain mutualistic symbioses involving consortia of coinherited organisms. All possess a primary endosymbiont, Buchnera, which compensates for dietary deficiencies; many also contain secondary symbionts, such as ...
Osmoregulation in the Hawaiian anchialine shrimp Halocaridina rubra (Crustacea: Atyidae): expression of ion transporters, mitochondria-rich cell proliferation and hemolymph osmolality during salinity transfers
(2019-08-08)
Studies of euryhaline crustaceans have identified conserved osmoregulatory adaptions allowing hyper-osmoregulation in dilute waters. However, previous studies have mainly examined decapod brachyurans with marine ancestries ...
Enhancing Diversity in Undergraduate Science: Self-Efficacy Drives Performance Gains with Active Learning
(2019-08-07)
Efforts to retain underrepresented minority (URM) students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have shown only limited success in higher education, due in part to a persistent achievement gap between ...
Physiological consequences of an altered flow regime on Alabama bass (Micropterus henshalli)
(2019-08-06)
There are numerous studies on the effects of dams on aquatic biota, yet relatively little is known about whether hydropeaking activities cause physiological change in fish. Using Alabama bass (Micropterus henshalli) as a ...
The Adaptive Bleaching Hypothesis: Experimental Tests of Critical Assumptions
(2019-08-02)
Coral bleaching, the loss of color due to loss of symbiotic zooxanthellae or their pigment, appears to be increasing in intensity and geographic extent, perhaps related to increasing sea surface temperatures. The adaptive ...
Molecular genetic evidence that dinoflagellates belonging to the genus Symbiodinium freudenthal are haploid
(2019-08-02)
Microscopic and cytological evidence suggest that many dinoflagellates possess a haploid nuclear phase. However, the ploidy of a number of dinoflagellates remains unknown, and molecular genetic support for haploidy in this ...
Multiple colonizations lead to cryptic biodiversity in an island ecosystem: comparative phylogeography of anchialine shrimp species in the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan
(2019-08-02)
Archipelagos of the Indo-West Pacific are considered to be among the richest in the world in biodiversity, and phylogeographic studies generally support either the center of origin or the center of accumulation hypothesis ...
Reproduction and development in Halocaridina rubra Holthuis, 1963 (Crustacea: Atyidae) clarifies larval ecology in the Hawaiian anchialine ecosystem
(2019-08-01)
Larvae in aquatic habitats often develop in environments different from those they inhabit as adults. Shrimp in the Atyidae exemplify this trend, as larvae of many species require salt or brackish water for development, ...
Crossing the Divide: Admixture Across the Antarctic Polar Front Revealed by the Brittle Star Astrotoma agassizii
(2019-07-31)
The Antarctic Polar Front (APF) is one of the most well-defined and persistent oceanographic features on the planet and serves as a barrier to dispersal between the Southern Ocean and lower latitudes. High levels of endemism ...
Genetic population structure of an anchialine shrimp, Metabetaeus lohena (Crustacea: Alpheidae), in the Hawaiian Islands
(2019-07-15)
Anchialine habitats in the Hawaiian Islands, characterized as coastal bodies of land-locked salt or brackish water that fluctuate with the tides due to subterranean connections, are the only ecosystems of this type found ...
Do Small Classes in Higher Education Reduce Performance Gaps in STEM?
(2019-07-11)
Performance gaps in science are well documented, and an examination of underlying mechanisms that lead to underperformance and attrition of women and underrepresented minorities (URM) may offer highly targeted means to ...
Reef endemism, host specificity and temporal stability in populations of symbiotic dinoflagellates from two ecologically dominant Caribbean corals
(2019-07-01)
BACKGROUND: The dinoflagellate genus Symbiodinium forms symbioses with numerous protistan and invertebrate metazoan hosts. However, few data on symbiont genetic structure are available, hindering predictions of how these ...
Phylogenetic and morphologic analyses of a coastal fish reveals a marine biogeographic break of terrestrial origin in the southern Caribbean
(2019-07-01)
BACKGROUND: Marine allopatric speciation involves interplay between intrinsic organismal properties and extrinsic factors. However, the relative contribution of each depends on the taxon under study and its geographic ...
Performance of single and concatenated sets of mitochondrial genes at inferring metazoan relationships relative to full mitogenome data
(2019-05-10)
Mitochondrial (mt) genes are some of the most popular and widely-utilized genetic loci in phylogenetic studies of metazoan taxa. However, their linked nature has raised questions on whether using the entire mitogenome for ...
Genetic differentiation, structure, and a transition zone among populations of the pitcher plant moth Exyra semicrocea: implications for conservation
(2019-05-10)
Pitcher plant bogs, or carnivorous plant wetlands, have experienced extensive habitat loss and fragmentation throughout the southeastern United States Coastal Plain, resulting in an estimated reduction to <3% of their ...
Tracking transmission of apicomplexan symbionts in diverse Caribbean corals
(2019-05-10)
Symbionts in each generation are transmitted to new host individuals either vertically (parent to offspring), horizontally (from exogenous sources), or a combination of both. Scleractinian corals make an excellent study ...
Nemertean toxin genes revealed through transcriptome sequencing
(2019-04-29)
Nemerteans are one of few animal groups that have evolved the ability to utilize toxins for both defense and subduing prey, but little is known about specific nemertean toxins. In particular, no study has identified specific ...
Biogeochemical and Microbial Variation across 5500 km of Antarctic Surface Sediment Implicates Organic Matter as a Driver of Benthic Community Structure
(2019-04-29)
Western Antarctica, one of the fastest warming locations on Earth, is a unique environment that is underexplored with regards to biodiversity. Although pelagic microbial communities in the Southern Ocean and coastal Antarctic ...