by Koeberl, Christian, Gilmour, Iain, ESF IMPACT
fromLecture Notes in Earth Sciences
Presents an overview of human evolution and discusses human and animal intelligence, the mechanisms of the brain, memory, sleep, myths and legends about evolution, and the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial life.
Round goby ( Neogobius melanostomus ) is an invasive fish present in all five Great Lakes and is becoming increasingly common in their tributaries. Johnny darter ( Etheostoma nigrum ) is a native species that often coexists with round goby. Here, I use traditional population gen…
El conocimiento actual de los patrones de diversidad biológica se basa principalmente en laevaluación de la riqueza de especies a distintas escalas. Es reconocido ampliamente que estamedida de diversidad no se distribuye al azar, donde el patrón más recurrente y documentado aesc…
Most proteins associate into multimeric complexes with specific architectures, which often have functional properties like cooperative ligand binding or allosteric regulation. No detailed knowledge is available about how any multimer and its functions arose during historical evo…
Recent studies showed that admixture between modern humans and ancient hominin species was a ubiquitous phenomenon in the past. We now know that modern humans admixed with Neanderthals as well as Denisovans, an extinct hominin species, existence of which we acknowledged through …
Life history theory has been a major focus for evolutionary biologists since the field’s inception. A multitude of studies have been performed over various organisms, however, the underlying mechanisms that predict life history strategies remain elusive. The genus Sceloporus has…
The discovery of small-bodied hominin fossils in 2004 on the island of Flores, Indonesia, unearthed a large debate within biological anthropology. This debate has exemplified that there are questions and research areas that biological anthropologists do not understand about isla…
The Smallmouth Bass (Micropterus dolomieu) is one of the most highly targeted sport fishes in the world. Anglers vie for the opportunity to catch Smallmouth Bass recreationally and competitively, spending billions of dollars every year on travel, equipment, and conservation perm…
Spiders are one of the most diverse clades of multicellular life on earth, and their success has been attributed to several key genomic features, such as weaving silk, deploying various forms of venom, and being able to metabolize many types of prey. We have created a database o…
Closely related taxa frequently exist in sympatry before the evolution of robust reproductive barriers, which can lead to substantial gene flow. Post-divergence gene flow can promote several disparate trajectories of divergence ranging from the collapse of the taxa to the streng…
All living organisms have some form of innate immunity, which serves as the first line of defense against pathogen infection. Immune systems are under substantial selective pressure given that pathogens that can evade these defenses will be more evolutionarily successful; theref…
Inference of the evolutionary histories of species, commonly represented by a species tree, is complicated by the divergent evolutionary history of different parts of the genome. Different loci on the genome can have different histories from the underlying species tree (and each…
Cancers are composed of genetically distinct subpopulations of malignant cells. By sequencing DNA from cancer tissue samples, we can characterize the somatic mutations specific to each population and build clone trees describing the evolutionary relationships between these popul…
Termites are classified as eusocial, wood-feeding cockroaches nested within the superorder Dictyoptera, (cockroaches and mantises). Questions regarding the evolution of eusocial termites from a solitary ancestor remain difficult to answer; extinction at the base of the termite t…
Disease transmission is a product of mechanisms and interactions at multiple levels of biological organization, and a comprehensive understanding of these processes is essential to disease control. Malaria parasites, for example, can infect dozens of vector species and undergo c…
Pair bonding, or long-term adult romantic relationship, was advantageous in ensuring offspring survival and adult protection in the evolutionary environment, thus humans have evolved with strong mating and pair bonding motivations (Belsky, 1999; Fraley, Brumbaugh & Marks, 2005; …
Model organisms are useful tools for investigating generalities in biology and have greatly advanced current understanding of adaptive behavior. Yet Krogh’s principle—that there exists specialized species most convenient for answering specific biological questions—suggests that …
