Browsing Biology by Title
Now showing items 93-112 of 207
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From Genetics to Behavior, the Dynamics and Mechanisms of Adult Neurogenesis in a Sensorimotor Circuit
The most defining attribute of the nervous system is that it shows extensive plasticity of structure and function that allows animals to adjust their behavior, physiology, and morphology to changes in their environment. ... -
From species to populations: Genetic and eco-physiological divergence across Puerto Rican Anolis lizards
Species pairs of Puerto Rican anoles inhabit distinct thermal environments and are locally adapted to those environments with regard to physiological traits. In chapter 1, I analyzed multilocus nuclear genetic data and ... -
Functional Anatomy and Evolution of a Novel Skeletal Element in Bat Feet
The striking postcranial anatomy of bats reflects their specialized ecology; they are the only mammals capable of powered flight. Bat postcranial adaptations include a series of membranes that connect highly-modified, or ... -
The Functional Morphology of Hard-Prey Crushing Teeth
Durophagy is the consumption of hard-shelled prey-items, like shelled molluscs and crustaceans with hard exoskeletons. In order to break these hard shells, organisms need to be able to generate large bite-forces, which ... -
Functions of the SLC36 transporter Pathetic in growth control of Drosophila sensory neurons
Dendrites exhibit enormous diversity in form and can differ in size by several orders of magnitude even in a single animal. However, whether neurons with large dendrite arbors have specialized mechanisms to support their ... -
Gene flow and models of avian speciation in tropical mountains
Eight decades after the modern synthesis, the role of gene flow in speciation remains contentious. Because gene flow is a homogenizing force and sister species frequently occur in allopatry, geographic isolation was assumed ... -
Genomic and morphological analysis of an American crow hybrid zone
The Northwestern Crow (Corvus caurinus) and American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) are continuously distributed sister taxa that lack reliable traditional characters for identification near their range boundary. We used ... -
Hidden conflict in pollination and its implications for diversification
Pollinator-driven selection plays an important role in flowering plant diversification. Different pollinator guilds (e.g., butterfly, hummingbird, bat) have different preferences for and performance on flowers, which in ... -
Histological insights into growth trajectories, life history, and community age structure in the mammalian stem lineage
Much of our understanding of the terrestrial recovery of the end-Permian mass extinction comes from tetrapod assemblages from the Karoo Basin of South Africa but Triassic tetrapods are found in South America, India, ... -
Histological insights into trait acquisition in non-mammalian synapsids
The synapsid stem lineage is classically known to document a step-wise pattern of trait acquisition however, evidence of homoplasy in synapsids is common and increased scrutiny within synapsid clades and less readily ... -
History of climate and vegetation in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East from the Pleniglacial to the Mid-Holocene
(1983)Quaternary climates of the Middle East were investigated by reevaluating previous data and by analyzing pollen in radiocarbon-dated sediments. For comparison, assemblages of modern pollen were obtained from desert ... -
Homodonty and Heterodonty - an iconoclastic view of teeth
Teeth are perhaps one of the most readily identifiable traits that categorize vertebrates. Indeed, much of what we know about human evolution is based on fossilized teeth. In a similar manner the teeth of other vertebrates ... -
Host use and diversification in symbiotic polychaetes
(1998)I studied development and larval biology, host use, and gamete interactions in three obligately symbiotic polychaetes in the genus Arctonoe (Family Polynoidae). The three polychaetes are ectosymbionts of other marine ... -
How the chili got its spice: Ecological and evolutionary interactions between fungal fruit pathogens and wild chilies
(2013-11-14)Most species depend on other species for survival and reproduction, thus coevolution - reciprocal evolutionary change between species - arguably plays a dominant role in the origin and organization of biodiversity. We used ... -
Insights into the evolution and ecology of mammals from the Hell Creek region of northeastern Montana
The Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction event has historically been viewed as the catalyst for the radiation of mammals, with marked increases in body mass, taxonomic richness, and ecological disparity during the ... -
Insights into the evolution of Late Cretaceous metatherian mammals of North America: interpreting feeding ecologies using quantitative analyses
Metatherian mammals (the stem-based clade of extant marsupials and their closest relatives) were important members of North American communities during the Late Cretaceous: they were both taxonomically rich and numerically ... -
Intertwined evolution of swimming, morphology and microhabitat in tree frogs from the subfamily Hylinae
Multidisciplinary studies including phylogenetic inference, functional morphology and phylogenetic comparative methods are imperative to understand how closely related species evolved. By combining those three approaches ... -
Investigating the functional morphology, locomotor diversification, and paleoecology of Mesozoic mammals
The first two-thirds of mammalian history occurred in the Mesozoic Era (252-66 Ma). Mesozoic mammals have been long thought of as generalized, nocturnal, terrestrial taxa that were constrained by selective and ecological ... -
Late Cretaceous and Paleocene Lissamphibia and Squamata of Montana and the end-Cretaceous mass extinction
Late Cretaceous and Paleocene lissamphibians (e.g., salamanders and albanerpetontids) and squamates (e.g., lizards and snakes) are common components of the nonmarine vertebrate fossil record of North America. However, ... -
Learning from nature: understanding and engineering transcription regulation in plants
Synthetic biology offers tools to modify plants in an environment that is changing at a faster pace than can be matched by evolution alone. The tools available come from parts either borrowed from nature or designs built ...