Month: September 2022

SPECTRAL SPECIES. "The different kinds of bacteria are not separated by sharp divisions but by slight and subtle differences in characters so that they seem to blend into each other and resemble a spectrum.” https://lnkd.in/exx_wqw View in LinkedIn

INDISTINCT BACTERIAL STRAINS. "In many laboratory notebooks, there are results of tests of a few strains of different species that gave promise of great usefulness in characterizing species, but, after application of these tests to more strains of each species, the great promise dwindled to nothing because we are dealing with spectra of strains or sections of a spectrum, not with compact packages of strains." https://lnkd.in/exx_wqw View in LinkedIn

TRANSPOSON PROBLEM. "There was a time—just a few decades ago—when scientists believed genes were fixed and evolution was linear. Standard theory of natural selection did not account for the possibility of complex organisms suddenly acquiring genes from other species. But that model began collapsing in the 1970s, when transposons, colloquially known as ‘jumping genes’ were discovered." https://lnkd.in/eTmZGyK View in LinkedIn

HORIZONTAL GENE TRANSFER “is far more pervasive and more radical in its consequences than we could have guessed just a decade ago." Earlier this year, Cambridge (UK) scientists, Alistair Crisp and Chiara Boschetti, writing in Genome Biology, identified 145 genes in humans that have crossed the (quite permeable) species “barrier.” Our ABO blood group system appears to have been inherited from bacteria, for example." https://lnkd.in/eTmZGyK View in LinkedIn

"MASSIVE GENE FLOW across the world's most potent marine biogeographic barrier." https://lnkd.in/eeMRa2M View in LinkedIn

"HYBRIDIZATION between species can lead to introgression of genes from one species to another, providing a potential mechanism for preserving and recombining key traits during evolution." https://lnkd.in/eaRt-9g View in LinkedIn

"HYBRID ZONES are regions where individuals from genetically differentiated populations meet and mate, resulting in at least some offspring of mixed ancestry. Patterns of gene flow (introgression) in hybrid zones vary across the genome, allowing assessment of the role of individual genes or genome regions in reproductive isolation." https://lnkd.in/euQDjEc View in LinkedIn

"HYBRIDIZATION in fungi has recently been recognized as a major force in the generation of new fungal plant pathogens. Hybridization also plays an important role in the transfer of genetic material between species." https://lnkd.in/eFwabbr View in LinkedIn

ENGINE OF EVOLUTION. "Hybridization may drive rare taxa to extinction through genetic swamping, where the rare form is replaced by hybrids, or by demographic swamping, where population growth rates are reduced due to the wasteful production of maladaptive hybrids. Conversely, hybridization may rescue the viability of small, inbred populations." https://lnkd.in/emnTG9f View in LinkedIn

"HYBRID OFFSPRING are typically infertile or inviable. Unable to thrive or propagate, they help preserve the differentiation of the species, however unwillingly, unwittingly, or inadvertently." https://lnkd.in/eh4dCsa View in LinkedIn