Year: 2022

SCALE AND SOURCE. “Horizontal gene transfer likely affects different lineages in different fashions, perhaps illustrated most dramatically by the minimal contribution of horizontal gene transfer in the evolution of intracellular parasites undergoing genome reduction. Consideration of scale and source can serve as effective arbiters when reconciling data collected from diverse systems.” https://lnkd.in/djKBnru View in LinkedIn

RESTRUCTURING. “Recognition of gene transfer within and among lineages restructures microbial evolution in more ways than offering new interpretations of the pattern of microbial phylogeny.” https://lnkd.in/djKBnru View in LinkedIn

“TRADITIONAL MODELS of microbial evolution by mutational processes, combined with the measurement of environmental tolerances in laboratory environments, imparts a view of ecological niches as relatively static domains, within which organisms evolve predictably toward maximal fitness.” https://lnkd.in/djKBnru View in LinkedIn

NON-STATIC NICHES. “For example, we can measure how an organism improves in fitness when grown for thousands of generations under glucose-limited conditions; here the environment and the evolutionary challenges seem clearly defined. However, even bacteria confined to chemostats can subvert our plans for them, inventing new niches instead of refining methods for exploiting those we had defined.” https://lnkd.in/djKBnru View in LinkedIn

UNPREDICTABLE MAXIMAL FITNESS. “For instance, strains selected for glucose utilization will spawn populations specializing in the scavenging of acetate waste products. Such adaptive changes could spawn niche-specific, “orphan” genes found uniquely in particular bacterial genomes.” https://lnkd.in/djKBnru View in LinkedIn

World's fishing fleets mapped from orbit http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43169824 View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE picks up on a recent report that Great Tits’ beaks had lengthened in response to British bird feeding habits. And in a very short time. This story in itself is charming. But while we generally think of evolution occurring on geological time scales, there are numerous cases of evolution occurring within just tens of generations, mostly associated with human impact on ecosystems. View in LinkedIn

KNOWING HOW TO LOOK. “If we look closely, we can sometimes glimpse evolution unfolding in real time. And often we are surprised to find ourselves directing the show.” https://lnkd.in/ghWux7x View in LinkedIn

RAPID ADAPTATION. “U.K. birds not only have longer bills, but these longer bills are associated with increased fitness. These changes likely reflect an increase in domestic garden bird feeders over the past several decades.” https://lnkd.in/g97gtqk View in LinkedIn

GENETIC BASIS. “We found that genomic regions under differential selection contained candidate genes for bill morphology and used genetic architecture analyses to confirm that these genes, especially the collagen gene COL4A5, explained variation in bill length. COL4A5 variation was associated with reproductive success, which, combined with spatiotemporal patterns of bill length, suggested ongoing selection for longer bills in the United Kingdom. Last, bill length and COL4A5 variation were associated with usage of feeders, suggesting that longer bills may have evolved in the United Kingdom as a response to supplementary feeding.” http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6361/365 View in LinkedIn