Towards an eco ‐phylogenetic framework for infectious disease ecology
ABSTRACT
Identifying patterns and drivers of infectious disease dynamics across multiple scales is a fundamental challenge for modern science. There is growing awareness that it is necessary to incorporate multi‐host and/or multi‐parasite interactions to understand and predict current and future disease threats better, and new tools are needed to help address this task. Eco‐phylogenetics (phylogenetic community ecology) provides one avenue for exploring multi‐host multi‐parasite systems, yet the incorporation of eco‐phylogenetic concepts and methods into studies of host pathogen dynamics has lagged behind. Eco...
Source: Biological Reviews - November 8, 2017 Category: Biology Authors: Nicholas M. Fountain ‐Jones, William D. Pearse, Luis E. Escobar, Ana Alba‐Casals, Scott Carver, T. Jonathan Davies, Simona Kraberger, Monica Papeş, Kurt Vandegrift, Katherine Worsley‐Tonks, Meggan E. Craft Tags: Original Article Source Type: research
The function and mechanism of vocal accommodation in humans and other primates
Biological Reviews, EarlyView. (Source: Biological Reviews)
Source: Biological Reviews - November 7, 2017 Category: Biology Source Type: research
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Biological Reviews, Ahead of Print. (Source: Biological Reviews)
Source: Biological Reviews - November 7, 2017 Category: Biology Source Type: research
Ediacaran developmental biology
Biological Reviews, EarlyView. (Source: Biological Reviews)
Source: Biological Reviews - November 3, 2017 Category: Biology Source Type: research
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Biological Reviews, Ahead of Print. (Source: Biological Reviews)
Source: Biological Reviews - November 3, 2017 Category: Biology Source Type: research
Do reef corals age?
ABSTRACT
Hydra is emerging as a model organism for studies of ageing in early metazoan animals, but reef corals offer an equally ancient evolutionary perspective as well as several advantages, not least being the hard exoskeleton which provides a rich fossil record as well as a record of growth and means of ageing of individual coral polyps. Reef corals are also widely regarded as potentially immortal at the level of the asexual lineage and are assumed not to undergo an intrinsic ageing process. However, putative molecular indicators of ageing have recently been detected in reef corals. While many of the large massive cora...
Source: Biological Reviews - November 1, 2017 Category: Biology Authors: John C. Bythell, Barbara E. Brown, Thomas B. L. Kirkwood Tags: Original Article Source Type: research
The inositol pyrophosphate pathway in health and diseases
ABSTRACT
Inositol pyrophosphates (IPPs) are present in organisms ranging from plants, slime moulds and fungi to mammals. Distinct classes of kinases generate different forms of energetic diphosphate‐containing IPPs from inositol phosphates (IPs). Conversely, polyphosphate phosphohydrolase enzymes dephosphorylate IPPs to regenerate the respective IPs. IPPs and/or their metabolizing enzymes regulate various cell biological processes by modulating many proteins via diverse mechanisms. In the last decade, extensive research has been conducted in mammalian systems, particularly in knockout mouse models of relevant enzymes. Re...
Source: Biological Reviews - November 1, 2017 Category: Biology Authors: Anutosh Chakraborty Tags: Original Article Source Type: research
Bayesian molecular dating: opening up the black box
We describe some major research directions that may improve the reliability of Bayesian dating. The goal of our review is to help researchers to make informed choices when using Bayesian phylogenetic methods to estimate evolutionary rates and timescales. (Source: Biological Reviews)
Source: Biological Reviews - November 1, 2017 Category: Biology Authors: Lindell Bromham, Sebasti án Duchêne, Xia Hua, Andrew M. Ritchie, David A. Duchêne, Simon Y. W. Ho Tags: Original Article Source Type: research
Global grass (Poaceae) success underpinned by traits facilitating colonization, persistence and habitat transformation
ABSTRACT
Poaceae (the grasses) is arguably the most successful plant family, in terms of its global occurrence in (almost) all ecosystems with angiosperms, its ecological dominance in many ecosystems, and high species richness. We suggest that the success of grasses is best understood in context of their capacity to colonize, persist, and transform environments (the “Viking syndrome”). This results from combining effective long‐distance dispersal, efficacious establishment biology, ecological flexibility, resilience to disturbance and the capacity to modify environments by changing the nature of fire and mammalian he...
Source: Biological Reviews - November 1, 2017 Category: Biology Authors: H. P. Linder, Caroline E. R. Lehmann, Sally Archibald, Colin P. Osborne, David M. Richardson Tags: Original Article Source Type: research
Biology and pathological implications of brown adipose tissue: promises and caveats for the control of obesity and its associated complications
ABSTRACT
The discovery of metabolically active brown adipose tissue (BAT) in adult humans has fuelled the research of diverse aspects of this previously neglected tissue. BAT is solely present in mammals and its clearest physiological role is non‐shivering thermogenesis, owing to the capacity of brown adipocytes to dissipate metabolic energy as heat. Recently, a number of other possible functions have been proposed, including direct regulation of glucose and lipid homeostasis and the secretion of a number of factors with diverse regulatory actions. Herein, we review recent advances in general biological knowledge of BAT ...
Source: Biological Reviews - November 1, 2017 Category: Biology Authors: Pablo Tapia, Marta Fern ández‐Galilea, Fermín Robledo, Pablo Mardones, José E. Galgani, Víctor A. Cortés Tags: Original Article Source Type: research
Intergenerational effects of nutrition on immunity: a systematic review and meta ‐analysis
ABSTRACT
Diet and immunity are both highly complex processes through which organisms interact with their environment and adapt to variable conditions. Parents that are able to transmit information to their offspring about prevailing environmental conditions have a selective advantage by ‘priming’ the physiology of their offspring. We used a meta‐analytic approach to test the effect of parental diet on offspring immune responses. Using the geometric framework for nutrition (a method for analysing diet compositions wherein food nutrient components are expressed as axes in a Cartesian coordinate space) to define dietary...
Source: Biological Reviews - November 1, 2017 Category: Biology Authors: Catherine E. Grueber, Lindsey J. Gray, Katrina M. Morris, Stephen J. Simpson, Alistair M. Senior Tags: Original Article Source Type: research
A conceptual framework for understanding the perspectives on the causes of the science –practice gap in ecology and conservation
ABSTRACT
Applying scientific knowledge to confront societal challenges is a difficult task, an issue known as the science–practice gap. In Ecology and Conservation, scientific evidence has been seldom used directly to support decision‐making, despite calls for an increasing role of ecological science in developing solutions for a sustainable future. To date, multiple causes of the science–practice gap and diverse approaches to link science and practice in Ecology and Conservation have been proposed. To foster a transparent debate and broaden our understanding of the difficulties of using scientific knowledge, we revi...
Source: Biological Reviews - November 1, 2017 Category: Biology Authors: Diana Bertuol ‐Garcia, Carla Morsello, Charbel N. El‐Hani, Renata Pardini Tags: Original Article Source Type: research
Identification of de novo germline mutations and causal genes for sporadic diseases using trio ‐based whole‐exome/genome sequencing
ABSTRACT
Whole‐genome or whole‐exome sequencing (WGS/WES) of the affected proband together with normal parents (trio) is commonly adopted to identify de novo germline mutations (DNMs) underlying sporadic cases of various genetic disorders. However, our current knowledge of the occurrence and functional effects of DNMs remains limited and accurately identifying the disease‐causing DNM from a group of irrelevant DNMs is complicated. Herein, we provide a general‐purpose discussion of important issues related to pathogenic gene identification based on trio‐based WGS/WES data. Specifically, the relevance of DNMs to hu...
Source: Biological Reviews - November 1, 2017 Category: Biology Authors: Zi ‐Bing Jin, Zhongshan Li, Zhenwei Liu, Yi Jiang, Xue‐Bi Cai, Jinyu Wu Tags: Original Article Source Type: research
Reconstructing pectoral appendicular muscle anatomy in fossil fish and tetrapods over the fins ‐to‐limbs transition
ABSTRACT
The question of how tetrapod limbs evolved from fins is one of the great puzzles of evolutionary biology. While palaeontologists, developmental biologists, and geneticists have made great strides in explaining the origin and early evolution of limb skeletal structures, that of the muscles remains largely unknown. The main reason is the lack of consensus about appendicular muscle homology between the closest living relatives of early tetrapods: lobe‐finned fish and crown tetrapods. In the light of a recent study of these homologies, we re‐examined osteological correlates of muscle attachment in the pectoral gir...
Source: Biological Reviews - November 1, 2017 Category: Biology Authors: Julia L. Molnar, Rui Diogo, John R. Hutchinson, Stephanie E. Pierce Tags: Original Article Source Type: research
