ACCELERATED MOLECULAR EVOLUTION IN HALOPHILIC CRUSTACEANS

Chromosomal speciation and molecular divergence--accelerated evolution in rearranged chromosomes.

Humans and their closest evolutionary relatives, the chimpanzees, differ in approximately 1.24% of their genomic DNA sequences. The fraction of these changes accumulated during the speciation processes that have separated the two lineages may be of special relevance in understanding the basis of their differences. We analyzed human and chimpanzee sequence data to search for the patterns of dive...

Molecular Adaptation of Halophilic Proteins

Ultraviolet filters in stomatopod crustaceans: diversity, ecology and evolution.

Stomatopod crustaceans employ unique ultraviolet (UV) optical filters in order to tune the spectral sensitivities of their UV-sensitive photoreceptors. In the stomatopod species Neogonodactylus oerstedii, we previously found four filter types, produced by five distinct mycosporine-like amino acid pigments in the crystalline cones of their specialized midband ommatidial facets. This UV-spectral ...

Islands Spark Accelerated Evolution

-Clonogenic growth (colony-forming efficiency, CFE) of i.v. injected allogeneic W256 tumour cells in the lungs was markedly enhanced by treatment of rats with x-naphthyl thiourea (ANTU) injected i.p. from 2 h before to 2 h after the tumour cells. ANTU specifically increases pulmonary vascular permeability in adult rats and causes acute pulmonary oedema and pleural effusion. Inhibition of drug t...

Crustaceans

between species, but between different segments on the same animal. They have limbs specially adapted for walking, eating, grooming, swimming, mating, sensing the surrounding environment, brooding young, spearing prey, scraping surfaces and even snapping to make noise. Lobsters provide a good example of the limb diversity that can exist on even a single individual — the thoracic and abdominal a...