Landscape influences genetic diversity but does not limit gene flow in a Neotropical pollinator

Epigenetic landscape correlates with genetic subtype but does not predict outcome in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Although children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) generally have a good outcome, some patients do relapse and survival following relapse is poor. Altered DNA methylation is highly prevalent in ALL and raises the possibility that DNA methylation-based biomarkers could predict patient outcome. In this study, genome-wide methylation analysis, using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450...

Thymic selection does not limit the individual MHC diversity.

The number of different major histocompatibility (MHC) molecules expressed per individual is widely believed to represent a trade-off between maximizing the detection of foreign antigens, and minimizing the loss of T cell clones due to self-tolerance induction. Using a mathematical model we here show that this argument fails to explain why individuals typically express of the order of 1020 diff...

Nectar bacteria, but not yeast, weaken a plant-pollinator mutualism.

Mutualistic interactions are often subject to exploitation by species that are not directly involved in the mutualism. Understanding which organisms act as such 'third-party' species and how they do so is a major challenge in the current study of mutualistic interactions. Here, we show that even species that appear ecologically similar can have contrasting effects as third-party species. We exp...

Pollinator-friendly management does not increase the diversity of farmland bees and wasps

Glacial refugia: hotspots but not melting pots of genetic diversity.

Glacial refuge areas are expected to harbor a large fraction of the intraspecific biodiversity of the temperate biota. To test this hypothesis, we studied chloroplast DNA variation in 22 widespread European trees and shrubs sampled in the same forests. Most species had genetically divergent populations in Mediterranean regions, especially those with low seed dispersal abilities. However, the ge...