Next generation sequencing holds great promise for applications of phylogeography, landscape genetics, and population genomics in wild populations of nonmodel species, but the robustness of inferences hinges on careful experimental design and effective bioinformatic removal of predictable artifacts. Addressing this issue, we use published genomes from a tunicate, stickleback, and soybean to ill...

Although cell intercalation driven by non-canonical Wnt/planar cell polarity (PCP) pathway-dependent mediolateral cell polarity is important for notochord morphogenesis, it is likely that multiple mechanisms shape the notochord as it converges and extends. Here we show that the recessive short-tailed Ciona savignyi mutation chongmague (chm) has a novel defect in the formation of a morphological...

Nutrient composition of the grasshoppers Oxya hyla hyla showed that they are a rich nutrient source containing 687.7 g protein/kg of dry body weight. Their antinutrient values fell within nutritionally acceptable values of the poultry bird Coturnix japonica japonica (Japanese quail). The most required essential amino acids and fatty acids were also present in sufficient amount. For feeding tria...

Sound-producing muscles provide the opportunity of studying the limits of power production at high contractile frequencies. We used the work loop technique to determine the power available from the external oblique muscles in two related species of North American gray tree frog, Hyla chrysoscelis and Hyla versicolor. These trunk muscles contract cyclically, powering high-intensity sound product...

Regions of specialization for water absorption across the skin of Bufonid and Ranid anurans were identified by immunohistochemistry and Western blot analysis, using antibodies raised against arginine vasotocin (AVT)-stimulated aquaporins (AQPs) that are specific to absorbing regions of Hyla japonica. In Bufo marinus, labeling for Hyla urinary bladder-type AQP (AQP-h2), which is also localized i...

T H E ultimobranchial body of Hyla arborea L., Rana ridibunda Pall., Pelobates syriacus Boettger, and Bufo viridis Laur., the common anurans of Israel, is a paired organ, situated on both sides of the aditus laryngis. Its development runs parallel to the fluctuating activity of the thyroid (Boschwitz, 1960). (a) In the premetamorphic period of relative thyroid dormancy, the ultimobranchial body...