Planktonic foraminifera are one of the most abundant and diverse protists in the oceans. Their utility as paleo proxies requires rigorous taxonomy and comparison with living and genetically related counterparts. We merge genetic and fossil evidence of "Globigerinoides", characterized by supplementary apertures on spiral side, in a new approach to trace their "total evidence phylogeny" since the...

results the bacteriophage, designated mj1, was isolated by testing against a clinical mdr e. coli 3 strain. the mj1 phage showed a wide range of heat and ph stability. the phage morphology, determined by transmission electron microscopy, revealed a structure comprised of a head (108 ± 0.2 nm long by 128 ± 0.5 nm wide) and a contractile tail (123 ± 0.5 nm long by 15 - 26 nm wide). these features...

In contrast to dominant mode of ecological transition in the evolution of marine mammals, different lineages of toothed whales (Odontoceti) have repeatedly invaded freshwater ecosystems during the Cenozoic era. The so-called “river dolphins” are now recognized as independent lineages that converged on similar morphological specializations (e.g., longirostry). In South America, the two endemic “...

Maintaining the integrity of differentiated genomes in marine organisms needs efficient isolation mechanisms, because planktonic larval dispersion provides contacts between taxa. Habitat specialisation is interesting in this respect, because it can both prevent interspecific crosses (each taxon reproduces in its own habitat) and eliminate hybrids (typically less fit than a parental taxon in eac...

In contrast to dominant mode of ecological transition in the evolution of marine mammals, different lineages of toothed whales (Odontoceti) have repeatedly invaded freshwater ecosystems during the Cenozoic era. The so-called 'river dolphins' are now recognized as independent lineages that converged on similar morphological specializations (e.g., longirostry). In South America, the two endemic '...

Background: The health benefits of probiotic bacteria are not unknown to anyone. On the other hand, indigenous dairy sources are a potential source of native probiotics. This study aimed to describe the inhibitory activity of Cell-Free Supernatant (CFS), planktonic cells, and biofilm form of Lactobacillus strains isolated from native dairy sources on food pathogens. Methods: Antibacterial acti...

Taxometric method, invented by Paul Meehl (1965) and developed by him and a number of colleagues, is a family of procedure for subjecting parts of a certain class of theories to risky tests. The theories in question postulate the existence of a latent category, the taxon, and its complement class. A taxon is negatively defined as a " non-arbitrary latent category. " It does not appear to be pos...

In a recent study, Steel and Sanderson defined and characterized phylogenetically decisive sets of taxon sets. A set is called phylogenetically decisive if regardless of the trees chosen for each of its taxon sets, as long as these trees are compatible with one another, their supertree is always unique. This implies that the sampled taxon sets always lead to a unique supertree, regardless what ...

AIMS To evaluate differences in biofilm or planktonic bacteria susceptibility to be killed by the polyvalent antistaphylococcus bacteriophage K. METHODS AND RESULTS In this study, the ability of phage K to infect and kill several clinical isolates of Staphylococcus epidermidis was tested. Strains were grown in suspension or as biofilms to compare the susceptibility of both phenotypes to the p...