Despite recognition of the western drywood termite, Incisitermes minor (Hagen), as one of the most economically important and destructive termite species in the USA, both its population and colony breeding structure genetically remain unclear. Here, we present primer sequences and initial characterization for 15 polymorphic microsatellite loci. In a sample of 30 individuals, representing six ge...

The relative importance of direct and indirect fitness and, thus, the role of kinship in the evolution of social behavior is much debated. Studying the genetic relatedness of interacting individuals is crucial to improving our understanding of these issues. Here, we used a seven-year data set to study the genetic structure of the Taiwan yuhina (Yuhina brunneciceps), a joint-nesting passerine. T...

The breeding structure of populations has been neglected in studies of Drosophila, even though Wright and Dobzhansky's pioneering work on the genetics of natural populations was an attempt to tackle what they regarded as an essential factor in evolution. We compared the breeding structure of sympatric populations of D. melanogaster and D. simulans, two sibling species that are widely used in ev...

Most species exist as subdivided ex situ daughter population(s) derived from a single original group of individuals. Such subdivision occurs for many reasons both natural and manmade. Traditional British and Irish pony breeds were introduced to North America (U.S.A. and Canada) within the last 150 years, and subsequently equivalent breed societies were established. We have analyzed selected U.K...

A refined functional map of a 6- to 11-centimorgan region surrounding the albino (c) locus in mouse chromosome 7 is being generated by N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (EtNU) "saturation" mutagenesis of stem-cell spermatogonia. In the first phase of an experiment that will eventually test at least 3000 gametes, we screened 972 mutagenized gametes for the induction of both lethal and visible mutations with...

Criollo horse populations descend from horses brought from the Iberian Peninsula over the period of colonization (15th to 17th century). They are spread throughout the Americas and have potentially undergone genetic hybridization with other breeds in the recent past. In this study, 25 autosomal microsatellites were genotyped in 50 horse breeds representing Criollo populations from 12 American c...

Patterns of gene differences among humans contain information about the demographic history of our species. Haploid loci like mitochondrial DNA and the nonrecombining part of the Y chromosome show a pattern indicating expansion from a population of only several thousand during the late middle or early upper Pleistocene. Nuclear short tandem repeat loci also show evidence of this expansion. Both...

The breeding system of Arabidopsis suecica was investigated through genetic analysis of microsatellite segregation patterns in five controlled crosses as well as in 16 single-mother families collected in the wild. Analysis of single and two-locus segregations in the F2 generation following a cross clearly shows that A. suecica is reproduces sexually. The single-mother families show a high level...

This study aimed to assess genetic diversity within and between nine Vietnamese local chicken breeds and two Chinese breeds included for comparison. Genotyping 29 microsatellites revealed high diversity of both Vietnamese and Chinese breeds. Cluster analysis using the STRUCTURE software suggested six clusters as the most likely grouping of the 11 breeds studied. These groups encompassed four ho...