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Some of the material in is restricted to members of the community. By logging in, you may be able to gain additional access to certain collections or items. If you have questions about access or logging in, please use the form on the Contact Page.
Aspects of global change - specifically, elevated soil nitrogen deposition and warming - are resulting in significant changes in native plant communities. These effects can be direct through changes in productivity, or indirect through...
Many animals, including humans, choose their source of nutrition based on the nutritive value and the flavor (i.e, odor, taste and texture) of available foods. Sweet taste is one of the more potent orosensory stimuli that contributes to...
Genetic variation is a dominant feature in the study of evolution. The presence of variation is embedded at every level, from a single individual all the way to different species. Understanding the mechanisms that allow variation to be...
Interferon (IFN)-mediated innate immune response is the first line of defense against viral infections. And interferon regulatory factor 7 (IRF7) is a potent transcription factor of type I IFNs and IFN stimulated genes (ISGs) and is...
Many genetic patterns observed within and between species are often attributed to processes that affect interpopulation genetic exchange. These patterns are often taken as evidence of the genetic processes without explicit tests of the...
Plant cytogenetics has continued to flourish and make essential contributions to genomics projects by delineating marker order, defining contig gaps, and revealing genome rearrangements. Here we review the field of plant cytogenetics...
Monitoring Movement Patterns of Juvenile Smalltooth Sawfish (Pristis Pectinata) Using Acoustic Monitoring and Tracking in a Nursery Habitat in Southwest Florida
Habitat use studies can be used to both investigate ecological and behavioral patterns of animals as well as provide a useful management tool for conservation planners. However, essential habitat can be difficult to determine for highly...
Sponges are unique filter feeding organisms with complex canal and flagellated chamber aquiferous systems. These systems allow them to specialize in clearing the smallest plankton size class (picoplankton) from the water. Sponges serve...
Many marine species are typified by a pelagic stage during which tiny larvae develop in the open ocean, where they are subject to high mortality and transport via ocean currents. For organisms with this life history, the study of their...
Snake Venom Composition, Adaptation, and Evolution: Comparative Transcriptomic and Proteomic Analyses of Venoms from the Cottonmouth (Agkistrodon Piscivorus) and the Copperhead (Agkistrodon Contortrix)
Understanding how organisms adapt to their environments is one of the fundamental goals of biology. However, delineating the exact relationships between genotypes, phenotypes, and fitness can be difficult in natural systems. Studying...
A hallmark of cancerous transformation is altered chromosome structure. Inappropriate regulation of chromatin structure inhibits normal cell function, and may represent the origin of transformation. A handful of important studies have...
The maintenance of genetic variation in traits that are closely tied to fitness, despite evolutionary forces expected to reduce variation, is a long-standing paradox in evolutionary biology. Under simple population genetic models, ...
Growth over ontogeny can profoundly affect the form and function of biological structures. Since animal performance is tightly linked to morphological specialization, ontogenetic change in size may help structure that organism's...
Many organisms live in temporally or spatially heterogeneous environments. One adaptive response to environmental heterogeneity is phenotypic plasticity, or the ability of an organism to change its phenotype in response to environmental...
The voltage-gated potassium channel, Kv1.3, carries 60-80% outward current in the olfactory bulb (OB) primary output neuron, the mitral cell. Gene-targeted deletion of the Kv1.3, produces lean mice that have supernumerary and...
Recent studies in postmitotic Drosophila follicular epithelia, which surround the developing egg chamber, have shown another way through which Cell Competition eliminates mutated cells, that are otherwise viable. Elimination and removal...
Globally, species diversity is regulated by speciation and extinction, and regionally it is regulated by competition, niche, colonization, emigration, and extinction, and more locally, by environmental tolerance and species interactions...
Normal cardiac function involves the highly regulated switching of contraction on and off by Ca2+-dependent conformational changes in the troponin-tropomyosin complex. A myriad of factors, both biochemical and mechanical, adaptively...
Biologists have long been interested in the diversity of organisms on earth. With their joint presentation to the Linnean Society of London in 1858, Darwin and Wallace proposed natural selection as a clear mechanism to explain the...
Among flowering plants, floral form is inherently linked to reproductive success and is therefore a key element in the evolution of angiosperm lineages. Variations in floral form and associated mating systems have demonstrated that...
Ecological systems are dynamic, yet many experimental studies examine plant-herbivore interactions as from a simple, static, or single perspective. Reciprocal interactions can have profound effects on communities, and ignoring such...
Estuaries are one of the most ecologically and economically valuable habitats on earth in part due to high nutrient inputs from their associated watersheds that supports high productivity of fish populations. While numerous studies have...
Upland forests in the southeastern United States (U.S.) were once dominated by the pyrogenic longleaf pine (Pinus palustris)-bunchgrass ecosystem that extended south from Virginia to Florida and west to East Texas. Historical land...
Changes in gene expression determine cellular differentiation and developmental programs as cells transform from a progenitor to a mature adult state. The difference in the organization of the nucleus between undifferentiated cells and...
This study produces a nearly comprehensive large-scale molecular phylogeny for the marine bivalve family Cardiidae (Cockels and Giant clams) and uses this topology to examine patterns of diversification in the marine realm. This study...
Depression, anxiety, and impairments in learning and memory are all associated with traumatic brain injury (TBI). While zinc deficiency has been correlated with depression, supplemental zinc appears to have antidepressant effects in both...
Drosophila melanogaster serve as an excellent model to study the highly conserved notch signaling pathway, which is involved in a broad array of developmental events. The Notch signal transduction pathway in Drosophila is vastly complex...
Under normal physiological conditions, trypsin remains inactive as trypsinogen inside the pancreas. Upon entering the small intestine, trypsinogen is converted to active trypsin. Acute pancreatitis is caused by premature activation of...
The degree to which ontogenetic data could facilitate the understanding of phylogenetic relationships has long been a subject of contention in evolutionary biology. Known occurrences of paedomorphosis have invalidated strict adherences...
Computational analysis of cDNA sequences from multiple organisms suggests that a large portion of transcribed DNA does not code for a functional protein. As studies begin to delve into the possible functions of these noncoding...
Hardbottom habitats in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico provide a variety of valuable ecological goods and services including functioning as nursery habitats and providing refuge for resident organisms. In this study, I identified the...
The Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) states that an individual is dead when "all functions of the entire brain" have ceased irreversibly. However, it has been questioned whether some functions of the hypothalamus, particularly...
BCL6, a protooncogene, is most commonly involved in diffuse large cell lymphomas (DLCL) which is the most common form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. BCL6 recruits a number of transcriptional corepressors including BCL6 corepressor (BCoR) to...
Many non-inherited factors play a role in the epidemiology of cancer. Several studies have suggested that a dietary increase in fruits and vegetables containing compounds such as Luteolin, used in this study, would reduce the new...
Drosophila melanogasterfemale fruit flies possess a pair of ovaries in which many egg chambers are produced, each containing an oocyte that houses the haploid female gamete. In the process of oogenesis, the multi-cellular egg chamber is...
The fields of community ecology and evolution are theoretically tightly linked, but in general, community ecologists discount evolution in describing the dynamics of present-day community patterns. Yet, evolution in response to strong...
When cells encounter DNA replication stress, the S-phase checkpoint is activated to facilitate cell cycle arrest and DNA repair. An important aspect of the checkpoint is the transcriptional response, but the details governing this...
Cilia are recognized as an important sensory structure for the cell. However, much about the signaling involved in ciliary outgrowth remains a mystery. Chlamydomonas, a green algae, is a model for ciliary and flagellar studies owing to...
Evolutionary Dynamics of the Interacting Gamete Recognition Proteins Sperm Bindin and Its Egg Receptor EBR1 in the Purple Sea Urchin (Strongylocentrotus Purpuratus)
Gamete recognition proteins (GRPs) mediate the fusion of gametes by determining whether sperm and eggs are compatible during fertilization and are key players involved in reproduction, reproductive isolation and speciation in diverse...
The major outcome of this project is "Protein Folding Toy, an iPad program (app) which is designed to allow children (ages 10-18) to interact with a system that behaves like a single polymer chain on the molecular level. The user can...
In order to understand more about plant telomere biology, we set out to identify genetic factors associated with telomere length regulation in maize (Zea mayz L.), a model genetic system. Using terminal restriction fragment (TRF)...
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection leads to acute and chronic liver disease for thousands of people every year. With the absence of an effective treatment method, new classes of anti-HCV therapies are needed. Cyclosporine (CsA) and its...
Oyster reef habitats historically supported coastal economies and ecosystems; however, anthropogenic activities have caused a reduction in oyster populations to only 15% of historic levels. Estuaries along the Atlantic coast of Florida...
The Influence of Morphology, Skeletal Characteristics, and Investment in Defensive Chemistry on the Growth, Reattachment, and Regeneration of Caribbean Coral Reef Sponges and Its Application to Coral Reef Restoration
Restoration is increasingly implemented to reestablish habitat structure and function following natural and anthropogenic physical disturbances, but scientific knowledge of the effectiveness of methods lags behind demand for guidelines....
The developmental stages of plants and animals are critical as well as highly susceptible to environmental conditions and predation. Organisms have evolved many different methods for dealing with problems such as larval exposure to...
Hallmark Pathology of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: Loss of Layer III Pyramidal Neurons in the Entorhinal Cortex and its Relation to Distribution of NMDA Receptor Subunits
Neuronal loss in Layer III of the medial entorhinal cortex (MEA) is a characteristic phenomenon associated with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. The immediately adjacent lateral entorhinal cortex (LEA) does not exhibit such loss. The current...
Seasonal hypoxia (dissolved oxygen-DO, < 2.0 mg/l) develops and extends over large regions (> 20, 000 km2) of the northwestern Gulf of Mexico shelf in the summer (May-August) as a result of nutrient inputs and salinity stratification...
Macro histone H2A (macroH2A) is a variant of core histone H2A that differs primarily by an extensive carboxy-terminal tail of unknown function that makes up two-thirds of the protein's mass. The histone variant is distributed throughout...
Ever since Darwin published The Origin of Species, creationists have offered a competing explanation for the diversity of life on earth and its features. This paper addresses several commonly encountered topics of controversy between...
The small golden ant Pheidole morrisi Forel is the most common ant of the Apalachicola National Forest, a typical longleaf pine flat-woods ecosystem and is found in pine forests across the eastern U.S. P. morrisi likely plays a...
Some of the material in is restricted to members of the community. By logging in, you may be able to gain additional access to certain collections or items. If you have questions about access or logging in, please use the form on the Contact Page.
