Phylogenetic diversity--patterns of phylogenetic relatedness among organisms in ecological communities--provides important insights into the mechanisms underlying community assembly. Studies that measure phylogenetic diversity in microbial communities have primarily been limited to a single marker gene approach, using the small subunit of the rRNA gene (SSU-rRNA) to quantify phylogenetic relati...

The mosquito-borne flaviviruses revealed two distinct epidemiological groups. The neurotropic viruses correlated with the Culex vectors, and the viruses associated with haemorrhagic diseases correlated with the Aedes vectors. About the last ones, it is hypothesized that the dengue viruses have evolved from sylvatic strains that are transmitted among non-human primates in West Africa and Malaysi...

Seventy-four catalase protein sequences, including 29 bacterial, 8 fungal, 7 animal, and 30 plant sequences, were compiled, and 70 were used for phylogenetic reconstruction. The core of the resulting tree revealed unique, separate groups of plant and animal catalases, two groups of fungal catalases, and three groups of bacterial catalases. The only overlap of kingdoms occurred within one branch...

The first comprehensive analysis of higher-level phylogeny of the order Hymenoptera is presented. The analysis includes representatives of all extant superfamilies, scored for 392 morphological characters, and sequence data for four loci (18S, 28S, COI and EF-1a). Including three outgroup taxa, 111 terminals were analyzed. Relationships within symphytans (sawflies) and Apocrita are mostly resol...

Für meine Familie " Although it may seem a paradox, all exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation. "

We investigate paid endorsement as a crowd-sourcing social advertising mechanism that allows advertisers to bypass publishers (e.g., Facebook) and recruit individual endorsers of their own choice at affordable prices. Specifically, we investigate (i) how incentives affect endorsers’ participation and effectiveness, (ii) what types of endorsers are most effective in generating online engagement ...

The Leptostemonum clade of Solanum contains approximately 350–450 species, including the cultivated eggplant, S. melongena . This clade is characterized by the presence of prickles and apically attenuate anthers. Solanum section Androceras , the focus of this study, is a group of ca. 12 species belonging to the Leptostemonum clade. This section is unusual in the genus because of its mostly nort...

The phylogenetic structure of the tricolpate clade (or eudicots) is presented through a survey of their major subclades, each of which is briefly characterized. The tricolpate clade was first recognized in 1989 and has received extensive phylogenetic study. Its major subclades, recognized at ordinal and familial ranks, are now apparent. Ordinal and many other suprafamilial clades are briefly di...

We present 744 nucleotide base positions from the mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene and 236 base positions from the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I gene for a microbat, Brachyphylla cavernarum, and a megabat, Pteropus capestratus, in phylogenetic analyses with homologous DNA sequences from Homo sapiens, Mus musculus (house mouse), and Gallus gallus (chicken). We use information on evolutio...

A well-supported phylogeny of echinoderm classes has eluded morphological, embryological, molecular, and combined analyses. From this body of work it is apparent that (i) echinoids (sea urchins) and holothuroids (sea cucumbers) are related, and (ii) crinoids (sea lilies) are the sister taxon to extant eleutherozoan classes (asteroids, ophiuroids, echinoids, and holothuroids). However, the relat...