Papilio swallowtail butterflies exhibit a remarkable diversity of Batesian mimicry, manifested in several sex-limited and polymorphic types. There is little understanding of how this diversity is distributed within Papilio, and how different mimicry types have evolved in relation to each other. To answer these questions, I present a graphical model that connects various mimicry types by hypothe...

Pollen to ovule (P : O) ratios have been hypothesized to correlate with the degree of outcrossing and thus with the mating system of a plant. Also, P : O ratios are likely to vary with respect to pollination mode (i.e. wind pollination or animal pollination). Furthermore, constraints on the evolution of mating systems depending on life form may affect P : O ratios. We compiled P : O ratios and ...

Abstract Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are key soil microorganisms that establish a mutualistic symbiotic relationship with plants. The establishment of crops represents an environmental filter usually reduces the diversity and variability AM fungal communities, affecting ecosystem stability functionality. Despite several studies addressing these effects, temporal development microbes since...

The taxonomic and phylogenetic status of several taxa previously recognized as subspecies inAstragalus sect. Anthylloidei is re-assessed based on DNA sequences and morphologicalfeatures. We focused on Astragalus ebenoides (subsp. ebenoides and subsp. naghadehensis),Astragalus murinus (subsp. murins and subsp. bornmuelleri), Astragalus remotiflorus (subsp.remotiflorus and subsp. melanogramma), A...

Newcastle disease virus (NDV) is a prototype member of avian paramyxovirus serotype 1 (APMV-1), which causes severe and contagious disease in the commercial poultry and wild birds. In this study, we report the results of phylogenetic analyses of recent NDVs isolated from Markazi province of Iran during a recent outbreak in the commercial broiler with respiratory signs and digestive system lesio...

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) is a ligand-activated transcription factor through which halogenated aromatic hydrocarbons such as 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) cause altered gene expression and toxicity. The AHR belongs to the basic helix-loop-helix/Per-ARNT-Sim (bHLH-PAS) family of transcriptional regulatory proteins, whose members play key roles in development, circadian rhy...

Microsatellites or simple sequence repeats (SSRs) are highly useful molecular markers for plant improvement. Expressed sequence tag (EST)-SSR markers have a higher rate of transferability across species than genomic SSR markers and are thus well suited for application in cross-species phylogenetic studies. Our objectives were to examine the amplification of tall fescue EST-SSR markers in 12 gra...

Sixteen novel circular rep-encoding DNA sequences with high sequence homologies to previously described SPHINX and BMMF were isolated for the first time from non-bovine foods (pork, wild boar, chicken meat, Alaska pollock, pangasius, black tiger shrimp, apple, carrot, sprouts alfalfa, radish, broccoli). The phylogenetic analysis of full-length genomes grouped these together representatives SPHI...

Multiple-locus variable-number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) is useful to establish transmission routes and sources of infections for various microorganisms including Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC). The recently released SITVITWEB database contains 12-loci Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetitive Units--Variable Number of Tandem DNA Repeats (MIRU-VNTR) profiles and spoligotype patterns f...

DNA data from a number of Pestalotiopsis isolates were analysed to investigate whether isolates from the same host are phylogenetically related. The validity of naming species of Pestalotiopsis based on host association was investigated. Regions of the ITS and 5.8S of the rDNA gene were amplified from genomic DNA using PCR. DNA characters were analysed using maximum parsimony (weighted and unwe...