Deep level insect relationships are generally difficult to resolve, especially within taxa of the most diverse and species rich holometabolous orders. In beetles, the major diversity occurs in the Phytophaga, including charismatic groups such as leaf beetles, longhorn beetles and weevils. Bark and ambrosia beetles are wood boring weevils that contribute 12 percent of the diversity encountered i...

Aquifer ecosystems provide a range of important services including clean drinking water. These ecosystems, which are largely inaccessible to humans, comprise a distinct invertebrate fauna (stygofauna), which is characterized by narrow distributions, high levels of endemism and cryptic species. Although being under enormous anthropogenic pressure, aquifers have rarely been included in conservati...

Geodermatophilaceae (order Geodermatophilales, class Actinobacteria) form a comparatively isolated family within the phylum Actinobacteria and harbor many strains adapted to extreme ecological niches and tolerant against reactive oxygen species. Clarifying the evolutionary history of Geodermatophilaceae was so far mainly hampered by the insufficient resolution of the main phylogenetic marker in...

The diversity of archaeal communities growing in four hot springs (65-90 °C, pH 6.5) was assessed with 16S rRNA gene primers specific for the domain Archaea. Overall, mainly uncultured members of the Desulfurococcales, the Thermoproteales and the Korarchaeota, were identified. Based on this diversity, a set of chaperonin heat-shock protein (Hsp60) gene sequences from different archaeal species ...

BACKGROUND MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, endogenously expressed non-coding RNAs that regulate mRNAs post-transcriptionally. Previous studies have explored miRNA evolutionary trend, but evolutionary history and pattern in the miRNA world are still not fully clear. In the paper, we intended to analyze miRNA haplotype distribution and evolutionary network by analyzing miRNA sequences of miR-17 and...

The internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) is a phylogenetic marker which has been of broad use in generic and infrageneric level classifications, as its sequence evolves comparably fast. Only recently, it became clear, that the ITS2 might be useful even for higher level systematic analyses. As the secondary structure is highly conserved within all eukaryotes it serves as a valuable template for ...

Many root-colonizing pseudomonads are able to promote plant growth by increasing phosphate availability in soil through solubilization of poorly soluble rock phosphates. The major mechanism of phosphate solubilization by pseudomonads is the secretion of gluconic acid, which requires the enzyme glucose dehydrogenase and its cofactor pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ). The main aim of this study was ...

The mitochondrial Cytochrome Oxidase Subunit 1 gene (COI) has been promoted as an ideal "DNA barcode" for animal species and other groups of eukaryotes. However, the utility of the COI marker for species level discrimination and for phylogenetic analyses has yet to be tested within the Rhizaria. Accordingly, we analysed mitochondrial COI gene sequences and nuclear small subunit rDNA (SSU) seque...

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques are now key tools in the detection of population genomic and gene expression differences in a large array of organisms. However, so far few studies have utilized such data for phylogenetic estimations. Here, we use NGS data obtained from genome-wide restriction site-associated DNA (RAD) (∼66000 SNPs) to estimate the phylogenetic relationships among al...

background: newcastle disease virus (ndv) is the causativeagent of the newcastle disease (nd), a highly contagiousdisease in birds that causes significant economic losses to thepoultry industry worldwide. nd is endemic in iran and outbreaksare reported regularly in commercial poultry flocks and differentspecies of birds. objectives:the current study was carried outto characterize ndv based on p...