Acoel flatworms are small marine worms traditionally considered to belong to the phylum Platyhelminthes. However, molecular phylogenetic analyses suggest that acoels are not members of Platyhelminthes, but are rather extant members of the earliest diverging Bilateria. This result has been called into question, under suspicions of a long branch attraction (LBA) artefact. Here we re-examine this ...

Despite the high relevance of communities dominated by lichens, mosses and cyanobacteria living on soil surface (biocrusts) for ecosystem functioning in drylands, no study to date has investigated decomposition biocrust-forming lichen litter situ. Thus, we do not know whether drivers its are similar those plant (for example, importance abiotic degradation through UV radiation), magnitude rates ...

Stereospecific olefin (C=C) and carbonyl (C=O) reduction of the readily available prochiral compound ketoisophorone (2,2,6-trimethyl-2-cyclohexene-1,4-dione) (1) by Marchantia polymorpha and Nicotiana tabacum cell suspension cultures produce the chiral products (6R)-levodione (2), (4R,5S)-4-hydroxy-3,3,5-trimethylcyclohexanone (3), and (4R,6R)-actinol (4) as well as the minor components (4R)-hy...

A neurotoxin able to increase the spontaneous release of transmitter was found in the venom glands of the polychaete annelid Glycera convoluta . We studied the effect of this venom on the frog cutaneous pectoris muscle, where its application produced a prolonged (20-h), high-frequency discharge of miniature potentials . After 5 h of action, the initial store was renewed several times but no det...

A total of 935 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from male immature sexual organ were determined, of which 600 ESTs were assembled into 110 non-redundant groups, resulting in 445 unique EST sequences. Of these, 244 sequences shared significant similarities to known nucleotide or amino acid sequences in other organisms. The remaining 201 unique sequences showed no significant matches and thus are l...

Marchantia polymorpha is an extant relative of the earliest terrestrial plants and has attracted a substantial interest as a model organism for evolutionary and developmental studies. Given its relatively simple genome, compact gene families, simple morphology, ease of propagation and transformation, M. polymorpha is becoming a promising platform for plant synthetic biology. Modular genetic par...