There is growing evidence that in a variety of organisms the majority of meiotic recombination events occur at a relatively small fraction of loci, known as recombination hotspots. If hotspot activity results from the DNA sequence at or near the hotspot itself (in cis), these hotspots are expected to be rapidly lost due to biased gene conversion, unless there is strong selection in favor of the...

The procaryotic transposon Tn5 inserts into many different sites within a single gene, but some sites (hotspots) are targeted repeatedly. Hotspots are not closely related in sequence, but most have G/C pairs at the ends of the nine base pairs duplicated by Tn5 insertion. In pBR322, the major hotspot coincides with the "-10 region" of the tet promoter. We mutated the G/C pairs at this hotspot an...

Volcanic hotspots and mid-ocean ridge spreading centers are the surface expressions of upwelling in Earth's mantle convection system, and their interaction provides unique information on upwelling dynamics. I investigated the influence of the Iceland hotspot on the adjacent mid-Atlantic spreading center using phase-delay times of seismic surface waves, which show anomalous polarization anisotro...

BACKGROUND The spread of infectious diseases in wildlife populations is influenced by patterns of between-host contacts. Habitat "hotspots"--places attracting a large numbers of individuals or social groups--can significantly alter contact patterns and, hence, disease propagation. Research on the importance of habitat hotspots in wildlife epidemiology has primarily focused on how inter-individu...

When inserted at novel locations in the yeast genome, the Saccharomyces cerevisiae recombination hotspot HOT1 stimulates mitotic exchange in adjacent sequences. HOT1 is derived from the rDNA repeat unit, and the sequences required for the recombination-stimulatory activity closely correspond to the rDNA transcription enhancer and initiation site, suggesting there is an association between high ...

Information on the structural complexity of forest stands is required to inform conservation priorities that guide the sustainable management of private native vegetation for multiple objectives of landowners. Whilst research into methods for the operational mapping of vegetation structure is expanding, the research is largely exploratory, and no methods have yet seen widespread acceptance. Thi...