Browsing by Subject "evolution"
Now showing items 1-20 of 34
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Adaptive Motivations Drive Concern for Common Good Resources
(2019)Humans universally demonstrate intrinsically motivated prosocial behavior towards kin, non-kin ingroup members, and strangers. However, humans struggle to extend the same prosocial behavior to more abstract concepts like ... -
Advances in Bayesian Modeling of Protein Structure Evolution
(2018)This thesis contributes to a statistical modeling framework for protein sequence and structure evolution. An existing Bayesian model for protein structure evolution is extended in two unique ways. Each of these model extensions ... -
An evolutionary genomics approach towards understanding Plasmodium vivax in central Africa
(2022)Increased attention has recently been placed on understanding the natural variation of the malaria parasite Plasmodium vivax across the globe, as in 2020 alone, P. vivax caused an estimated 4.5 million malaria cases and ... -
Bayesian Structural Phylogenetics
(2013)This thesis concerns the use of protein structure to improve phylogenetic inference. There has been growing interest in phylogenetics as the number of available DNA and protein sequences continues to grow rapidly and demand ... -
Created and Evolved: Describing a nuanced theological anthropology for the contemporary church through the writings of Gregory of Nyssa and Charles Darwin
(2023)The following thesis addresses an issue in ways of knowing that is both commonand destructive in the contemporary American context. Specifically, the issue of misunderstood anthropologies is posited to be an unnecessary ... -
Designer Science: A History of Intelligent Design in America
(2021)Designer Science: A History of Intelligent Design in America undertakes the first full-length historical overview of the intelligent design movement (ID), a popular and influential antievolutionary ideology prominent at ... -
Determining the size of the male-specific region in the genome of the scuttle fly, Megaselia scalaris, a potential model system for the earliest stages of sex chromosome evolution
(2012-09-06)Modern day whole-genome sequencing and the ability to make comparisons across many taxa have significantly advanced the study of sex chromosome evolution. The scuttle fly, Megaselia scalaris, is an appropriate model system ... -
Developmental Single-Cell RNA Sequencing in the Sea Urchin Species Lytechinus variegatus and Heliocidaris erythrogramma
(2022)The process by which a single cell develops into a complex multicellular organism with specified cell types and well-defined cellular roles is not completely understood, and the evolution of that process is even more enigmatic. ... -
Ecological and Evolutionary Factors Shaping Animal-Bacterial Symbioses: Insights from Insects & Gut Symbionts
(2017)Animal bacterial symbioses are pervasive and underlie the success of many groups. Here, I study ecological and evolutionary factors that shape interactions between a host and gut associates. In this dissertation, I interrogate ... -
Elucidating the Evolutionary Origin of the Neural Crest
(2016-05-05)The evolutionary origin of the neural crest, an embryonic stem cell population unique to vertebrates, has eluded biologists since its discovery. The neural crest is characterized by its epithelial to mesenchymal transition ... -
Evolutionary Dynamics in an Individual Spatial and a Mean Field Differential Equation Host-Pathogen Model
(2013-04-30)We examine a host-pathogen model in which three types of species exist: empty sites, healthy hosts, and infected hosts. In this model six different transitions can occur: empty sites can be colonized by healthy hosts, healthy ... -
Evolutionary Genetics of Reduced Nectar Production in the Selfing Morning Glory, Ipomoea lacunosa (Convolvulaceae)
(2021)Nectar production is one of several traits that are reduced in flowering plants that display the selfing syndrome, a suite of trait reductions often associated with the transition from outcross-fertilization to ... -
Faith, Fact, and Behaviorism
(BEHAVIOR ANALYST, 2013) -
From divots to swales: Hillslope sediment transport across divers length scales
(2010)In soil-mantled steeplands, soil motions associated with creep, ravel, rain splash, soil slips, tree throw, and rodent activity are patchy and intermittent and involve widely varying travel distances. To describe the collective ... -
Gene Duplication and the Evolution of Silenced Chromatin in Yeasts
(2010)In <italic>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</italic>, proper maintenance of haploid cell identity requires the SIR complex to mediate the silenced chromatin found at the cryptic mating-type loci, <italic>HML</italic> and ... -
Gene expression in developing fibres of Upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) was massively altered by domestication
(2010)Background: Understanding the evolutionary genetics of modern crop phenotypes has a dual relevance to evolutionary biology and crop improvement. Modern upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) was developed following thousands ... -
Genetic and Environmental Mechanisms Affecting Gene Expression in Evolution and Development of Two Heliocidaris Sea Urchin Species
(2023)In this thesis, I investigate the influence of three different factors (environment, chromatin regulation, and genome structure) on gene expression in the evolution and development of the sea urchin species Heliocidaris ... -
Genome-wide Cross-species Analysis Linking Open Chromatin, Differential Expression and Positive Selection
(2012)Deciphering the molecular mechanisms driving the phenotypic differences between humans and primates remains a daunting challenge. Mutations found in protein coding DNA alone has not been able to explain these phenotypic ... -
Genomic Basis for a Developmental Life History Switch in the Sea Urchin Heliocidaris erythrogramma
(2021)Lecithotrophic (non-feeding) larval development has independently evolved numerous times in marine invertebrates from an ancestral, planktotrophic (feeding) larval state. The evolution of this developmental mode in a species ... -
Guyanagaster, a New Wood-Decaying Sequestrate Fungal Genus Related to Armillaria (Physalacriaceae, Agaricales, Basidiomycota)
(2010)Premise of the study : Sequestrate basidiomycete fungi (e. g. "gasteromycetes") have foregone ballistospory and evolved alternative, often elaborate mechanisms of basidiospore dispersal with highly altered basidioma morphology. ...
