Browsing by Subject "evolution"
Now showing items 1-20 of 22
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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 exttensions ... -
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 deemand ... -
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 sysstem ... -
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 interrrogate ... -
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 transitiion ... -
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, heealthy ... -
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 colllective ... -
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> aand ... -
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 thousaands ... -
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 phenotypicc ... -
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 morpphology. ... -
Molecular Poltergeists: Mitochondrial DNA Copies (numts) in Sequenced Nuclear Genomes
(2010)The natural transfer of DNA from mitochondria to the nucleus generates nuclear copies of mitochondrial DNA (numts) and is an ongoing evolutionary process, as genome sequences attest. In humans, five different numts causee ... -
Ordered structure of the transcription network inherited from the yeast whole-genome duplication
(2010)Background: Gene duplication, a major evolutionary path to genomic innovation, can occur at the scale of an entire genome. One such "whole-genome duplication" (WGD) event among the Ascomycota fungi gave rise to genes witth ... -
Punctuated evolution and transitional hybrid network in an ancestral cell cycle of fungi.
(Elife, 2016-05-10)Although cell cycle control is an ancient, conserved, and essential process, some core animal and fungal cell cycle regulators share no more sequence identity than non-homologous proteins. Here, we show that evolution allong ... -
Social disappointment explains chimpanzees' behaviour in the inequity aversion task.
(Proc Biol Sci, 2017-08-30)Chimpanzees' refusal of less-preferred food when an experimenter has previously provided preferred food to a conspecific has been taken as evidence for a sense of fairness. Here, we present a novel hypothesis-the social ... -
The Evolution of Property Rights in China: A Breakthrough in Shenzhen City
(2017)This essay adopts a bundle-of-rights approach that allows the examination of the gradual and incremental change in a specific stick: the right to transfer land in China. This study investigates the recent policies on urbban ... -
The gut microbiome of nonhuman primates: Lessons in ecology and evolution.
(American journal of primatology, 2018-06-04)The mammalian gastrointestinal (GI) tract is home to trillions of bacteria that play a substantial role in host metabolism and immunity. While progress has been made in understanding the role that microbial communities pplay ... -
The Role of Critical Ion Pairs in the Evolution of a Novel Enzyme in Tomato
(2018)Although much research has been done on how new genes arising from gene duplications has been done, little is still known on how these genes arose and by what mechanisms they evolved their new function. Here I address a ... -
The Roles of Cellular Receptor Binding Avidity and Other Viral Phenotypes in the Antigenic Drift of Influenza
(2013)Despite high vaccination rates and effective adaptive immune responses from the part of infected individuals, influenza A viruses cause significant morbidity and mortality annually. This is due to influenza's rapid antiggenic ...
