While much of the functional work on suction feeding has involved members of Acanthopterygii, an earlier cypriniform radiation led to over 3200 species filling nearly every freshwater trophic niche. Within the great majority of acanthomorph clades that have been investigated suction feeding and the underlying morphology responsible for the generation of rapid suction have been largely conserved…

This paper applies nonlinear Bayesian inversion to marine controlled source electromagnetic (CSEM) data collected near two sites of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 311 on the northern Cascadia Margin to investigate subseafloor resistivity structure related to gas hydrate deposits and cold vents. The Cascadia margin, off the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada, h…

With the progress of mantle convection modelling over the last decade, it now becomes possible to solve for the dynamics of the interior flow and the surface tectonics to first order. We show here that tectonic data (like surface kinematics and seafloor age distribution) and mantle convection models with plate-like behaviour can in principle be combined to reconstruct mantle c…

Suction feeding is pervasive among aquatic vertebrates, and our understanding of the functional morphology and biomechanics of suction feeding has recently been advanced by combining experimental and modeling approaches. Key advances include the visualization of the patterns of flow in front of the mouth of a feeding fish, the measurement of pressure inside their mouth cavity, and the employmen…

In the motorcycle-taxi market in most Sub-Saharan African countries, the relation between vehicle owner and driver is characterised by a principal-agent problem with the following features: the owner cannot observe the final output of the driver and therefore cannot condition awageonit, andhighereffort fromthedriverdepreciatesthemotorcycle. Thesetwofeatures imply that it is in theowner�s…

Plant organisms contain a large number of genes belonging to numerous multigenic families whose evolution size reflects some functional constraints. Sequences from eight multigenic families, involved in biotic and abiotic responses, have been analyzed in Eucalyptus grandis and compared with A rabidopsisthaliana. Two transcription factor families APETALA2(AP2)/ethylene responsive factor an…

What makes us human is one of the most interesting and enduring questions in evolutionary biology. To assist in answering this question, we have identified insertions in the human genome which cannot be found in five comparison primate species: Chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan, gibbon, and macaque. A total of 21,269 nonpolymorphic human-specific insertions were identified,…

The recent sequencing of several gymnosperm genomes has greatly facilitated studying the evolution of their genes and gene families. In this study, we examine the evidence for expression-mediated selection in the first two fully sequenced representatives of the gymnospermplantclade (Piceaabies and Piceaglauca). We use genome-wide estimates of gene expression (>50,000 expressed genes) to s…

Gene duplication provides large numbers of new genes that can lead to the evolution of new functions. Duplicated genes can diverge by changes in sequences, expression patterns, and functions. Micro RNAs play an important role in the regulation of gene expression in many eukaryotes. After duplication, two paralogs may diverge in their micro RNA binding sites,which might impact their expression a…

Bacterial endosymbiosisis an important evolutionary process in insects, which can harbor both obligate and facultative symbionts.The evolution of these symbionts is driven by evolutionary convergence, and they exhibit among the tiniest genomes in prokaryotes. The large host spectrum off acultative symbionts and the high diversity of strategies they use to infect new hosts probably impact the ev…