The Penguin Genome Consortium sequences all living penguin species genomes to understand the evolution of life on the ice. Published today in GigaScience is an article that presents the first effort to capture the entirety of the genomic landscape of all living penguin species.
New genomic data from five birds-of-paradise reveal genes that are shaped by selection and help explain the origin of their spectacular plumage. Birds-of-paradise, with their elaborate and colorful feathers and their complex courtship displays, are a school-book example of sexual selection.
In this technote I will outline what phylotaR was developed for, how to install it and how to run it with some simple examples. What is phylotaR? In any phylogenetic analysis it is important to identify sequences that share the same orthology – homologous sequences separated by speciation events. This is often performed by simply searching an online sequence repository using sequence labels.
Researchers have sequenced the venomous Solenodon, the last survivor of a branch of mammals that appeared at the time of the dinosaurs.
Out today: a new Turiasaurian sauropod, Mierasaurus bobyoungi , from the Early Cretaceous Cedar Mountain formation in Utah.
A high coverage, high quality genome sequence of the butterfly Bicyclus anynana is published today in GigaScience . B. anynana , the squinting bush brown, is a fascinating model species that can modify its morphology in response to environmental clues.
The decline of global honeybee populations are a major environment concern, because of their vital role in our food systems and pollination of flowering plants. Twenty first century ’Omics is coming to the rescue, and published in GigaScience this week is an article that presents the genome and proteome of a mahor threat to bee colonies, the parasitic mite, Tropilaelaps mercedesae.
Not many tree species are iconic enough to have inspired Goethe love poems, but the distinctive and beautiful heart shaped leaves of ginkgo have made it a popular symbol in art and design. Coming from East Asia and having a long association with Buddhist temples and parks in China, Korea and Japan, it was thought to be extinct in the wild and only in more recent times were small wild populations identified in mountain groves in South West China.
New paper out in Biology Letters: Hone, D.W.E., Farke, A.A., and Wedel, M.J. 2016. Ontogeny and the fossil record: what, if anything, is an adult dinosaur? Biology Letters 2016 12 20150947; DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2015.0947. The idea that dinosaurs had unusual life histories is not new.
