2017 December - 16 articles
Wild species are extremely rich resources of useful genes not available in the cultivated gene pool. For species providing staple food to mankind, such as the cultivated Triticum species, including hexaploid bread wheat (Triticum aestivum, 6x) and te...
Understanding how anthropogenic impacts on the landscape affect wildlife requires a knowledge of community assemblages. Species surveys are the first step in assessing community structure, and recent molecular applications such as metabarcoding and e...
Actinomycetes are known to be the most prolific producers of biologically active metabolites. Here, we investigated the host species-specificity and the related secondary metabolites of actinomycetes that are associated with three different Australia...
Wheat is one of the most important crops grown worldwide. Despite the fact that it accounts for only 5% of the global wheat production, durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. subsp. durum) is a commercially important tetraploid wheat species, which origin...
Landraces are key elements of agricultural biodiversity that have long been considered a source of useful traits. Their importance goes beyond subsistence agriculture and the essential need to preserve genetic diversity, because landraces are farmer-...
This paper critically reviews the evolution of concepts and principles that inspired the adoption and enforcement of international instruments related to the conservation, exchange and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agricultu...
Invertebrates account for more than 89% of all extant organisms in the marine environment, represented by over 174,600 species (recorded to date). Such diversity is mirrored in (or more likely increased by) the microbial symbionts associated with thi...
The human-specific Alu elements, belonging to the class of Short INterspersed Elements (SINEs), have been shown to be a powerful tool for population genetic studies. An earlier study in this department showed that it was possible to analyze Alu prese...
New information on weakfish introduction vectors, its invasive status, distribution, and use as a fishing resource arose after the publication of “The transatlantic introduction of weakfish Cynoscion regalis (Bloch & Schneider, 1801) (Sciaenidae,...
Diagnosis of leprosy and tuberculosis in archaeological material is most informative when based upon entire genomes. Ancient DNA (aDNA) is often degraded but amplification of specific fragments also provides reliable diagnoses. Cell wall lipid biomar...
Pseudogenes are dead copies of genes. Owing to the absence of functional constraint, all nucleotide substitutions that occur in these sequences are selectively neutral, and thus represent the spontaneous pattern of substitution within a genome. Here,...
Habitat loss and fragmentation are considered the major treats to worldwide biodiversity. Carnivores in particular can be more sensitive to landscape modification due to their low occurrence density and large home ranges. Population structuring of Pu...
Staphylococcus aureus is a major pathogen causing osteomyelitis, amongst other diseases, and its methicillin-resistant form (MRSA) in particular poses a huge threat to public health. To increase our knowledge of the origin and evolution of S. aureus,...
A preliminary study of antibiotic production and antibiotic resistance was conducted in Great Onyx Cave in Mammoth Cave National Park, KY, to determine if gypsum (CaSO4∙2H2O) affects these bacterial activities. The cave crosses through the width of F...
Research on the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS) has waxed and waned over the last few decades, mostly in response to population outbreaks at specific locations. This review considers advances in our understanding of the biology and ecolo...
Microbial symbiotic communities of marine macro-organisms carry functional metabolic profiles different to the ones found terrestrially and within surrounding marine environments. These symbiotic bacteria have increasingly been a focus of microbiolog...
