Tag Archives: genetics

Gaining Genetic and Epigenetic Data from a Single Established Next-Generation Sequencing Approach

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Post provided by Marco Crotti

How organisms adapt to the environment they live in is a key question in evolutionary biology. Genetic variation, i.e. how individuals within populations differ from each other in terms of their DNA, is an essential element in the process of adaptation. It can arise through different mechanisms, including DNA mutations, genetic drift, and recombination.

Example of how genetic drift can occur over generations via random sampling (i.e. random mating) in a population. (Picture credit: Gringer).

Differences in DNA sequences between individuals can results in differences in the expression of genes. This can therefore determine the organism’s capacity to grow, develop, and react to environmental stimuli. However, a growing body of literature reveals that there are other ways organisms can change the way they interact with the world without mutations in the DNA sequence.

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The Evolution of Love

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Post provided by Chloe Robinson

The sending of letters under the pen name ‘St. Valentine’ began back in the middle ages as a way of communicating affection during the practice of courting. Fast forward to 2020 and Valentine’s Day is a day for celebrating romance, but now it typically features the exchange of gifts and cards between lovers.

Credit: Pixabay

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Early Spring: Predicting Budburst with Genetics

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Below is a press release about the Methods in Ecology and Evolution article ‘On the importance of accounting for intraspecific genomic relatedness in multi‐species studies‘ taken from the Université de Montréal.

Bud of American beech (Fagus grandifolia). ©Tim Savas

Researchers from Canada and the USA found that tree and shrub genetics can be used to produce more accurate predictions of when leaves will burst bud in the spring. Their study was published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

Although climate sceptics might find it hard to believe with this year’s endless snow and freezing temperatures, climate change is making warm, sunny early springs increasingly common. And that affects when trees start to leaf out. But how much?

Simon Joly, biology professor at Université de Montréal and Elizabeth Wolkovich, an ecology professor at University of British Columbia, showed that a plant’s genetics can be used to produce more accurate predictions of when its leaves will burst bud in spring. Continue reading →

Issue 8.7

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Issue 8.7 is now online!

© Paula Matos

The July issue of Methods is now online!

This issue contains three Applications articles (one of which is Open Access) and one additional Open Access article. These four papers are freely available to everyone, no subscription required.

– BioEnergeticFoodWebs: An implementation of Yodzis & Innes bio-energetic model, in the high-performance computing language Julia. This package can be used to conduct numerical experiments in a reproducible and standard way.

– Controlled plant crosses: Chambers which allow you to control pollen movement and paternity of offspring using unpollinated isolated plants and microsatellite markers for parents and their putative offspring. This system has per plant costs and efficacy superior to pollen bags used in past studies of wind-pollinated plants.

– The Global Pollen Project: The study of fossil and modern pollen assemblages provides essential information about vegetation dynamics in space and time. In this Open Access Applications article, Martin and Harvey present a new online tool – the Global Pollen Project – which aims to enable people to share and identify pollen grains. Through this, it will create an open, free and accessible reference library for pollen identification. The database currently holds information for over 1500 species, from Europe, the Americas and Asia. As the collection grows, we envision easier pollen identification, and greater use of the database for novel research on pollen morphology and other characteristics, especially when linked to other palaeoecological databases, such as Neotoma.

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New Associate Editors

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Today we are welcoming two new people to the Methods in Ecology and Evolution Associate Editor Board. Pierre Durand is joining us from the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa) and Andrew Mahon joins from Central Michigan University (USA). You can find out more about Pierre and Andrew below.

Pierre Durand

Pierre Durand

“My research is broadly focussed on the evolution of complexity. Many of my projects are related to the evolutionary ecology of programmed cell death (PCD) in unicellular organisms; how PCD impacts microbial communities; and how the philosophy of levels of selection informs our understanding of PCD evolution. I have also examined other aspects of complexity evolution such as the origin of life and group formation in unicellular chlorophytes in response to predation. The model organisms I typically use are phytoplankton. With specific reference to submissions to Methods in Ecology and Evolution, I have used a range of methods in my research, including general cell and molecular biology tools, biochemical assays, microscopy, flow cytometry, bioinformatics and computational algorithms.”

The most current projects in Pierre’s laboratory concern: programmed cell death evolution and complexity in microbial communities; changes in phytoplankton abundance and diversity in harmful algal blooms, led by PhD candidate Andrew Ndhlovu (“A red tide forming dinoflagellate Prorocentrum triestinum: identification, phylogeny and impacts on St Helena Bay, South Africa” in review in Phycologia); and the genomics of the four-celled chlorophyte Tetrabaena socialis, led by PhD candidate Jonathan Featherson.

Andrew Mahon

Andrew Mahon

“I’m a molecular ecologist who uses genetic and genomic tools to ask questions ranging from surveillance and monitoring to biodiversity and phylogeography.  My work includes development of novel molecular detection tools and metabarcoding applications for aquatic invasive species.  I’m also interested in applying molecular tools to ask questions related to the evolution and biodiversity of benthic marine invertebrates in Antarctica.”

Andrew has recently been published in the journal Research Ideas and Outcomes (‘DNAqua-Net: Developing new genetic tools for bioassessment and monitoring of aquatic ecosystems in Europe‘) and in Environmental Science and Technology (‘Influence of Stream Bottom Substrate on Retention and Transport of Vertebrate Environmental DNA‘). He also has a manuscript in press with Ecology and Evolution (‘Geographic structure in the Southern Ocean circumpolar brittle star Ophionotus victoriae (Ophiuridae) revealed from mtDNA and single-nucleotide polymorphism data‘).

We are thrilled to welcome Pierre and Andrew to the Associate Editor Board and we look forward to working with them over the coming years.

Genetic Research May Help Trace Chum Salmon to Home Rivers

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Below is a press release about the Methods paper ‘Potentially adaptive mitochondrial haplotypes as a tool to identify divergent nuclear loci‘ taken from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Michael Garvin sails through Auke Bay, just north of Juneau in Southeast Alaska. ©Chris Lunsford

Michael Garvin sails through Auke Bay, just north of Juneau in Southeast Alaska. ©Chris Lunsford

University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers have uncovered genetic markers that can help trace chum salmon to the rivers in which they hatched, according to a new paper published in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

Mapping out chum salmon pathways could help improve management of the species in Western Alaska, according to Oregon State University Department of Integrative Biology postdoctoral fellow Michael Garvin.

“In some years, chum salmon are frequently the bycatch of pollock fishermen” in the Bering Sea, Garvin explained. “Genetically, chum salmon that originate in Western Alaska tend to look very similar. This makes it difficult for stakeholders because management and conservation efforts to address this bycatch can differ among these regions, but the ability to identify them with genetics is not possible.” Continue reading →

Ecological Transcriptomics for Endangered Species: Avoiding the “Successful Operation, but the Patient Died” Problem

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Post provided by TILL CZYPIONKA, DANIEL GOEDBLOED, ARNE NOLTE and LEON BLAUSTEIN

Ecological Transcriptomics and Endangered Species

The small size of the rockpool and the salamander population makes non-invasive sampling a necessity (from left: Tamar Krugman, Alan Templeton, Leon Blaustein). © Arne Nolte

The small size of the rockpool and the salamander population makes non-invasive sampling a necessity (from left: Tamar Krugman, Alan Templeton, Leon Blaustein). © Arne Nolte

Friday was Endangered Species Day – so this is a good time to reflect on what science and scientists can do to support conservation efforts and to reduce the rate of species extinctions. One obvious answer is that we need to study endangered species to understand their habitat requirements as well as their potential for acclimatization and adaptation to changing environmental conditions. This information is crucial to for the design of informed conservation planning. However, for most endangered species the relevant phenotypes are not known a priori, which leaves the well-intentioned scientist asking “which traits should I measure?”. Transcriptome analysis is often a good way to answer to this question.

Transcriptome analysis measures the expression levels of thousands of genes in parallel. This amount of data circumvents the need to decide on a reduced number of traits of unknown relevance and allows for a relatively unbiased phenotypic screen of many traits. In particular, physiological changes, which often influence a species’ distributional range, can be studied using transcriptome analysis. Also, transcriptomics provide a direct connection to the genetic level. This is essential for in-depth analyses of aspects of evolution and might even be helpful for a new kind of conservation planning, which aims to foster endangered species by promoting (supposedly) beneficial hybridization. The integration of transcriptomic analysis with ecological studies is known as ‘Ecological transcriptomics’. Continue reading →

Tips for Publishing Methods Papers in Ecological Journals

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At the 2015 Eco-Stats Conference at the University of New South Wales there was a Q&A panel discussion of tips for authors publishing methods papers. The panel was chaired by Methods in Ecology and Evolution Associate Editor David Warton. It included Jane Elith (winner of the Methods Recognition of Achievement award), Associate Editor Matt Schofield and former Associate Editor Shinichi Nakagawa. There was also a late appearance, straight off a long haul flight from China, by Doug Yu (another current Associate Editor).

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The Arborist Throw-line Launcher

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Collecting leaves or seeds from tall trees is a difficult task that many plant physiologists, ecologists, geneticists and forest managers encounter repeatedly. In a series of videos on the Methods in Ecology and Evolution YouTube channel, Kara N. Youngentob, Christina Zdenek and Eva van Gorsel demonstrate how to use the arborist throw-line launcher, which significantly simplifies this task. This new way of collecting seeds and leaves from tall trees is explained in their Applications article ‘A simple and effective method to collect leaves and seeds from tall trees‘. As this is an Applications paper, it is freely available to everyone.

Basic Techniques for the Arborist Throw-line Launcher

The first of the three videos is a basic overview of the method. In this tutorial, the authors teach you how to find the ideal branch, how to use the throw-line launcher and go through some important safety information. Continue reading →

My Entropy ‘Pearl’: Using Turing’s Insight to Find an Optimal Estimator for Shannon Entropy

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Post provided by Anne Chao (National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan)

Shannon Entropy

Not quite as precious as my entropy pearl

Not quite as precious as my entropy pearl ©Amboo Who

Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906) introduced the modern formula for entropy in statistical mechanics in 1870s. Since its generalization by Claude E. Shannon in his pioneering 1948 paper A Mathematical Theory of Communication, this entropy became known as ‘Shannon entropy’.

Shannon entropy and its exponential have been extensively used to characterize uncertainty, diversity and information-related quantities in ecology, genetics, information theory, computer science and many other fields. Its mathematical expression is given in the figure below.

In the 1950s Shannon entropy was adopted by ecologists as a diversity measure. It’s interpreted as a measure of the uncertainty in the species identity of an individual randomly selected from a community. A higher degree of uncertainty means greater diversity in the community.

Unlike species richness which gives equal weight to all species, or the Gini-Simpson index that gives more weight to individuals of abundant species, Shannon entropy and its exponential (“the effective number of common species” or diversity of order one) are the only standard frequency-sensitive complexity measures that weigh species in proportion to their population abundances. To put it simply: it treats all individuals equally. This is the most natural weighing for many applications. Continue reading →