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Life
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Feature Topics in Evolutionary Biology
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Feature Topics in Evolutionary Biology

A special issue of Life (ISSN 2075-1729). This special issue belongs to the section "Evolutionary Biology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 6046

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Koichiro Tamura

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Biological Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University, ‎Tokyo‎ 192-0397, Japan
Interests: evolutionary genetics; molecular phylogenetics; molecular and genome evolution; mathematical modeling; bioinformatics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new Special Issue entitled “Feature Reviews in Evolutionary Biology”. This is a collection of important high-quality review papers published in Open Access form by Editorial Board Members, or prominent scholars invited by the Editorial Office and the Section Editor-in-Chief.

This Special Issue aims to discuss new knowledge or new cutting-edge developments in Evolutionary Biology through selected works, which will make a great contribution to the community. We consider that this issue will be the best forum for disseminating excellent research findings as well as sharing innovative ideas in the field.

You are welcome to send a tentative title and a short abstract to our Editorial Office ([email protected]) for evaluation before submission. Please note that selected full papers will still be subjected to a thorough and rigorous peer review.

We look forward to receiving your excellent work.

Prof. Dr. Koichiro Tamura
Guest Editor
Section Editor-in-Chief

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Life is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • tree of Life
  • ancestral state evolution
  • evolution of organisms, genomes
  • molecular and non-molecular evolution
  • evolutionary processes
  • evolutionary biology

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

Jump to: Review, Other

14 pages, 2696 KiB  
Article
Eutherian-Specific Functions of BetaM Acquired through Atp1b4 Gene Co-Option in the Regulation of MyoD Expression
by Nisar Ahmad, Ivana L. de la Serna, Himangi G. Marathe, Xiaoming Fan, Prabhatchandra Dube, Shungang Zhang, Steven T. Haller, David J. Kennedy, Nikolay B. Pestov and Nikolai N. Modyanov
Life 2023, 13(2), 414; https://doi.org/10.3390/life13020414 - 02 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1574
Abstract
Vertebrate ATP1B4 genes represent a rare instance of orthologous gene co-option, resulting in radically different functions of the encoded BetaM proteins. In lower vertebrates, BetaM is a Na, K-ATPase β-subunit that is a component of ion pumps in the plasma membrane. In placental [...] Read more.
Vertebrate ATP1B4 genes represent a rare instance of orthologous gene co-option, resulting in radically different functions of the encoded BetaM proteins. In lower vertebrates, BetaM is a Na, K-ATPase β-subunit that is a component of ion pumps in the plasma membrane. In placental mammals, BetaM lost its ancestral role and, through structural alterations of the N-terminal domain, became a skeletal and cardiac muscle-specific protein of the inner nuclear membrane, highly expressed during late fetal and early postnatal development. We previously determined that BetaM directly interacts with the transcriptional co-regulator SKI-interacting protein (SKIP) and is implicated in the regulation of gene expression. This prompted us to investigate a potential role for BetaM in the regulation of muscle-specific gene expression in neonatal skeletal muscle and cultured C2C12 myoblasts. We found that BetaM can stimulate expression of the muscle regulatory factor (MRF), MyoD, independently of SKIP. BetaM binds to the distal regulatory region (DRR) of MyoD, promotes epigenetic changes associated with activation of transcription, and recruits the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling subunit, BRG1. These results indicate that eutherian BetaM regulates muscle gene expression by promoting changes in chromatin structure. These evolutionarily acquired new functions of BetaM might be very essential and provide evolutionary advantages to placental mammals. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Feature Topics in Evolutionary Biology)
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Review

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11 pages, 574 KiB  
Review
Rapid Evolutionary Adaptation in Response to Selection on Quantitative Traits
by Wolfgang Stephan
Life 2021, 11(8), 797; https://doi.org/10.3390/life11080797 - 06 Aug 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1796
Abstract
Evolutionary adaptation after sudden environmental changes can occur very rapidly. The mechanisms facilitating rapid adaptation range from strong positive directional selection leading to large shifts in the allele frequencies at a few loci (selective sweeps) to polygenic selection causing small changes in allele [...] Read more.
Evolutionary adaptation after sudden environmental changes can occur very rapidly. The mechanisms facilitating rapid adaptation range from strong positive directional selection leading to large shifts in the allele frequencies at a few loci (selective sweeps) to polygenic selection causing small changes in allele frequencies at many loci. In addition, combinations of these two extreme mechanisms may also result in fast evolution. In recent years, following reports of new case studies of rapid adaptation, population genetic models have been proposed to explain these observations. In these models, the role of the major selective forces (positive directional and stabilizing selection) is highlighted as well as the genetic architecture of quantitative traits. Furthermore, the factors limiting the speed of adaptation are analyzed, in particular, the effects of random genetic drift and demography due to finite population size. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Feature Topics in Evolutionary Biology)
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Other

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11 pages, 2324 KiB  
Concept Paper
From Parasitized to Healthy-Looking Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): Morphological Reconstruction Using Algorithmic Processing
by Sándor Csősz, Ferenc Báthori, Mathieu Molet, Gábor Majoros and Zoltán Rádai
Life 2022, 12(5), 625; https://doi.org/10.3390/life12050625 - 22 Apr 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1794
Abstract
Background: Parasites cause predictable alternative phenotypes of host individuals. Investigating these parasitogenic phenotypes may be essential in cases where parasitism is common or taxa is described based on a parasitized individual. Ignoring them could lead to erroneous conclusions in biodiversity-focused research, taxonomy, evolution, [...] Read more.
Background: Parasites cause predictable alternative phenotypes of host individuals. Investigating these parasitogenic phenotypes may be essential in cases where parasitism is common or taxa is described based on a parasitized individual. Ignoring them could lead to erroneous conclusions in biodiversity-focused research, taxonomy, evolution, and ecology. However, to date, integrating alternative phenotypes into a set of wild-type individuals in morphometric analysis poses extraordinary challenges to experts. This paper presents an approach for reconstructing the putative healthy morphology of parasitized ants using algorithmic processing. Our concept enables the integration of alternative parasitogenic phenotypes in morphometric analyses. Methods: We tested the applicability of our strategy in a large pool of Cestoda-infected and healthy individuals of three Temnothorax ant species (T. nylanderi, T. sordidulus, and T. unifasciatus). We assessed the stability and convergence of morphological changes caused by parasitism across species. We used an artificial neural network-based multiclass classifier model to predict species based on morphological trait values and the presence of parasite infection. Results: Infection causes predictable morphological changes in each species, although these changes proved to be species-specific. Therefore, integrating alternative parasitogenic phenotypes in morphometric analyses can be achieved at the species level, and a prior species hypothesis is required. Conclusion: Despite the above limitation, the concept is appropriate. Beyond parasitogenic phenotypes, our approach can also integrate morphometric data of an array of alternative phenotypes (subcastes in social insects, alternative morphs in polyphenic species, and alternative sexes in sexually dimorphic species) whose integrability had not been resolved before. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Feature Topics in Evolutionary Biology)
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