Vertebrates in Biological News

Snails and humans use same genes to tell right from left

... critical for setting up left-right asymmetry in vertebrates was only present in vertebrates and related groups and not in any other animals," ... organs wouldn't fit together properly. Other vertebrates are the same. In fact, scientists have identified ...

From humming fish to Puccini: Vocal communication evolved with ancient species

... frog thrums and mating calls of all manner of vertebrates was likely laid down hundreds of millions of ... the neural network behind sound production in vertebrates can be traced back through evolutionary time to ... human speech and social communications of all vertebrates in evolutionary context, Bass said. The ...

Worm-like marine animal providing

... of vertebrates. Although amphioxus split from vertebrates more than 520 million years ago, its genome holds ... as an intriguing comparison point for tracing how vertebrates have evolved and adapted. This includes new information about how vertebrates have employed old genes for new functions. "We ...

Origins of the brain

... proteins with the evolution of invertebrates and vertebrates and this has contributed to the more complex ... found the expansion in proteins that occurred in vertebrates provided a pool of proteins that were used for ... that the synapse proteins that evolved in vertebrates give rise to a wider range of behaviours ...

Evolving complexity out of 'junk DNA'

... spineless relatives, such as the sea squirts. vertebrates - animals such as humans that possess a backbone ... number of new microRNAs added to the genome of vertebrates and this is unparalleled in evolutionary history. ... pancreas and brain. Therefore, the origin of vertebrates and the origin of these genes is no coincidence. ...

Dartmouth researchers find the root of the evolutionary emergence of vertebrates

... number of new microRNAs added to the genome of vertebrates and this is unparalleled in evolutionary history, ... like the shark, but after the divergence of vertebrates from their invertebrate chordate relatives, such ... pancreas and brain. Therefore, the origin of vertebrates and the origin of these genes is no coincidence. ...

Red List overlooks island species

... Red List criteria, Martn Esquivel discovered that "almost all relate to vertebrates (above all birds) and plants, and they are all based on continental ... As invertebrates usually have a smaller distribution area than large vertebrates and birds "the same baseline criteria cannot be used for birds and snails, ...

The evolutionary foundation of genomic imprinting in lower vertebrates

... that the evolutionary foundation of genomic imprinting exists in lower vertebrates and genomic imprinting should not be considered as a unique evolutionary ... plants, but no endogenous imprinted gene has been reported in other vertebrates and invertebrates. Therefore, genomic imprinting is thought a unique ...

Crabs' memory of pain confirmed by Queen's academic

... the need to avoid the harmful stimulus. "Such trade-offs are seen in vertebrates in which the response to pain is controlled with respect to other ... as the presumption is that they cannot experience pain. "With vertebrates we are asked to err on the side of caution and I believe this is the ...

Elephant shark genome sequence leads to discovery of color perception in deep-sea fish

... may enhance scientists' understanding of how color vision evolved in early vertebrates over the last 450 million years of evolution. "It was unexpected that ... shark had retained more features of the ancestral genome than other vertebrates belonging to the same evolutionary tree and hence was a useful model for ...

Newly discovered molecular switch helps decide cell type in early embryo development

... the course of evolution all the way from Drosophilia fruit flies to vertebrates and humans Hox genes are responsible for regulating other downstream ... known to specify distinct cell types along the developing body axes of vertebrates and non-vertebrates, it hasn't been clear how they regulate downstream ...

Genome sequence of small marine creature sheds light on vertebrate origins

... plan. Amphioxus is therefore an excellent model for investigating how vertebrates evolved from an invertebrate ancestor. Now, researchers are finding that ... pre-vertebrates are still evolving To investigate the origins of vertebrates and other features of cephalochordate biology, a team of researchers led ...

Colorful view for first land animals

... of lungfish reveals that these have more in common with four-legged vertebrates (tetrapods) than with fish retinas. Although lungfish mainly take in ... most closely reflecting that present just prior to the emergence of land vertebrates in the Devonian period." ...

Climate-caused biodiversity booms and busts in ancient plants and mammals

... mammal and plant evolution as savanna habitats began to emerge. Until this research, the consensus among paleontologists who study North American vertebrates was that climate played only a background role in supporting the evolution of mammals during the Paleocene and Eocene (65 million to 35 million years ...

Biologists rediscover endangered frog population

... of the San Jacinto Mountain region, the frog was collected at five sites. The San Diego Natural History Museum's team is searching for all species of vertebrates animals with a backbone in a study of biological change in the region. The biologists were in the Tahquitz Valley area the week of June 21 when ...

Super-sleepers could help super-sizers!

... a period of torpor to conserve energy when resources are scarce. But when it comes to switching to energy-saving mode, the champion by far among vertebrates is the burrowing frog ( Cyclorana alboguttata ), which can survive for several years buried in the mud in the absence of any food or water. How do ...

7th annual [BC]2 Basel Computational Biology Conference 'Molecular Evolution' June 18-19, 2009

... group also discovered the homeobox, a DNA segment characteristic for homeotic genes which is present in arthropods and their ancestors and also in vertebrates including man. Derek Smith, Professor of Infectious Disease Informatics, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, UK, will present on "The ...

Gene evolution process discovered

... significant gaps in this knowledge. Dr Wood says: "We were curious to look at REST and see what its functions are because it's present in all vertebrates and it is also thought it may have a role to play in certain brain functions, such as levels of intelligence. It was a massive undertaking just to ...

Cantabrian cornice has experienced seven cooling and warming phases over past 41,000 years

... out a paleontological survey in the cave of El Mirn. Since then they have focused on analysing the fossil remains of the bones and teeth of small vertebrates that lived in the Cantabrian region over the past 41,000 years, at the end of the Quaternary. The richness, great diversity and good conservation ...

CU-Boulder study shows 53 million-year-old high Arctic mammals wintered in darkness

... But in winter's twilight they apparently switched over to foods like twigs, leaf litter, evergreen needles and fungi, said Eberle, curator of fossil vertebrates at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History and chief study author. The study has implications for the dispersal of early mammals ...

Scientists announce top 10 new species, issue SOS

... data. The majority of the 18,516 species described (named) in 2007 were invertebrate animals (75.6 percent), vascular plants (11.1 percent) and vertebrates (6.7 percent). This year's SOS report also includes data for prokaryotes (bacteria and Archaea) in addition to protists. The State of Observed ...

Scientists announce top 10 new species; issue SOS

... data. The majority of the 18,516 species described (named) in 2007 were invertebrate animals (75.6 percent), vascular plants (11.1 percent) and vertebrates (6.7 percent). This year's SOS report also includes data for prokaryotes (bacteria and Archaea) in addition to protists. The State of Observed ...

The importance of being helpful -- Cooperative cichlids boost their own reproductive success

... Subordinate individuals living within a group of vertebrates sometimes assist a more dominant pair by helping to raise the dominant pair's offspring and this has been shown to occur among subordinate female ...

The life histories of the earliest land animals

... and Acanthostega , from Greenland. These animals, which lived during the Devonian period about 365 million years ago, were among the earliest vertebrates (backboned animals) with fore- and hindlimbs rather than paired fins. They belong to the common stem group of all living amphibians, reptiles, ...

Scaling the wall of deafness

... loss has no genetic basis, like after a major injury to the ear. Her recent study investigated mice and zebrafish, but the model holds true for all vertebrates ― including humans, she says. In separate studies in the UK and Spain, mutations in a single microRNA were just reported to cause deafness in ...

Genetic study finds treasure trove of new lizards

... remain undocumented. "This problem is widely acknowledged to be dire among invertebrates and in developing countries. "But in this group of vertebrates in a developed nation, which we thought we knew reasonably well, we found more than half the species were unrecognised." Mr Oliver says this has ...

Tuning in on cellular communication in the fruit fly

... Biology . (Dev Biol. 2009 Feb 1; 326(1):36-46.) "The BMP pathway is very important for embryonic development, not only in fruit flies, but in vertebrates as well," said Joseph Duffy, PhD., associate professor of biology and biotechnology at WPI and lead author of the paper. "What we've identified is a ...

AZTI-Tecnalia coordinates a platform promoting the use of zebrafish in scientific research

... is expanding rapidly thanks to its low maintenance costs, its ease of handling and reproduction, its high degree of genetic similarity with higher vertebrates and humans, and to the numerous genetic tools available. The DareNET platform aims at promoting the use of the zebrafish animal model in ...

World's biggest snake gives climate clues

... scientists with a rare window into past equatorial environment. "Until now, tropical South America's dense forest prevented discovery of fossil vertebrates found between 55 and 65 million years ago, so this discovery gives us a very unique and important glimpse into the past," he says. Since the body ...

When it comes to sleep research, fruit flies and people make unlikely bedfellows

... ), scientists from the University of Missouri-Kansas City have shown that the circadian rhythms (sleep/wake cycles) of fruit flies and vertebrates are regulated by some of the same "cellular machinery" as that of humans. This study is significant because the sleep-regulating enzyme analyzed in ...

Spookfish uses mirrors for eyes

... half, which looks like a bump on the side of the fish's head, points downwards into the abyss below. These 'diverticular' eyes are unique among all vertebrates in that they use a mirror to make the image. Very little light penetrates beneath about 1000m of water and like many other deep-sea fish the ...

Mammals can be stimulated to regrow damaged inner retina nerve cells

... for vision loss from retina-damaging diseases, like macular degeneration. The researchers pointed out the remarkable ability of cold-blooded vertebrates like fish to regenerate their retinas after damage. Birds, which are warm-blooded, have some limited ability to regenerate retinal nerve cells after ...

New molecular insight into vertebrate brain development

... pro-growth genes. Drs. Xinwei Cao, Samuel Pfaff and Fred Gage now report that Hippo signaling is a critical master regulator of bran size in vertebrates that functions by restricting instructing the survival, proliferation and differentiation of neural precursor cells. In addition, the researchers ...

Ecologists say metabolism accounts for why natural selection favors only some species

... diverse tricks to remain near the metabolic optimum, from which the progressive evolutionary increase in body size from prokaryotes to largest vertebrates and plants was continually taking them away," Li said. He was joined in the study by co-leaders Anastassia M. Makarieva and Victor G. Gorshkov of ...

BioScience tip sheet, November 2008

... inhabit gulf coast islands feed on dead fish and intertidal carrion, occasionally entering the sea. The snakes suggest a model for how terrestrial vertebrates may have taken up marine existence. Ecological Restoration and Physiology: An Overdue Integration. Steven J. Cooke and Cory D. Suski. The ...

Deprived of a sense of smell, worms live longer

... of what we actually eat. "Emerging evidence suggests that core metabolic pathways that modulate lifespan in worms also modulate lifespan in vertebrates such as mice and perhaps humans," Kornfeld says. "Sensory pathways might also be fairly universal. In an ancient common ancestor, these pathways ...

Snakes, salamanders and other creatures thrive in areas with higher deer populations

... ground cover for salamanders, slugs and other animals to hide under for protection. The researchers then counted the number of invertebrates and vertebrates under each board every three to four weeks from May through December in 2004 and monthly from May through September the following year. They ...

Field Museum provides gold standard for mammal survey

... Bruce Patterson, a Field mammal curator and also a study co-author. "We're still describing them. These aren't beetles or flies. They are our fellow vertebrates living on this planet. And we don't know them all." Storing thousands of samples in its collection, the Field can provide scientists access to ...

Traits produced by melanin may signal the bearer's capacity to combat free radicals

... cost-free and strongly controlled by the genotype. Melanin pigments are not as limited in production as carotenoids, yellow-red pigments common in vertebrates and only obtained from certain food items. In fact, melanin is constructed from amino acids present in proteins of the organism. However, recent ...

Australian frog species chooses not to put eggs in 1 basket

... should benefit from promiscuous behaviour because males generally invest less in reproduction. This level of promiscuity is a new record among vertebrates and certainly supports the old adage of not putting all your eggs in the one basket," Dr Byrne said. "Our study advances our understanding of ...