系统发育基因组学研究进展

系统发育基因组学是利用全基因组数据构建系统发育树的新领域。全基因组数据能有效消除横向基因转移和类群间基因进化速率差异等因素对系统发育树的影响。根据所使用的全基因组数据的类型, 可以将系统发育基因组学方法分为以下5类：多基因联合建树方法, 基于基因含量的方法, 基于基因排列信息的方法, 基于序列短串含量特征信息的方法及基于代谢途径的方法。文章系统地总结了每一类方法的原理、速度、准确性、适用范围及在各个生物类群中的应用, 并对系统发育基因组学的前景及面临的挑战进行了概述。     

区域生命之树及其在植物区系研究中的应用

区域生命之树是对一个区域内的所有物种进行生命之树重建,在最近10年已成为生命科学领域的研究热点。生命之树反映了物种间的亲缘关系和进化信息,可以将生物区系形成与发展过程中的进化和生态因素联系起来,是揭示区系来源和演化规律的有效手段。本文从3个方面总结了区域生命之树在植物区系研究中的应用:(1)在时间维度上,通过生命之树类群分化时间和进化速率估算,反映区系演化历史,揭示区系的时间分化格局;(2)在空间维度上,结合系统发育信息与物种分布数据,揭示区系内生物多样性的空间格局,并在此基础上进行区系分区;(3)整合生物地理信息和气候环境数据,分析区系中生物类群对古地理事件以及气候变化的响应机制,以揭示形成现存生物多样性格局的生态、地理和历史因素。此外,我们阐述了区域生命之树与全球生命之树之间的关系;指出由于类群取样不全而造成的时间估算偏差是区域生命之树研究中需要注意的问题;建议对生物多样性热点地区从不同尺度进行大数据的整合分析。     

转基因鱼

1982年美国科学家R.D.Palmiter等人在世界上首次运用基因工程技术将人的生长激素基因导入小鼠受精卵中,获得了具有快速生长效应的“超级鼠(Supermouse)”,其成熟大小为一般小鼠的两倍.“超级鼠”的诞生,标志着人类从认识、利用和改造家养动物的时代跨入了可以创造新生物品系,乃至于修饰人类自身的新时代,它在生物学,自然科学以及整个人类认识发展史上都具有划时代的意义.     

应用SuperTRI方法重建百合目的系统发育关系

SuperTRI是Ropiquet等(2009)发表的一种新的超树方法,可以通过合并所有系统发育信息来共同组建大的系统发育树.该方法克服了超矩阵法和传统超树法的一些限制,使提出的系统发育假说可信度更高,更具有统计说服力.本文应用SupperTRI方法重建了百合目(Liliales)主要类群的系统发育关系,并与超矩阵法的分析结果进行了比较.结果显示:(1) SuperTRI方法产生了与超矩阵法相似的拓扑结构,但节点支持率相对较低,其中再现性指数对评判分支的可信性更容易理解,在系统树图示方法上也更直观;(2)SuperTRI系统树证实百合科、菝葜科、垂花科和菝葜藤科为一单系分支;黑药花科为一独立分支;秋水仙科、六出花科、刺藤科为一单系分支,但这3个大分支间的关系未明;支持白玉簪科和金梅草科互为姐妹群,是百合目最基部类群.     

系统发育信息学及网络资源

系统发育信息学是近年来形成的新的学科方向,是系统学研究领域的一个新兴生长点。系统发育信息学是存贮、管理、注释、开发和加工系统树及其相关生物学信息的交叉学科。它的方法是基于计算机和网络技术,包括大型系统树及其相关生物学数据库的建立,系统树数据库网络的构架,系统树的可视化显示,小系统树的联合与超树的建立、用户查询、搜索和下载等,最终目的是要建立一个囊括地球上所有生物的系统树及其相关信息的数据库,将各种生物在树上精确定位,并进一步通过对系统发育信息的查询、搜索、联合与分析,从中获取生命进化的知识和进行生物学的预测。目前可用的系统发育网络资源主要有CIPRes和系统发育软件(PhylogenyPrograms)网站,已建立的系统发育信息学数据库包括TreeBASE,TreeofLife,Species2000,NCBITaxonomy数据库等。     

怎样植树造林

今春团中央将在延安举行黄河中游五省区青年造林大会,号召青年少年们以自己的双手,绿化伟大的祖国。我们一定热烈响应这个有意义的号召,来完成这个庄严的任务。植树造林是应用最广而且比较可靠的绿化方法。所谓植树造林,就是用培育好的苗木(在特殊情况也有采用野生苗木)栽到造林地使之长大成为森林。现在将植树造林的主要环节简单说明如下: 一.树种的选择选择树种应注意两方面:第一适合造林目的,第二适合当地的环境条件.就适合环境条件方面来说,又可分为两点:(1)造林树种要适合当地的气候条件.我们知道每一树种都有它所适合的一定的气候范围,如果超过了它所适合的限界,栽了就不能活或虽活但生长不良.虽然米丘林教导我们,我们可以改变各种生物的遗传性,可以改造它们使之适合新的生长环境;但是这并不是说我们可以把各种生物随便地培养在生长环境不同的新环境。尤其像树木是多年生的,栽植以后经营管理上也不能多加人工。如大规模造林通常是不灌溉,不施肥,冬季冷了更不     

完全树构建中的关键领域:rRNA 序列与超级树

20年来,分子系统学在理论和实践方面都有飞速的发展.随着可用分子标记和所涉及阶元数量的增多和范围的扩大,以及计算能力的进步,人们对完全树(universal tree)将地球上所有物种囊括在内、描述其间的亲缘关系的系统发育树的憧憬正在逐步成为现实.由于rDNA/rRNA是惟一作为所有细胞生命形式所共有的分子标记,其在构建完全树的过程中具有不可替代的作用.近5年,超级树(supertree)的技术逐步完善,已经在若干类群中有良好的应用,形成了系统发育与进化生物学领域的研究前沿之一,为最终获得完全树奠定了坚实的基础.     

子树分析和TASS程序及其在锦鸡儿属植物中的应用

子树分析和三分法 (TASS)程序是历史生物地理学中分布区关系的一种分析途径。它以分类群分支图为基础 ,以剔除其中分布区关系相悖理的结点并确定具信息的子树为目标 ,以便更有效地利用分布区信息。对分布区关系可以用若干子树和一个分布区分支图来表示。对锦鸡儿属 (Caragana)植物 72种和 13个分布区的子树分析和TASS程序运算后 ,得到 7个具信息的子树 ,它们分别表达了锦鸡儿属属内组、系所具有的分布区关系。属的分布区分支图也表达了 13个分布区的关系。与以前我们对本属成分分析的结果相吻合。     

子树分析和TASS程序及其在锦鸡儿属植物中的应用

子树分析和三分法(TASS)程序是历史生物地理学中分布区关系的一种分析途径.它以分类群分支图为基础,以剔除其中分布区关系相悖理的结点并确定具信息的子树为目标,以便更有效地利用分布区信息.对分布区关系可以用若干子树和一个分布区分支图来表示.对锦鸡儿属(Caragana)植物72种和13个分布区的子树分析和TASS程序运算后,得到7个具信息的子树,它们分别表达了锦鸡儿属属内组、系所具有的分布区关系.属的分布区分支图也表达了13个分布区的关系.与以前我们对本属成分分析的结果相吻合.     

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Missing data,incomplete taxa,and phylogenetic accuracy

The problem of missing data is often considered to be the most important obstacle in reconstructing the phylogeny of fossil taxa and in combining data from diverse characters and taxa for phylogenetic analysis. Empirical and theoretical studies show that including highly incomplete taxa can lead to multiple equally parsimonious trees, poorly resolved consensus trees, and decreased phylogenetic accuracy. However, the mechanisms that cause incomplete taxa to be problematic have remained unclear. It has been widely assumed that incomplete taxa are problematic because of the proportion or amount of missing data that they bear. In this study, I use simulations to show that the reduced accuracy associated with including incomplete taxa is caused by these taxa bearing too few complete characters rather than too many missing data cells. This seemingly subtle distinction has a number of important implications. First, the so-called missing data problem for incomplete taxa is, paradoxically, not directly related to their amount or proportion of missing data. Thus, the level of completeness alone should not guide the exclusion of taxa (contrary to common practice), and these results may explain why empirical studies have sometimes found little relationship between the completeness of a taxon and its impact on an analysis. These results also (1) suggest a more effective strategy for dealing with incomplete taxa, (2) call into question a justification of the controversial phylogenetic supertree approach, and (3) show the potential for the accurate phylogenetic placement of highly incomplete taxa, both when combining diverse data sets and when analyzing relationships of fossil taxa.     

Current progress and future prospects in phylofloristics

The species composition of regional plant assemblages can in large part be explained by a long history of biogeographical and evolutionary events. Traditional attempts of floristic studies typically focus on the analyses of taxonomic composition, often ignoring the rich context that evolutionary history can provide. In 2014, Swenson and Umaña introduced the term ‘phylofloristics’ to define a phylogenetically enabled analysis of the species composition of regional floras. Integrating phylogenetic information into traditional floristic analysis can provide a promising way to explore the ecological, biogeographic, and evolutionary processes that drive plant assemblies at multiple spatial scales. In this review, we summarize the current progress on the phylogenetic structure, spatial phylogenetic pattern, origin and diversification, phylogenetic regionalization of floristic assemblages, and application of phylogenetic information in biodiversity conservation. These summaries highlight the importance of incorporating phylogenetic information to improve our understanding of floristic assembly from an evolutionary perspective. The review ends with a brief outlook on future challenges for phylofloristic studies, including generating a highly resolved species-level phylogenetic tree, compiling detailed and refined information regarding the geographic distribution of all plant life, extracting trait information from publications and herbarium specimens, and developing technological and methodological approaches for big data analysis.     

系统发育分析中检测数据不相合性的方法

在进行生物系统发育研究的过程中,不同性质或来源的数据产生的结果之间往往存在差异,这种数据的不相合性已经成为我们重建系统发育历史的重要影响因素.本文介绍了数据不相合性存在的范围和成因,目前用于检测数据不相合性的主要方法:ILD检测,SH检测,PABA检测和PCI系数检测等,并对这些方法进行了比较,讨论了对不相合性数据的处理方法.     

Integration, phylogeny, and the hominid cranial base

Basicranial features were examined in catarrhine primates and early hominids in order to demonstrate how information about morphological integration can be incorporated into phylogenetic analysis. Hypotheses purporting to explain the functional and structural relationships of basicranial characters were tested using factor analysis. Characters found to be functionally or structurally related to each other were then further examined in order to determine whether there was evidence that they were phylogenetically independent. If phylogenetic independence could not be demonstrated, then the characters were presumed to be integrated and were grouped into a complex. That complex was then treated as if it were a single character for the purposes of cladistic analysis. Factor analysis revealed that five basicranial features may be structurally related to relative brain size in hominoids. Depending on how one defines phylogenetic independence, as few as two, or as many as all of those characters might be morphologically integrated. A cladistic analysis of early hominids based on basicranial features revealed that the use of integrated complexes had a substantial effect on the phylogenetic position of Australopithecus africanus, a species whose relationships are poorly resolved. Moreover, the use of complexes also had an effect on reanalyses of certain published cladistic data sets, implying that those studies might have been biased by patterns of basicranial integration. These results demonstrate that patterns of morphological integration need to be considered carefully in all morphology-based cladistic analyses, regardless of taxon or anatomical focus. However, an important caveat is that the functional and structural hypotheses tested here predicted much higher degrees of integration than were observed. This result warns strongly that hypotheses of integration must be tested before they can be adequately employed in phylogenetic analysis. The uncritical acceptance of an untested hypothesis of integration is likely to be as disruptive to a cladistic analysis as when integration is ignored.     

Markov model plus k-word distributions: a synergy that produces novel statistical measures for sequence comparison

MOTIVATION: Many proposed statistical measures can efficiently compare biological sequences to further infer their structures, functions and evolutionary information. They are related in spirit because all the ideas for sequence comparison try to use the information on the k-word distributions, Markov model or both. Motivated by adding k-word distributions to Markov model directly, we investigated two novel statistical measures for sequence comparison, called wre.k.r and S2.k.r. RESULTS: The proposed measures were tested by similarity search, evaluation on functionally related regulatory sequences and phylogenetic analysis. This offers the systematic and quantitative experimental assessment of our measures. Moreover, we compared our achievements with these based on alignment or alignment-free. We grouped our experiments into two sets. The first one, performed via ROC (receiver operating curve) analysis, aims at assessing the intrinsic ability of our statistical measures to search for similar sequences from a database and discriminate functionally related regulatory sequences from unrelated sequences. The second one aims at assessing how well our statistical measure is used for phylogenetic analysis. The experimental assessment demonstrates that our similarity measures intending to incorporate k-word distributions into Markov model are more efficient.     

Extensive sequence-specific information throughout the CAR/RRE, the target sequence of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 Rev protein.

The significance and location of sequence-specific information in the CAR/RRE, the target sequence for the Rev protein of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), have been controversial. We present here a comprehensive experimental and computational approach combining mutational analysis, phylogenetic comparison, and thermodynamic structure calculations with a systematic strategy for distinguishing sequence-specific information from secondary structural information. A target sequence analog was designed to have a secondary structure identical to that of the wild type but a sequence that differs from that of the wild type at every position. This analog was inactive. By exchanging fragments between the wild-type sequence and the inactive analog, we were able to detect an unexpectedly extensive distribution of sequence specificity throughout the CAR/RRE. The analysis enabled us to identify a critically important sequence-specific region, region IIb in the Rev-binding domain, strongly supports a proposed base-pairing interaction in this location, and places forceful constraints on mechanisms of Rev action. The generalized approach presented can be applied to other systems.     

Poor taxon sampling, poor character sampling, and non-repeatable analyses of a contrived dataset do not provide a more credible estimate of insect phylogeny: a reply to Kjer

The wealth of data available for phylogenetic analysis of the insect orders, from both morphological and molecular sources, is steadily increasing. However, controversy exists among the methodologies one can use to reconstruct ordinal relationships. Recently, Kjer (2004 ) presented an analysis of insect ordinal relationships based exclusively on a single source of information: 18S rDNA sequence data. Kjer claims that his analysis resulted in a more “credible” phylogeny for the insect orders and strongly criticized our previous phylogenetic results. However, Kjer only used a subset of the data that are currently available for insect ordinal phylogeny, misrepresented our analyses, and omitted other analyses we have published on insect ordinal phylogeny. In our estimation, Kjer did a poor job of representing the current state of affairs in insect ordinal phylogenetics. Furthermore, we examine a number of analytical issues that are relevant not only for insect phylogeny, but systematics as a science, such as: repeatability and objectivity, locating alignment boundaries, secondary structure, goodness of fit measure, epistemological coherence, practicality and homology. © The Willi Hennig Society 2005.     

New substitution models for rooting phylogenetic trees

The root of a phylogenetic tree is fundamental to its biological interpretation, but standard substitution models do not provide any information on its position. Here, we describe two recently developed models that relax the usual assumptions of stationarity and reversibility, thereby facilitating root inference without the need for an outgroup. We compare the performance of these models on a classic test case for phylogenetic methods, before considering two highly topical questions in evolutionary biology: the deep structure of the tree of life and the root of the archaeal radiation. We show that all three alignments contain meaningful rooting information that can be harnessed by these new models, thus complementing and extending previous work based on outgroup rooting. In particular, our analyses exclude the root of the tree of life from the eukaryotes or Archaea, placing it on the bacterial stem or within the Bacteria. They also exclude the root of the archaeal radiation from several major clades, consistent with analyses using other rooting methods. Overall, our results demonstrate the utility of non-reversible and non-stationary models for rooting phylogenetic trees, and identify areas where further progress can be made.     

Phylogenetic position of a deep-sea ascidian, Megalodicopia hians, inferred from the molecular data

Ascidians inhabit both shallow water and the deep sea. The phylogenetic position of deep-sea ascidians has not been sufficiently investigated because of their unusual habitats. The family Octacnemidae is one such enigmatic deep-sea ascidian. In this report, we determined the sequences of the 18SrDNA and a mitochondrial protein gene of Megalodicopia hians belonging to the family Octacnemidae, and we analyzed its phylogenetic relationship with other ascidians. A phylogenetic relationship of this family with the families Cionidae and/or Corellidae has been suspected based on a small number of morphological characteristics. However, our results suggested that M. hians has a close relationship to the family Corellidae and might originate from them. This is the first report of the molecular phylogenetic analysis of a deep-sea ascidian.