Ecological cues, gestation length, and birth timing in African buffalo (Syncerus caffer)

We examined annual variation in the timing of conception andparturition in the African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) and thesynchrony of birth timing with resource cues, using 8 yearsof monthly birth, rainfall, and vegetation data, measured asNormalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Monthly birthshad the strongest significant correlations with NDVI and rainfalllevels 12 and 13 months in the past, respectively. In addition,the synchrony of current year births corresponds most stronglyto the synchrony of the previous year's NDVI distribution. Becausethe gestation period of buffalo has been estimated to be around11 months, these findings suggest that improved protein levels,occurring approximately a month after the first green flushof the wet season, are either a trigger for conception or conceptionhas evolved to be synchronous with correlated environmentalcues that ensure females enter a period of peak body conditionaround the time of conception and/or parturition. With a gestationperiod of approximately 340 days, parturition occurs to takeadvantage of the period when forage has its highest proteincontent. A comparative analysis of gestation periods withinthe subfamily Bovinae indicates that African buffalo have aprotracted gestation for their body size, which we suggest isan adaptation to their seasonal environment. We also found thatinterannual variation in the birth distribution suggests a degreeof plasticity in the date of conception, and variation in thenumber of calves born each year suggest further synchrony ata timescale longer than a single year.     

Amino acid sequences of lower vertebrate parvalbumins and their evolution: parvalbumins of boa, turtle, and salamander

One major parvalbumin each was isolated from the skeletal muscle of two reptiles, a boa snake, Boa constrictor, and a map turtle, Graptemys geographica, while two parvalbumins were isolated from an amphibian, the salamander Amphiuma means. The amino acid sequences of all four parvalbumins were determined from the sequences of their tryptic peptides, which were ordered partially by homology to other parvalbumins. Phylogenetic study of these and 16 other parvalbumin sequences revealed that the turtle parvalbumin belongs to beta lineage, while the salamander sequences belong, one each, to the alpha and beta lineages defined by Goodman and Pechere (1977). Boa parvalbumin, however, while belonging to the beta lineage, clusters within the fish in all reasonably parsimonious trees. The most parsimonious trees show many parallel or back mutations in the evolution of many parvalbumin residues, although the residues responsible for Ca2+ binding are very well conserved. These most parsimonious trees show an actinopterygian rather than a crossoptyrigian origin of the tetrapods in both the alpha and beta groups. One of two electric eel parvalbumins is evolving more than 10 times faster than its paralogous partner, suggesting it may be on its way to becoming a pseudogene. It is concluded that varying rates of amino acid replacement, much homoplasy, considerable gene duplication, plus complicated lineages make the set of parvalbumin sequences unsuitable for systematic study of the origin of the tetrapods and other higher-taxa divergence, although it may be suitable within a genus or family.