A new cryptic Sympistis from eastern North America revealed by novel larval phenotype and host plant association (Lepidoptera,Noctuidae, Oncocnemidinae)

A Triosteum-feeding species of Sympistis is described from eastern North America: Sympistis forbesi sp. n. Identity of the new species is most reliably determined from larval morphology and host plant association—both adult scaling and genitalic characters overlap with those of Sympisitis chionanthi, a Chionanthus and Fraxinus feeder.     

Journal of Genetics and Genomics

正Aims and Scope Journal of Genetics and Genomics(JGG)is an international journal publishing peer-reviewed articles of novel and significant discoveries in the fields of genetics and genomics.Topics of particular interest include but are not limited to:molecular genetics,developmental genetics,cytogenetics,epigenetics,medical genetics,population and evolutionary genetics,genomics and functional genomics as well as bioinformatics and computational biology.The main article types     

Journal of Genetics and Genomics

正Aims and Scope Journal of Genetics and Genomics(JGG)is an international journal publishing peer-reviewed articles of novel and significant discoveries in the fields of genetics and genomics.Topics of particular interest include but are not limited to:molecular genetics,developmental genetics,cytogenetics,epigenetics,medical genetics,population and evolutionary genetics,genomics and functional genomics as well     

Investigating the evolution of floras: problems and progress — An introduction

The Cape flora of southern Africa is a remarkable hotspot for plant species diversity and endemism. At a meeting in Zurich in 2004 progress in understanding the evolution of this diversity was reviewed. In this symposium, four papers presenting several of the methods used in this investigation were reported. These papers deal with molecular dating methods, the reconstruction of ancestral habitats, with possible speciation scenarios for the Cape flora, and the importance of the correct sampling strategies.     

Parengyodontium album,a frequently reported fungal species in the cultural heritage environment

Fungi are one of the main agents responsible for the biodeterioration of cultural heritage through physical and chemical processes. The frequent isolation of certain fungal species from deteriorated materials indicates that these species appear to have a particular affinity for environmental conditions occurring in cultural heritage. It is important to identify the conditions that favour the development of such species in order to understand how to preserve monuments and collections. Among these fungal species, the involvement of Parengyodontium album (Limber) Tsang et al. seems to have been underestimated until now. This species is abundant in many environments and its taxonomic position has changed quite frequently, which may have concealed the effect of this fungus on cultural heritage sites. This review seeks to compile the involvement of P. album in cultural heritage biodeterioration phenomena under all the names that it has been attributed in order to effectively determine its occurrence. This paper also aims to determine whether P. album is marginal or dominant when detected on materials. Finally, the conditions that favour the development of P. album on cultural heritage objects and sites are discussed.     

Plant adaptation to climate change—Where are we?

Climate change poses critical challenges for population persistence in natural communities, for agriculture and environmental sustainability, and for food security. In this review, we discuss recent progress in climatic adaptation in plants. We evaluate whether climate change exerts novel selection and disrupts local adaptation, whether gene flow can facilitate adaptive responses to climate change, and whether adaptive phenotypic plasticity could sustain populations in the short term. Furthermore, we discuss how climate change influences species interactions. Through a more in‐depth understanding of these eco‐evolutionary dynamics, we will increase our capacity to predict the adaptive potential of plants under climate change. In addition, we review studies that dissect the genetic basis of plant adaptation to climate change. Finally, we highlight key research gaps, ranging from validating gene function to elucidating molecular mechanisms, expanding research systems from model species to other natural species, testing the fitness consequences of alleles in natural environments, and designing multifactorial studies that more closely reflect the complex and interactive effects of multiple climate change factors. By leveraging interdisciplinary tools (e.g., cutting‐edge omics toolkits, novel ecological strategies, newly developed genome editing technology), researchers can more accurately predict the probability that species can persist through this rapid and intense period of environmental change, as well as cultivate crops to withstand climate change, and conserve biodiversity in natural systems.     

Velvet worm (Phylum Onychophora) on a sand island,in a wetland: Flushed from a Pleistocene refuge by recent rainfall?

Velvet worms (Onychophora) are restricted to moist, humid microclimates, but are poorly known from south‐east Queensland, Australia, where they are typically rainforest fauna. We made the unlikely observation of one of these invertebrates clinging to floating debris in a wetland on North Stradbroke Island. Palaeoecology of this wetland reveals that it once was within rainforest and has remained moist for at least the past 80 000 years, thus potentially harbouring an onychophoran population as a relic of a past broader, rainforest distribution. The presence of this animal, floating in the wetland, can be explained by recent climate, since the wetland filled following heavy rainfall shortly before the observation. This highlights the importance of groundwater‐fed wetlands as evolutionary refugia for moisture‐dependent biota.     

Evolutionary temperature compensation of carbon fixation in marine phytoplankton

The efficiency of carbon sequestration by the biological pump could decline in the coming decades because respiration tends to increase more with temperature than photosynthesis. Despite these differences in the short‐term temperature sensitivities of photosynthesis and respiration, it remains unknown whether the long‐term impacts of global warming on metabolic rates of phytoplankton can be modulated by evolutionary adaptation. We found that respiration was consistently more temperature dependent than photosynthesis across 18 diverse marine phytoplankton, resulting in universal declines in the rate of carbon fixation with short‐term increases in temperature. Long‐term experimental evolution under high temperature reversed the short‐term stimulation of metabolic rates, resulting in increased rates of carbon fixation. Our findings suggest that thermal adaptation may therefore have an ameliorating impact on the efficiency of phytoplankton as primary mediators of the biological carbon pump.