Escalation of a coevolutionary arms race through host rejection of brood parasitic young

Cuckoo nestlings that evict all other young from the nest soon after hatching impose a high reproductive cost on their hosts. In defence, hosts have coevolved strategies to prevent brood parasitism. Puzzlingly, they do not extend beyond the egg stage. Thus, hosts adept at recognizing foreign eggs remain vulnerable to exploitation by cuckoo nestlings. Here we show that the breach of host egg defences by cuckoos creates a new stage in the coevolutionary cycle. We found that defences used during the egg-laying period by host superb fairy-wrens (Malurus cyaneus) are easily evaded by the Horsfield's bronze-cuckoo (Chrysococcyx basalis), a specialist fairy-wren brood parasite. However, although hosts never deserted their own broods, they later abandoned 40% of nests containing a lone Horsfield's bronze-cuckoo nestling, and 100% of nests with a lone shining bronze-cuckoo nestling (Chrysococcyx lucidus), an occasional fairy-wren brood parasite. Our experiments demonstrate that host discrimination against evictor-cuckoo nestlings is possible, and suggest that it has selected for the evolution of nestling mimicry in bronze-cuckoos.     

Speciation by host switch in brood parasitic indigobirds

A growing body of empirical and theoretical work supports the plausibility of sympatric speciation, but there remain few examples in which all the essential components of the process are well understood. The African indigobirds Vidua spp. are host-specific brood parasites. Indigobird nestlings are reared along with host young, and mimic the mouth markings of their respective hosts. As adults, male indigobirds mimic host song, whereas females use these songs to choose both their mates and the nests they parasitize. These behavioural mechanisms promote the cohesion of indigobird populations associated with a given host species, and provide a mechanism for reproductive isolation after a new host is colonized. Here we show that all indigobird species are similar genetically, but are significantly differentiated in both mitochondrial haplotype and nuclear allele frequencies. These data support a model of recent sympatric speciation. In contrast to the cuckoo Cuculus canorus, in which only female lineages are faithful to specific hosts, host switches have led to speciation in indigobirds because both males and females imprint on their hosts.     

Egg recognition and counting reduce costs of avian conspecific brood parasitism

Birds parasitized by interspecific brood parasites often adopt defences based on egg recognition but such behaviours are puzzlingly rare in species parasitized by members of the same species. Here I show that conspecific egg recognition is frequent, accurate and used in three defences that reduce the high costs of conspecific brood parasitism in American coots. Hosts recognized and rejected many parasitic eggs, reducing the fitness costs of parasitism by half. Recognition without rejection also occurred and some hosts banished parasitic eggs to inferior outer incubation positions. Clutch size comparisons revealed that females combine egg recognition and counting to make clutch size decisions--by counting their own eggs, while ignoring distinctive parasitic eggs, females avoid a maladaptive clutch size reduction. This is clear evidence that female birds use visual rather than tactile cues to regulate their clutch sizes, and provides a rare example of the ecological and evolutionary context of counting in animals.     

求解置换流水车间调度问题的布谷鸟算法

分析了布谷鸟算法的优化机理和特点,针对最小化最大完工时间的置换流水车间调度问题,采用基于最小位置值规则的随机键编码方式,应用布谷鸟算法进行求解.通过选取的标准算例对算法进行了仿真测试,并与萤火虫算法和粒子群算法进行对比,测试结果表明了该算法求解置换流水车间调度问题的有效性和优越性.该方法可作为解决流水线生产调度问题的一种有效方法.     

Diverse transitional giant fleas from the Mesozoic era of China

Fleas are one of the major lineages of ectoparasitic insects and are now highly specialized for feeding on the blood of birds or mammals. This has isolated them among holometabolan insect orders, although they derive from the Antliophora (scorpionflies and true flies). Like most ectoparasitic lineages, their fossil record is meagre and confined to Cenozoic-era representatives of modern families, so that we lack evidence of the origins of fleas in the Mesozoic era. The origins of the first recognized Cretaceous stem-group flea, Tarwinia, remains highly controversial. Here we report fossils of the oldest definitive fleas--giant forms from the Middle Jurassic and Early Cretaceous periods of China. They exhibit many defining features of fleas but retain primitive traits such as non-jumping hindlegs. More importantly, all have stout and elongate sucking siphons for piercing the hides of their hosts, implying that these fleas may be rooted among the pollinating 'long siphonate' scorpionflies of the Mesozoic. Their special morphology suggests that their earliest hosts were hairy or feathered 'reptilians', and that they radiated to mammalian and bird hosts later in the Cenozoic.     

An obligate brood parasite trapped in the intraspecific arms race of its hosts

Reciprocal selection pressures often lead to close and adaptive matching of traits in coevolved species. A failure of one species to match the evolutionary trajectories of another is often attributed to evolutionary lags or to differing selection pressures across a geographic mosaic. Here we show that mismatches in adaptation of interacting species--an obligate brood parasitic duck and each of its two main hosts--are best explained by the evolutionary dynamics within the host species. Rejection of the brood parasite's eggs was common by both hosts, despite a lack of detectable cost of parasitism to the hosts. Egg rejection markedly reduced parasite fitness, but egg mimicry experiments revealed no phenotypic natural selection for more mimetic parasitic eggs. These paradoxical results were resolved by the discovery of intraspecific brood parasitism and conspecific egg rejection within the hosts themselves. The apparent arms race between species seems instead to be an incidental by-product of within-species conflict, with little recourse for evolutionary response by the parasite.     

Ancestry of unisexual salamanders.

In eastern North America there are populations of all-female salamanders that incorporate the nuclear genomes of two or three of four sympatric bisexual species. The hybrids can be diploid, triploid, tetraploid or pentaploid, and 18 different combinations have been reported. All hybrids require sperm from a sympatric male of one of the bisexual species to reproduce, but the sperm may or may not be incorporated in the egg. Some of the hybrids are believed to represent separate, clonal species, but little is known of the origin of this hybrid complex. Vertebrate mitochondrial DNA is inherited maternally, allowing identification of the female parent that gave rise to hybrid lineages. A portion of the cytochrome b gene was sequenced from diploid and triploid hybrids that represent combinations of all four species. Nearly all hybrids had a similar mitochondrial genome sequence, independent of nuclear genome composition and ploidy, and the sequence was distinct from that of any of the four bisexual species. The hybrids maintain a mitochondrial lineage that has evolved independently of their nuclear genome and represent the most ancient known unisexual vertebrate lineage.     

The evolution of alternative parasitic life histories in large blue butterflies

Large blue (Maculinea) butterflies are highly endangered throughout the Palaearctic region, and have been the focus of intense conservation research. In addition, their extraordinary parasitic lifestyles make them ideal for studies of life history evolution. Early instars consume flower buds of specific host plants, but later instars live in ant nests where they either devour the brood (predators), or are fed mouth-to-mouth by the adult ants (cuckoos). Here we present the phylogeny for the group, which shows that it is a monophyletic clade nested within Phengaris, a rare Oriental genus whose species have similar life histories. Cuckoo species are likely to have evolved from predatory ancestors. As early as five million years ago, two Maculinea clades diverged, leading to the different parasitic strategies seen in the genus today. Contrary to current belief, the two recognized cuckoo species show little genetic divergence and are probably a single ecologically differentiated species. On the other hand, some of the predatory morphospecies exhibit considerable genetic divergence and may contain cryptic species. These findings have important implications for conservation and reintroduction efforts.     

Identification of diploid endosperm in an early angiosperm lineage

In flowering plants, the developmental and genetic basis for the establishment of an embryo-nourishing tissue differs from all other lineages of seed plants. Among extant nonflowering seed plants (conifers, cycads, Ginkgo, Gnetales), a maternally derived haploid tissue (female gametophyte) is responsible for the acquisition of nutrients from the maternal diploid plant, and the ultimate provisioning of the embryo. In flowering plants, a second fertilization event, contemporaneous with the fusion of sperm and egg to yield a zygote, initiates a genetically biparental and typically triploid embryo-nourishing tissue called endosperm. For over a century, triploid biparental endosperm has been viewed as the ancestral condition in extant flowering plants. Here we report diploid biparental endosperm in Nuphar polysepalum, a basal angiosperm. We show that diploid endosperms are common among early angiosperm lineages and may represent the ancestral condition among flowering plants. If diploid endosperm is plesiomorphic, the triploid endosperms of the vast majority of flowering plants must have evolved from a diploid condition through the developmental modification of the unique fertilization process that initiates endosperm.     

群队：柔然汗国的滥觞

木骨闾群队是柔然汗国形成过程中最早的社会组织，由不同氐族部落碎片组成，内部没有血缘关系，家庭或小家族构成这一群队的基础，群队成员处于平等地位，首领的权力基于本人的努力与才干。当居于核心地位的木骨闾家庭发展为家族，继而成为氏族后，柔然汗国的建立基础就得以奠定。这种模式普遍存在于北方草原各部落。     

一种布谷鸟-交叉熵混合优化算法及其性能仿真

为了提高布谷鸟搜索算法在求解复杂优化问题时的收敛速度和搜索精度,基于交叉熵方法,构建了一种新的布谷鸟-交叉熵混合优化算法.该算法将基于模型的交叉熵随机优化算法和基于种群的布谷鸟搜索进行有机融合,采用协同演化策略,既提升了混合算法收敛速度,又改善了其全局优化能力.对经典测试函数和PID控制器整定问题的仿真结果表明,新算法具有全局搜索能力强、求解精度高和鲁棒性好等特性,是一种求解复杂优化问题的可行和有效算法.     

白腐真菌的培养及其在染料污水脱色中的应用

阈值法是图像分割最为常用的方法之一,然而基于一维直方图的阈值方法分割结果容易受噪声的影响.基于二维直方图的二维Fisher准则能够克服一维阈值法缺陷,具有较好的分割性能.但是二维Fisher准则阈值法在求取最优阈值时需要大量的计算,运算速度非常慢.常用的二维Fisher准则阈值优化计算方法如粒子群算法和遗传算法容易陷入局部最优.杜鹃搜索算法是新近提出的一种元启发优化算法,一些经典的函数优化问题测试结果表明杜鹃搜索算法全局寻优能力优于粒子群算法和遗传算法.在介绍杜鹃搜索算法的基础上,提出一种基于杜鹃搜索算法改进的二维Fisher准则阈值分割方法.实验结果证明,提出的方法降低了基本二维Fisher准则阈值法最优阈值的寻找时间,提高了图像分割的实时性,是一种性能良好的图像分割方法.     

Gene transfer to the nucleus and the evolution of chloroplasts

Photosynthetic eukaryotes, particularly unicellular forms, possess a fossil record that is either wrought with gaps or difficult to interpret, or both. Attempts to reconstruct their evolution have focused on plastid phylogeny, but were limited by the amount and type of phylogenetic information contained within single genes. Among the 210 different protein-coding genes contained in the completely sequenced chloroplast genomes from a glaucocystophyte, a rhodophyte, a diatom, a euglenophyte and five land plants, we have now identified the set of 45 common to each and to a cyanobacterial outgroup genome. Phylogenetic inference with an alignment of 11,039 amino-acid positions per genome indicates that this information is sufficient--but just rarely so--to identify the rooted nine-taxon topology. We mapped the process of gene loss from chloroplast genomes across the inferred tree and found that, surprisingly, independent parallel gene losses in multiple lineages outnumber phylogenetically unique losses by more that 4:1. We identified homologues of 44 different plastid-encoded proteins as functional nuclear genes of chloroplast origin, providing evidence for endosymbiotic gene transfer to the nucleus in plants.     

舟山海域池塘养殖和野生三疣梭子蟹抱卵量的比较研究

系统研究和比较池塘养殖和野生三疣梭子蟹人工繁殖亲本的体重、甲壳长、甲壳宽、抱卵量、生殖力和单个卵重等指标,结果表明:1.人工育苗用野生三疣梭子蟹的体重、甲壳长、甲壳宽、抱卵量显著高于池塘养殖蟹(P<0.05);2.野生三疣梭子蟹的平均生殖力(Fecundity,粒/g)和单个卵重也大于池塘养殖梭子蟹,但是由于变异系数较大,并无统计学的差异(P>0.05);3.池塘养殖三疣梭子蟹的抱卵量与体重、甲壳长和甲壳宽相关系数高于野生梭子蟹,无论野生还是池塘养殖梭子蟹的抱卵量与体重、甲壳长和甲壳宽呈正相关,且抱卵量与甲壳长的相关系数最高。从而,总结出了利用三疣梭子蟹的甲壳长和甲壳宽来预测其抱卵量的方法。     

A clonogenic common myeloid progenitor that gives rise to all myeloid lineages

Haematopoietic stem cells give rise to progeny that progressively lose self-renewal capacity and become restricted to one lineage. The points at which haematopoietic stem cell-derived progenitors commit to each of the various lineages remain mostly unknown. We have identified a clonogenic common lymphoid progenitor that can differentiate into T, B and natural killer cells but not myeloid cells. Here we report the prospective identification, purification and characterization, using cell-surface markers and flow cytometry, of a complementary clonogenic common myeloid progenitor that gives rise to all myeloid lineages. Common myeloid progenitors give rise to either megakaryocyte/erythrocyte or granulocyte/macrophage progenitors. Purified progenitors were used to provide a first-pass expression profile of various haematopoiesis-related genes. We propose that the common lymphoid progenitor and common myeloid progenitor populations reflect the earliest branch points between the lymphoid and myeloid lineages, and that the commitment of common myeloid progenitors to either the megakaryocyte/erythrocyte or the granulocyte/macrophage lineages are mutually exclusive events.     

人和动物的多瘤病毒

多瘤病毒分类于乳多空病毒科，ＤＮＡ肿瘤病毒。病毒无囊膜，直径４０ｎｍ～４５ｎｍ，有３种～４种衣壳蛋白，基因组为约５０００对核苷酸组成的双链闭合环状ＤＮＡ。病毒在自然界分布广泛，目前已从人、兔子、小牛、鸟类、啮齿类和灵长类等动物分离到多种多瘤病毒。各病毒内部有共同的属特异性抗原，但大多数病毒表面蛋白无血清学交叉反应。病毒在容许细胞中增殖良好，能使非容许细胞发生转化，在转化细胞中病毒ＤＮＡ以整合到宿主染色体的方式存在。多瘤病毒感染有严格的种特异性，在自然宿主内大多数病毒呈隐性感染，但人和虎皮鹦鹉多瘤病毒对宿主有一定致病性。本文就有关多瘤病毒的感染和生物学特性研究进展作一概述     

Ribosomal RNA sequence shows Pneumocystis carinii to be a member of the fungi

Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia is the most common opportunistic infection in AIDS, and accounts for significant morbidity and mortality in these and other immunocompromised patients. P. carinii is a eukaryotic microorganism of uncertain taxonomy that can infect numerous mammalian hosts. Developing from a small, unicellular 'trophozoite' into a 'cyst' containing eight 'sporozoites', its life cycle superficially resembles those seen both in the Protozoa and Fungi. Morphological and ultrastructural observations have lead some investigators to conclude that the organism is a protozoan, while others have felt that it more closely resembles a fungus. Phylogenetic relationships can be inferred from comparisons of macromolecular sequences. Small subunit ribosomal RNAs (16S-like rRNAs) are well-suited for this purpose because they have the same function in all organisms and contain sufficient information to estimate both close and distant evolutionary relationships. Phylogenetic frameworks based upon such comparisons reveal that the plant, animal and fungal lineages are distinct from the diverse spectrum of protozoan lineages. In this letter, phylogenetic analysis of Pneumocystis 16S-like rRNA demonstrates it to be a member of the Fungi.     

Development of reconstituted mouse eggs suggests imprinting of the genome during gametogenesis

It has been suggested that the failure of parthenogenetic mouse embryos to develop to term is primarily due to their aberrant cytoplasm and homozygosity leading to the expression of recessive lethal genes. The reported birth of homozygous gynogenetic (male pronucleus removed from egg after fertilization) mice and of animals following transplantation of nuclei from parthenogenetic embryos to enucleated fertilized eggs, is indicative of abnormal cytoplasm and not an abnormal genotype of the activated eggs. However, we and others have been unable to obtain such homozygous mice. We investigated this problem further by using reconstituted heterozygous eggs, with haploid parthenogenetic eggs as recipients for a male or female pronucleus. We report here that the eggs which receive a male pronucleus develop to term but those with two female pronuclei develop only poorly after implantation. Therefore, the cytoplasm of activated eggs is fully competent to support development to term but not if the genome is entirely of maternal origin. We propose that specific imprinting of the genome occurs during gametogenesis so that the presence of both a male and a female pronucleus is essential in an egg for full-term development. The paternal imprinting of the genome appears necessary for the normal development of the extraembryonic membranes and the trophoblast.