Download or read book Evolution and Speciation in Protozoa written by T.J. Pandian and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2023-02-24 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The polyphyletic Protozoa have explored the possibility of performing almost all metazoan functions with a few subcellular organelles. Their unicellularity and structural simplicity have (i) limited diversity to 32,950 species, (ii) restricted spatial distribution to aquatic habitats (94%, against 15% in Metazoa), (iii) demonstrated the ubiquitous dominance of clonality, (iv) reduced sexualization in 50% species, (v) facilitated the use of vegetative gametes in 40% species and (vi) secondary loss of sex in 10% species. With the fastest multiplication rates, i.e. once every 6-60 hours, they occur in high densities of 105-106 cell/ml. Their diverse and complicated life cycles are described in 30 types. Being risky, the cycle involves two hosts in clonality > hermaphroditism > motility. Motility ranges from 2-3 μm for Rhizopoda to 400-2,000 μm for Ciliophora. Not surprisingly, 6,800 species of arcellinids, filosians and formainifers are testated or shelled. Within 1,229 sessile species, the peritrichid and suctorian ciliates are better adapted to coloniality. Unlike those of many Metazoa, the protozoan cyst is a dynamic stage, in which clonal or sexual reproduction occurs. Over 81% protozoans encyst, as it ensures (i) 90% survival during unfavorable conditions (against 15 in 12% non-encysted protozoans), (ii) genome transfer through generations, (iii) dispersal into new habitats and (iv) transmission to new hosts. Their mean body size ranges from 2 μm to 2 mm – a range over 1,000-times – only 8% aquatic metazoans cover a similar size range. In comparison to 77% macrophagy in Metazoa, only 46% protozoans are macrophagous predators. Within motile microphagy, protozoans filter 3-2 times smaller food particle at 50% cheaper clearance cost. This efficiency has expanded microphagy to 15% in protozoans, against 3% in Metazoa. Hence, their turnover rate in trophic dynamics is twice faster than that of metazoans. Foraminifers serve as ecological sensitive indicators in petroleum exploration and rise in sea level. For the first time, incidences of clonality and meiosis as well as symbiosis and parasitism have been shown to hint at the origin and evolution of different protozoan taxonomic groups during the geological past.
Download or read book Evolutionary Relationships Among Protozoa written by Graham H. Coombs and published by Springer. This book was released on 1998-10-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The evolutionary biology of protozoa is a field in which exciting changes are taking place. Relationships between different groups of protozoa are undergoing extensive review and the revised views will have significant repercussions for future investigations. New data from molecular and ultrastructural studies have changed our perception of evolution among this diverse group of organisms in recent years. This volume, part of the Systematics Association Special Volume Series, aims to review this important area and give an up-to-date synthesis of current understanding. The various chapters are deliberately broad in scope and explore areas such as the contribution of different techniques and approaches to the understanding of protistan evolution and the biochemical and physiological aspects of that evolution; there are also chapters that analyse and explore specific protistan groups. In addition some of the chapters discuss topics that are currently very controversial within this field, such as the finding that the 18S rRNA phylogenetic tree of protozoa is probably unreliable. The world-renowned editors have assembled an international team of outstanding scientists whose contributions have produced a volume of interest to all evolutionary biologists and especially those interested in protozoa.
Download or read book Ecology of Protozoa written by Genoveva F. Esteban and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-01-04 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book emphasises the important role that protozoa play in many natural ecosystems. To shed new light on their individual adaptive skills, the respective chapters examine the ecology and functional biology of this diverse group of eukaryotic microbes. Protozoa are well-established model organisms that exemplify many general problems in population ecology and community ecology, as well as evolutionary biology. Their particular characteristics, like large population sizes, life cycles and motile sensory behaviour, have a profound impact on their survival, distribution, and interaction with other species. Thus, readers will also be introduced to protozoan habitats in a broad range of environments. Even though this group of unicellular organisms is highly diverse, the authors focus on shared ecological patterns. Students and scientists working in the areas of eukaryotic microbiology and ecology will appreciate this updated and revised 2nd Edition as a valuable reference guide to the “lifestyles” of protozoa.
Download or read book Concepts of Biology written by Samantha Fowler and published by . This book was released on 2018-01-07 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concepts of Biology is designed for the single-semester introduction to biology course for non-science majors, which for many students is their only college-level science course. As such, this course represents an important opportunity for students to develop the necessary knowledge, tools, and skills to make informed decisions as they continue with their lives. Rather than being mired down with facts and vocabulary, the typical non-science major student needs information presented in a way that is easy to read and understand. Even more importantly, the content should be meaningful. Students do much better when they understand why biology is relevant to their everyday lives. For these reasons, Concepts of Biology is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand.We also strive to show the interconnectedness of topics within this extremely broad discipline. In order to meet the needs of today's instructors and students, we maintain the overall organization and coverage found in most syllabi for this course. A strength of Concepts of Biology is that instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Concepts of Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand--and apply--key concepts.
Download or read book Host parasite Evolution written by Dale H. Clayton and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a question-oriented volume with a solid organismal foundation that will help to bridge the gap between evolutionary ecologists and parasitologists. A range of experts have written chapters that review general concepts and provide a detailed survey of the parasites of a major group of hosts. The book concludes with extensive reviews of methods used to study bird parasites. It is a novel and valuable tool for anyone interested in understanding host-parasite interactions, particularly from an evolutionary perspective.
Download or read book Intestinal Microorganisms of Termites and Other Invertebrates written by Helmut König and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first work to focus on microbes in gut systems of soil animals. Beginning with an overview of the biology of soil invertebrates, the text turns to the gut microbiota of termites, which are important soil processors in tropical and subtropical regions. Coverage extends to intestinal microbiota of such other litter decomposers as earthworms, springtails, millipedes, and woodlice. Thoroughly illustrated, including color photographs.
Download or read book A Biologist s Guide to Mathematical Modeling in Ecology and Evolution written by Sarah P. Otto and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-19 with total page 745 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirty years ago, biologists could get by with a rudimentary grasp of mathematics and modeling. Not so today. In seeking to answer fundamental questions about how biological systems function and change over time, the modern biologist is as likely to rely on sophisticated mathematical and computer-based models as traditional fieldwork. In this book, Sarah Otto and Troy Day provide biology students with the tools necessary to both interpret models and to build their own. The book starts at an elementary level of mathematical modeling, assuming that the reader has had high school mathematics and first-year calculus. Otto and Day then gradually build in depth and complexity, from classic models in ecology and evolution to more intricate class-structured and probabilistic models. The authors provide primers with instructive exercises to introduce readers to the more advanced subjects of linear algebra and probability theory. Through examples, they describe how models have been used to understand such topics as the spread of HIV, chaos, the age structure of a country, speciation, and extinction. Ecologists and evolutionary biologists today need enough mathematical training to be able to assess the power and limits of biological models and to develop theories and models themselves. This innovative book will be an indispensable guide to the world of mathematical models for the next generation of biologists. A how-to guide for developing new mathematical models in biology Provides step-by-step recipes for constructing and analyzing models Interesting biological applications Explores classical models in ecology and evolution Questions at the end of every chapter Primers cover important mathematical topics Exercises with answers Appendixes summarize useful rules Labs and advanced material available
Download or read book The Basics of Selection written by Graham Bell and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new textbook for students taking courses in evolution is addressed to one of the most difficult questions evolutionary biology, that of selection. Covering both artificial and natural selection, the author has written a short, readable text that will appeal to students and professionals alike. how the nature of the process determines the nature of evolutionary change.
Download or read book Evolution s Wedge written by David Pfennig and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2012-10-25 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evolutionary biology has long sought to explain how new traits and new species arise. Darwin maintained that competition is key to understanding this biodiversity and held that selection acting to minimize competition causes competitors to become increasingly different, thereby promoting new traits and new species. Despite Darwin’s emphasis, competition’s role in diversification remains controversial and largely underappreciated. In their synthetic and provocative book, evolutionary ecologists David and Karin Pfennig explore competition's role in generating and maintaining biodiversity. The authors discuss how selection can lessen resource competition or costly reproductive interactions by promoting trait evolution through a process known as character displacement. They further describe character displacement’s underlying genetic and developmental mechanisms. The authors then consider character displacement’s myriad downstream effects, ranging from shaping ecological communities to promoting new traits and new species and even fueling large-scale evolutionary trends. Drawing on numerous studies from natural populations, and written for a broad audience, Evolution’s Wedge seeks to inspire future research into character displacement’s many implications for ecology and evolution.
Download or read book Myxozoan Evolution Ecology and Development written by Beth Okamura and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-04-01 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an up-to-date review of the biology of myxozoans, which represent a divergent clade of endoparasitic cnidarians. Myxozoans are of fundamental interest in understanding how early diverging metazoans have adopted parasitic lifestyles, and are also of considerable economic and ecological concern as endoparasites of fish. Synthesizing recent research, the chapters explore issues such as myxozoan origins; evolutionary trends and diversification; development and life cycles; interactions with hosts; immunology; disease ecology; the impacts of climate change on disease; risk assessment; emerging diseases; and disease mitigation. This comprehensive work will appeal to a wide readership, from invertebrate zoologists, evolutionary biologists and developmental biologists to ecologists and parasitologists. It will also be of great practical interest to fisheries and conservation biologists. The identification of key areas for future research will appeal to scientists at all levels.
Download or read book Protist Diversity and Geographical Distribution written by W. Foissner and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-07-24 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conservation and biodiversity of protists The conservation of biodiversity is not just an issue of plants and vertebrates. It is the scarcely visible invertebrates and myriads of other microscopic organisms that are crucial to the maintenance of ecological processes on which all larger organisms and the composition of the atmosphere ultimately depend. Biodiversity and Conservation endeavours to take an holistic view of biodiversity, and when the opportunity arises to issue collections of papers dealing with too-often neglected groups of organisms. The protists, essentially eukaryotes that cannot be classi?ed in the kingdoms of animals, fungi, or plants, include some of the lea- known groups of organisms on earth. They are generally treated as a separate kingdom, commonly named Protista (or Protoctista) in textbooks, but in reality they are a mixture of organisms with disparate a?nities. Some authors have hypothesized that the numbers of protists are not especially large, and that many have extraordinarily wide distributions. However, the p- ture that unfolds from the latest studies discussed in this issue is di?erent. There are many species with wide ranges, and proportionately more cosmopolitan species than in macroorganism groups, as a result of their long evolutionary histories, but there are also de?nite patterns and geographical restrictions to be found. Further, some protists are linked to host organisms as mutualists or parasites and necessarily con?ned to the distributions of their hosts.
Download or read book Evolutionary Ecology of Parasites written by Robert Poulin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-27 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Parasites have evolved independently in numerous animal lineages, and they now make up a considerable proportion of the biodiversity of life. Not only do they impact humans and other animals in fundamental ways, but in recent years they have become a powerful model system for the study of ecology and evolution, with practical applications in disease prevention. Here, in a thoroughly revised and updated edition of his influential earlier work, Robert Poulin provides an evolutionary ecologist's view of the biology of parasites. He sets forth a comprehensive synthesis of parasite evolutionary ecology, integrating information across scales from the features of individual parasites to the dynamics of parasite populations and the structuring of parasite communities. Evolutionary Ecology of Parasites presents an evolutionary framework for the study of parasite biology, combining theory with empirical examples for a broader understanding of why parasites are as they are and do what they do. An up-to-date synthesis of the field, the book is an ideal teaching tool for advanced courses on the subject. Pointing toward promising directions and setting a research agenda, it will also be an invaluable reference for researchers who seek to extend our knowledge of parasite ecology and evolution.
Download or read book The Choanoflagellates written by Barry S. C. Leadbeater and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-08 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique account of the biology, ecology and evolution of choanoflagellates - the closest, known, living, unicellular relatives of animals.
Download or read book Systematics and Evolution written by David J. McLaughlin and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-14 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mycology, the study of fungi, originated as a subdiscipline of botany and was a des criptive discipline, largely neglected as an experimental science until the early years of this century. A seminal paper by Blakeslee in 1904 provided evidence for self incompatibility, termed "heterothallism", and stimulated interest in studies related to the control of sexual reproduction in fungi by mating-type specificities. Soon to follow was the demonstration that sexually reproducing fungi exhibit Mendelian inheritance and that it was possible to conduct formal genetic analysis with fungi. The names Burgetf, Kniep and Lindegren are all associated with this early period of fungal genet ics research. These studies and the discovery of penicillin by Fleming, who shared a Nobel Prize in 1945, provided further impetus for experimental research with fungi. Thus began a period of interest in mutation induction and analysis of mutants for biochemical traits. Such fundamental research, conducted largely with Neurospora crassa, led to the one gene: one enzyme hypothesis and to a second Nobel Prize for fungal research awarded to Beadle and Tatum in 1958. Fundamental research in biochemical genetics was extended to other fungi, especially to Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and by the mid-1960s fungal systems were much favored for studies in eukaryotic molecular biology and were soon able to compete with bacterial systems in the molecular arena.
Download or read book Basics in Human Evolution written by Michael P Muehlenbein and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2015-07-24 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Basics in Human Evolution offers a broad view of evolutionary biology and medicine. The book is written for a non-expert audience, providing accessible and convenient content that will appeal to numerous readers across the interdisciplinary field. From evolutionary theory, to cultural evolution, this book fills gaps in the readers’ knowledge from various backgrounds and introduces them to thought leaders in human evolution research. Offers comprehensive coverage of the wide ranging field of human evolution Written for a non-expert audience, providing accessible and convenient content that will appeal to numerous readers across the interdisciplinary field Provides expertise from leading minds in the field Allows the reader the ability to gain exposure to various topics in one publication
Download or read book Anaerobic Parasitic Protozoa written by C. Graham Clark and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book internationally acclaimed researchers critically review the most important aspects of research on anaerobic parasitic protozoa, providing the first coherent picture of their genomics and molecular biology since the publication of the genomes. Chapters are written from a molecular and genomic perspective and contain speculative models upon which future research efforts can be based. Topics include: the genomes of Entamoeba histolytica, Trichomonas vaginalis, Giardia and other diplomonads; the cytoskeletons of Entamoeba histolytica, Giardia lamblia and Trichomonas vaginalis; genomic.
Download or read book Parasite Diversity and Diversification written by Serge Morand and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-26 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By joining phylogenetics and evolutionary ecology, this book explores the patterns of parasite diversity while revealing diversification processes.
