ALBERT

Description: Birds are the most species-rich class of tetrapod vertebrates and have wide relevance across many research fields. We explored bird macroevolution using full genomes from 48 avian species representing all major extant clades. The avian genome is principally characterized by its constrained size, which predominantly arose because of lineage-specific erosion of repetitive elements, large segmental deletions, and gene loss. Avian genomes furthermore show a remarkably high degree of evolutionary stasis at the levels of nucleotide sequence, gene synteny, and chromosomal structure. Despite this pattern of conservation, we detected many non-neutral evolutionary changes in protein-coding genes and noncoding regions. These analyses reveal that pan-avian genomic diversity covaries with adaptations to different lifestyles and convergent evolution of traits.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4390078/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉   〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4390078/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Zhang, Guojie -- Li, Cai -- Li, Qiye -- Li, Bo -- Larkin, Denis M -- Lee, Chul -- Storz, Jay F -- Antunes, Agostinho -- Greenwold, Matthew J -- Meredith, Robert W -- Odeen, Anders -- Cui, Jie -- Zhou, Qi -- Xu, Luohao -- Pan, Hailin -- Wang, Zongji -- Jin, Lijun -- Zhang, Pei -- Hu, Haofu -- Yang, Wei -- Hu, Jiang -- Xiao, Jin -- Yang, Zhikai -- Liu, Yang -- Xie, Qiaolin -- Yu, Hao -- Lian, Jinmin -- Wen, Ping -- Zhang, Fang -- Li, Hui -- Zeng, Yongli -- Xiong, Zijun -- Liu, Shiping -- Zhou, Long -- Huang, Zhiyong -- An, Na -- Wang, Jie -- Zheng, Qiumei -- Xiong, Yingqi -- Wang, Guangbiao -- Wang, Bo -- Wang, Jingjing -- Fan, Yu -- da Fonseca, Rute R -- Alfaro-Nunez, Alonzo -- Schubert, Mikkel -- Orlando, Ludovic -- Mourier, Tobias -- Howard, Jason T -- Ganapathy, Ganeshkumar -- Pfenning, Andreas -- Whitney, Osceola -- Rivas, Miriam V -- Hara, Erina -- Smith, Julia -- Farre, Marta -- Narayan, Jitendra -- Slavov, Gancho -- Romanov, Michael N -- Borges, Rui -- Machado, Joao Paulo -- Khan, Imran -- Springer, Mark S -- Gatesy, John -- Hoffmann, Federico G -- Opazo, Juan C -- Hastad, Olle -- Sawyer, Roger H -- Kim, Heebal -- Kim, Kyu-Won -- Kim, Hyeon Jeong -- Cho, Seoae -- Li, Ning -- Huang, Yinhua -- Bruford, Michael W -- Zhan, Xiangjiang -- Dixon, Andrew -- Bertelsen, Mads F -- Derryberry, Elizabeth -- Warren, Wesley -- Wilson, Richard K -- Li, Shengbin -- Ray, David A -- Green, Richard E -- O'Brien, Stephen J -- Griffin, Darren -- Johnson, Warren E -- Haussler, David -- Ryder, Oliver A -- Willerslev, Eske -- Graves, Gary R -- Alstrom, Per -- Fjeldsa, Jon -- Mindell, David P -- Edwards, Scott V -- Braun, Edward L -- Rahbek, Carsten -- Burt, David W -- Houde, Peter -- Zhang, Yong -- Yang, Huanming -- Wang, Jian -- Avian Genome Consortium -- Jarvis, Erich D -- Gilbert, M Thomas P -- Wang, Jun -- DP1 OD000448/OD/NIH HHS/ -- DP1OD000448/OD/NIH HHS/ -- R01 HL087216/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Dec 12;346(6215):1311-20. doi: 10.1126/science.1251385. Epub 2014 Dec 11.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉China National GeneBank, Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI)-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518083, China. Centre for Social Evolution, Department of Biology, Universitetsparken 15, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark. zhanggj@genomics.cn jarvis@neuro.duke.edu mtpgilbert@gmail.com wangj@genomics.cn. ; China National GeneBank, Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI)-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518083, China. Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. ; China National GeneBank, Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI)-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518083, China. ; Royal Veterinary College, University of London, London, UK. ; Interdisciplinary Program in Bioinformatics, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Republic of Korea. Cho and Kim Genomics, Seoul National University Research Park, Seoul 151-919, Republic of Korea. ; School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA. ; Centro de Investigacion en Ciencias del Mar y Limnologia (CIMAR)/Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigacao Marinha e Ambiental (CIIMAR), Universidade do Porto, Rua dos Bragas, 177, 4050-123 Porto, Portugal. Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Ciencias, Universidade do Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre, 4169-007 Porto, Portugal. ; Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA. ; Department of Biology and Molecular Biology, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ 07043, USA. ; Department of Animal Ecology, Uppsala University, Norbyvagen 18D, S-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden. ; Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity, Charles Perkins Centre, School of Biological Sciences and Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Program in Emerging Infectious Diseases, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore 169857, Singapore. ; Department of Integrative Biology University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. ; China National GeneBank, Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI)-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518083, China. College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China. ; China National GeneBank, Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI)-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518083, China. School of Bioscience and Bioengineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China. ; China National GeneBank, Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI)-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518083, China. BGI Education Center,University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,Shenzhen, 518083, China. ; Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yunnan Province, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Kunming, Yunnan 650223, China. ; Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. ; Department of Neurobiology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA. ; Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, UK. ; School of Biosciences, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NJ, UK. ; Centro de Investigacion en Ciencias del Mar y Limnologia (CIMAR)/Centro Interdisciplinar de Investigacao Marinha e Ambiental (CIIMAR), Universidade do Porto, Rua dos Bragas, 177, 4050-123 Porto, Portugal. Instituto de Ciencias Biomedicas Abel Salazar (ICBAS), Universidade do Porto, Portugal. ; Department of Biology, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521, USA. ; Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Entomology and Plant Pathology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. Institute for Genomics, Biocomputing and Biotechnology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. ; Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales y Evolutivas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile. ; Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Post Office Box 7011, S-750 07, Uppsala, Sweden. ; Interdisciplinary Program in Bioinformatics, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Republic of Korea. Cho and Kim Genomics, Seoul National University Research Park, Seoul 151-919, Republic of Korea. Department of Agricultural Biotechnology and Research Institute for Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Republic of Korea. ; Interdisciplinary Program in Bioinformatics, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Republic of Korea. ; Cho and Kim Genomics, Seoul National University Research Park, Seoul 151-919, Republic of Korea. ; State Key Laboratory for Agrobiotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100094, China. ; State Key Laboratory for Agrobiotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100094, China. College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100094, China. ; Organisms and Environment Division, Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3AX, Wales, UK. ; Organisms and Environment Division, Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3AX, Wales, UK. Key Lab of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101 China. ; International Wildlife Consultants, Carmarthen SA33 5YL, Wales, UK. ; Centre for Zoo and Wild Animal Health, Copenhagen Zoo, Roskildevej 38, DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark. ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA. Museum of Natural Science, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA. ; The Genome Institute at Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63108, USA. ; College of Medicine and Forensics, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710061, China. ; Institute for Genomics, Biocomputing and Biotechnology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. ; Department of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. ; Theodosius Dobzhansky Center for Genome Bioinformatics, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia. Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center 8000 N Ocean Drive, Dania, FL 33004, USA. ; Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, 1500 Remount Road, Front Royal, VA 22630, USA. ; Genetics Division, San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, 15600 San Pasqual Valley Road, Escondido, CA 92027, USA. ; Department of Vertebrate Zoology, MRC-116, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Post Office Box 37012, Washington, DC 20013-7012, USA. Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. ; Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1 Beichen West Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China. Swedish Species Information Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7007, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden. ; Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. ; Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA. ; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. ; Department of Biology and Genetics Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. ; Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. Imperial College London, Grand Challenges in Ecosystems and the Environment Initiative, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 7PY, UK. ; Division of Genetics and Genomics, The Roslin Institute and Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, The Roslin Institute Building, University of Edinburgh, Easter Bush Campus, Midlothian EH25 9RG, UK. ; Department of Biology, New Mexico State University, Box 30001 MSC 3AF, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA. ; China National GeneBank, Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI)-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518083, China. Macau University of Science and Technology, Avenida Wai long, Taipa, Macau 999078, China. ; Department of Neurobiology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA. zhanggj@genomics.cn jarvis@neuro.duke.edu mtpgilbert@gmail.com wangj@genomics.cn. ; Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. Trace and Environmental DNA Laboratory, Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, 6102, Australia. zhanggj@genomics.cn jarvis@neuro.duke.edu mtpgilbert@gmail.com wangj@genomics.cn. ; China National GeneBank, Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI)-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518083, China. Macau University of Science and Technology, Avenida Wai long, Taipa, Macau 999078, China. Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Ole Maaloes Vej 5, 2200 Copenhagen, Denmark. Princess Al Jawhara Center of Excellence in the Research of Hereditary Disorders, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia. Department of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. zhanggj@genomics.cn jarvis@neuro.duke.edu mtpgilbert@gmail.com wangj@genomics.cn.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25504712" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: 〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Grayson, D K -- Meltzer, D J -- Buikstra, J E -- Flannery, K V -- Fowler, C S -- Marcus, J -- O'Connell, J F -- Piperno, D R -- Sabloff, J A -- Smith, B D -- Thomas, D H -- Willerslev, E -- Zeder, M A -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Jul 25;345(6195):390. doi: 10.1126/science.345.6195.390-b. Epub 2014 Jul 24.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Anthropology and Quaternary Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98185, USA. grayson@uw.edu. ; Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275, USA. ; School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA. ; Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. ; Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557, USA. ; Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. ; Program in Human Ecology and Archaeobiology and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Panama), National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA. ; Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA. ; Program in Human Ecology and Archaeobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA. ; Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024, USA. ; Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, DK-1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25061197" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Because of differences in craniofacial morphology and dentition between the earliest American skeletons and modern Native Americans, separate origins have been postulated for them, despite genetic evidence to the contrary. We describe a near-complete human skeleton with an intact cranium and preserved DNA found with extinct fauna in a submerged cave on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. This skeleton dates to between 13,000 and 12,000 calendar years ago and has Paleoamerican craniofacial characteristics and a Beringian-derived mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup (D1). Thus, the differences between Paleoamericans and Native Americans probably resulted from in situ evolution rather than separate ancestry.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Chatters, James C -- Kennett, Douglas J -- Asmerom, Yemane -- Kemp, Brian M -- Polyak, Victor -- Blank, Alberto Nava -- Beddows, Patricia A -- Reinhardt, Eduard -- Arroyo-Cabrales, Joaquin -- Bolnick, Deborah A -- Malhi, Ripan S -- Culleton, Brendan J -- Erreguerena, Pilar Luna -- Rissolo, Dominique -- Morell-Hart, Shanti -- Stafford, Thomas W Jr -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 May 16;344(6185):750-4. doi: 10.1126/science.1252619.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Applied Paleoscience and DirectAMS, 10322 NE 190th Street, Bothell, WA 98011, USA. paleosci@gmail.com. ; Department of Anthropology and Institutes of Energy and the Environment, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA. ; Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001, USA. ; Department of Anthropology and School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA. ; Bay Area Underwater Explorers, Berkeley, CA, USA. ; Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA. ; School of Geography and Earth Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1, Canada. ; Instituto Nacional Antropologia e Historia, Colonia Centro Historico, 06060, Mexico City, DF, Mexico. ; Department of Anthropology and Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. ; Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61801, USA. ; Subdireccion de Arqueologia Subacuatica, Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, 06070 Mexico City, Mexico. ; Waitt Institute, La Jolla, CA 92038-1948, USA. ; Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. ; Centre for AMS C, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, and Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Geological Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24833392" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: 〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Kennett, Douglas J -- Asmerom, Yemane -- Kemp, Brian M -- Polyak, Victor -- Bolnick, Deborah A -- Malhi, Ripan S -- Culleton, Brendan J -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Jul 25;345(6195):390. doi: 10.1126/science.345.6195.390-a. Epub 2014 Jul 24.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Anthropology and Institutes of Energy and the Environment, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA. djk23@psu.edu. ; Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001, USA. ; Department of Anthropology and School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA. ; Department of Anthropology and Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. ; Institute of Genomic Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61801, USA. ; Department of Anthropology and Institutes of Energy and the Environment, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25061196" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Sex-specific chromosomes, like the W of most female birds and the Y of male mammals, usually have lost most genes owing to a lack of recombination. We analyze newly available genomes of 17 bird species representing the avian phylogenetic range, and find that more than half of them do not have as fully degenerated W chromosomes as that of chicken. We show that avian sex chromosomes harbor tremendous diversity among species in their composition of pseudoautosomal regions and degree of Z/W differentiation. Punctuated events of shared or lineage-specific recombination suppression have produced a gradient of "evolutionary strata" along the Z chromosome, which initiates from the putative avian sex-determining gene DMRT1 and ends at the pseudoautosomal region. W-linked genes are subject to ongoing functional decay after recombination was suppressed, and the tempo of degeneration slows down in older strata. Overall, we unveil a complex history of avian sex chromosome evolution.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Zhou, Qi -- Zhang, Jilin -- Bachtrog, Doris -- An, Na -- Huang, Quanfei -- Jarvis, Erich D -- Gilbert, M Thomas P -- Zhang, Guojie -- GM076007/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- GM093182/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- R01 GM076007/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- R01 GM093182/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Dec 12;346(6215):1246338. doi: 10.1126/science.1246338. Epub 2014 Dec 11.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA94720, USA. zhouqi@berkeley.edu zhanggj@genomics.org.cn. ; China National Genebank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518083. China. ; Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA94720, USA. ; Department of Neurobiology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA. ; Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. Trace and Environmental DNA laboratory, Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia 6102, Australia. ; China National Genebank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518083. China. Centre for Social Evolution, Department of Biology, Universitetsparken 15, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark. zhouqi@berkeley.edu zhanggj@genomics.org.cn.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25504727" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: The Lower to Middle Paleolithic transition (~400,000 to 200,000 years ago) is marked by technical, behavioral, and anatomical changes among hominin populations throughout Africa and Eurasia. The replacement of bifacial stone tools, such as handaxes, by tools made on flakes detached from Levallois cores documents the most important conceptual shift in stone tool production strategies since the advent of bifacial technology more than one million years earlier and has been argued to result from the expansion of archaic Homo sapiens out of Africa. Our data from Nor Geghi 1, Armenia, record the earliest synchronic use of bifacial and Levallois technology outside Africa and are consistent with the hypothesis that this transition occurred independently within geographically dispersed, technologically precocious hominin populations with a shared technological ancestry.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Adler, D S -- Wilkinson, K N -- Blockley, S -- Mark, D F -- Pinhasi, R -- Schmidt-Magee, B A -- Nahapetyan, S -- Mallol, C -- Berna, F -- Glauberman, P J -- Raczynski-Henk, Y -- Wales, N -- Frahm, E -- Joris, O -- MacLeod, A -- Smith, V C -- Cullen, V L -- Gasparian, B -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Sep 26;345(6204):1609-13. doi: 10.1126/science.1256484.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, 354 Mansfield Road, Unit 1176, Storrs, CT 06269, USA. daniel.adler@uconn.edu. ; Department of Archaeology, University of Winchester, Winchester, SO22 4NR, UK. ; Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK. ; Natural Environmental Research Council Argon Isotope Facility, Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, Scottish Enterprise and Technology Park, Rankine Avenue, East Kilbride, G75 0QF, UK. ; School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Newman Building, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. ; Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, 354 Mansfield Road, Unit 1176, Storrs, CT 06269, USA. ; Department of Cartography and Geomorphology, Yerevan State University, Alek Manukyan 1, 0025 Yerevan, Armenia. ; Departamento de Geografia e Historia, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain. ; Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, V5A 1S6, Canada. ; Ex-Situ Silex, Leiden, Netherlands. ; Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, 354 Mansfield Road, Unit 1176, Storrs, CT 06269, USA. Centre for GeoGenetics, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark. ; Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, Northgate House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 4ET, UK. ; MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution, Romisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz, Schloss Monrepos, D-56567 Neuwied, Germany. ; Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK. ; Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, Charents 15, 0025 Yerevan, Armenia.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25258079" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Little is known about the genetic basis of convergent traits that originate repeatedly over broad taxonomic scales. The myogenic electric organ has evolved six times in fishes to produce electric fields used in communication, navigation, predation, or defense. We have examined the genomic basis of the convergent anatomical and physiological origins of these organs by assembling the genome of the electric eel (Electrophorus electricus) and sequencing electric organ and skeletal muscle transcriptomes from three lineages that have independently evolved electric organs. Our results indicate that, despite millions of years of evolution and large differences in the morphology of electric organ cells, independent lineages have leveraged similar transcription factors and developmental and cellular pathways in the evolution of electric organs.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Gallant, Jason R -- Traeger, Lindsay L -- Volkening, Jeremy D -- Moffett, Howell -- Chen, Po-Hao -- Novina, Carl D -- Phillips, George N Jr -- Anand, Rene -- Wells, Gregg B -- Pinch, Matthew -- Guth, Robert -- Unguez, Graciela A -- Albert, James S -- Zakon, Harold H -- Samanta, Manoj P -- Sussman, Michael R -- 1SC1GM092297-01A1/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- R01 GM084879/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- R01 GM088670/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Jun 27;344(6191):1522-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1254432.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Zoology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. ; Department of Genetics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA. Biotechnology Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA. ; Biotechnology Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA. Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA. ; Department of Cancer Immunology and AIDS, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. ; Department of Cancer Immunology and AIDS, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA 02141, USA. ; Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology and Department of Chemistry, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA. ; Department of Pharmacology and Department of Neuroscience, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, OH 43210, USA. ; Department of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77483, USA. ; Department of Biology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA. ; Department of Biology, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA 70503, USA. ; BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712, USA. The Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution, The Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA. msussman@wisc.edu manoj.samanta@systemix.org h.zakon@austin.utexas.edu. ; Systemix Institute, Redmond, WA 98053, USA. msussman@wisc.edu manoj.samanta@systemix.org h.zakon@austin.utexas.edu. ; Biotechnology Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA. Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA. msussman@wisc.edu manoj.samanta@systemix.org h.zakon@austin.utexas.edu.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24970089" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Lingham-Soliar questions our interpretation of integumentary structures in the Middle-Late Jurassic ornithischian dinosaur Kulindadromeus as feather-like appendages and alternatively proposes that the compound structures observed around the humerus and femur of Kulindadromeus are support fibers associated with badly degraded scales. We consider this hypothesis highly unlikely because of the taphonomy and morphology of the preserved structures.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Godefroit, Pascal -- Sinitsa, Sofia M -- Dhouailly, Danielle -- Bolotsky, Yuri L -- Sizov, Alexander V -- McNamara, Maria E -- Benton, Michael J -- Spagna, Paul -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Oct 24;346(6208):434. doi: 10.1126/science.1260146.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Directorate, Earth and History of Life, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Rue Vautier 29, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium. pascal.godefroit@naturalsciences.be. ; Institute of Natural Resources, Ecology, and Cryology, 26 Butin Street, 672 014 Chita, Russia. ; UJF-CNRS FRE 3405, AGIM, Universite Joseph Fourier, Site Sante, 38 706 La Tronche, France. ; Institute of Geology and Nature Management, FEB RAS, 1 Relochny Street 675 000, Blagoveschensk, Russia. ; Institute of the Earth Crust, SB RAS, 128 Lermontov Street, 664 033 Irkutsk, Russia. ; School of Biological, Earth, and Environmental Science, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland. School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK. ; School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK. ; Directorate, Earth and History of Life, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Rue Vautier 29, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25342796" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: 〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Coley, Phyllis D -- Kursar, Thomas A -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Jan 3;343(6166):35-6. doi: 10.1126/science.1248110.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA, and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City, Panama.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24385624" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Recent discoveries have highlighted the dramatic evolutionary transformation of massive, ground-dwelling theropod dinosaurs into light, volant birds. Here, we apply Bayesian approaches (originally developed for inferring geographic spread and rates of molecular evolution in viruses) in a different context: to infer size changes and rates of anatomical innovation (across up to 1549 skeletal characters) in fossils. These approaches identify two drivers underlying the dinosaur-bird transition. The theropod lineage directly ancestral to birds undergoes sustained miniaturization across 50 million years and at least 12 consecutive branches (internodes) and evolves skeletal adaptations four times faster than other dinosaurs. The distinct, prolonged phase of miniaturization along the bird stem would have facilitated the evolution of many novelties associated with small body size, such as reorientation of body mass, increased aerial ability, and paedomorphic skulls with reduced snouts but enlarged eyes and brains.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Lee, Michael S Y -- Cau, Andrea -- Naish, Darren -- Dyke, Gareth J -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Aug 1;345(6196):562-6. doi: 10.1126/science.1252243.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Earth Sciences Section, South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide 5000, Australia. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide 5005, Australia. mike.lee@samuseum.sa.gov.au. ; Museo Geologico e Paleontologico "Giovanni Capellini," Via Zamboni 63, 40126 Bologna, Italy. Dipartimento di Scienze Biologiche, Geologiche e Ambientali, Alma Mater Studiorum Universita di Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy. ; Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK. ; Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK. MTA-DE Lendulet Behavioural Ecology Research Group, Department of Evolutionary Zoology and Human Biology, University of Debrecen, 4032 Debrecen, Egyetem ter 1, Hungary.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25082702" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉