Physiology, Metabolism, and Fossilization of Hot-Spring Filamentous Microbial Mats.

The evolutionarily ancient Aquificales bacterium spp. dominates filamentous microbial mat communities in shallow, fast-flowing, and dysoxic hot-spring drainage systems around the world. In the present study, field observations of these fettuccini-like microbial mats at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park are integrated with geology, geochemistry, hydrology, microscopy, and multi-omic molecular biology analyses.

Reconstructing Dryopteris "semicristata" (Dryopteridaceae): Molecular profiles of tetraploids verify their undiscovered diploid ancestor.

Premise Of The Study: Discovering missing ancestors is essential to understanding the evolutionary history of biodiversity on Earth. Evidence from extinct species can provide links for reconstructing intricate patterns of reticulate relationships among extant descendents. When fossils are unavailable and other evidence yields competing hypotheses to explain species ancestry, data from proteins and DNA can help resolve conflicts and generate novel perspectives.

Heterozygote advantage in the American chestnut, Castanea dentata (Fagaceae).

The American chestnut (Castanea dentata; Fagaceae) was a dominant canopy tree in the Appalachian Mountains of North America. Since the introduction of the chestnut blight fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica; Valsaceae) in America, the American chestnut has been reduced to a predominantly clonal, understory species. Our objective was to determine whether the ecological changes and absence of new recruits have influenced the population genetics of American chestnut.

A STUDY OF SPATIAL FEATURES OF CLONES IN A POPULATION OF BRACKEN FERN, PTERIDIUM AQUILINUM (DENNSTAEDTIACEAE).

Allozymes were used to study the spatial attributes of clones (genets) comprising a population of Pteridium aquilinum (L.) Kuhn var. latiusculum (Desv.