Publications by authors named "Eric Pante"
Article Synopsis
- A new deep-sea octocoral species, Pseudochrysogorgia bellona, was identified from the Chesterfield Plateau and shows close morphological and genetic similarities to Metallogorgia melanotrichos.
- While M. melanotrichos is known to host a brittle star species, no brittle stars were found with the type specimens of P. bellona; however, most colonies collected in 2017 were associated with a related brittle star species, Asteroschema ajax.
- Statistical analyses indicated a significant correlation between the sizes of the brittle stars and corals, suggesting that larger brittle stars tend to associate with larger corals, highlighting insights into growth patterns of deep-sea invertebrates.
Article Synopsis
- UV filters in sunscreens are becoming pollutants in coastal waters, raising concerns about their effects on marine life.
- This study examined how exposure to commercial sunscreen formulations affects the gut and skin microbial communities of mullet fish, revealing unique bacterial profiles for each tissue type.
- The presence of sunscreen altered the abundance of certain bacterial groups and allowed harmful bacteria to colonize fish skin, potentially impacting the health of the fish.
Article Synopsis
- Researchers created a new molecular method using Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) to determine the sex of marine bivalves that exhibit doubly uniparental inheritance (DUI) of mitochondria, where both males and females transmit their mitochondria but with distinct types.
- They tested this method on 154 bivalve samples from the Atlantic coast of France, confirming that LAMP results matched those from traditional methods like PCR and microscopic examination of gonads.
- The study suggests that using LAMP can enhance eco-evolutionary research on DUI by exploring genetic factors like sexual selection and dispersal patterns in marine species.
Article Synopsis
- Mitochondrial DNA that gets transferred to the nuclear genome (numts) can complicate phylogeographic studies, especially in birds like Audubon's shearwater where numt accumulation is common.
- In a study of 13 shearwater populations and five mitochondrial lineages, it was found that numt sequences formed distinct clades, revealing inconsistencies with their expected mitochondrial counterparts, indicating past genetic events.
- Co-analyzing numts with genuine mitochondrial data can significantly underestimate genetic diversity and differentiation, but studying them separately may improve understanding of numt evolution and related processes like incomplete lineage sorting and introgression.
Article Synopsis
- Cytochrome c oxidase subunit II (COX2) is a crucial protein in the respiratory chain that plays a role in reducing oxygen to water and usually consists of about 230 amino acids.
- A study found a significant variation in the COX2 gene in a bivalve species with doubly uniparental inheritance of mitochondrial DNA, where the gene has a large 4.8 kb insertion leading to a COX2 protein that can be as long as 420 amino acids.
- Research techniques confirmed that this insertion is genetically conserved across populations and results in a remarkably large COX2 protein of 1892 amino acids, suggesting it may enhance the mitochondrial metabolism in this bivalve species with male
Article Synopsis
- Scallops exhibit significant variability in their mitochondrial genomes, with structural and compositional differences even among closely related species, particularly within the Chlamydinae group.
- The study sequenced the mitochondrial genome of Mimachlamys varia, revealing a unique gene arrangement and highlighting issues with the existing taxonomic classification of the Mimachlamys genus.
- Findings indicate discrepancies between phylogenetic analyses based on mitochondrial protein-coding and rRNA genes, suggesting that better taxon sampling is necessary to fully understand the mechanisms behind the varied mitochondrial genome structures in scallops.
Article Synopsis
- The study focuses on the taxonomic difficulties of identifying foliose species in a specific genus due to their variable characteristics and phenotypic plasticity.
- Researchers used DNA barcoding on 339 specimens from intertidal rocky sites in France to reassess the taxonomy of related species.
- They identified five haplotypes, confirmed the synonymy of certain species, noted the misidentification of an introduced species in Brittany, and emphasized the importance of genetic analysis for accurate identification in the genus.
Article Synopsis
- Seabirds, specifically Procellariiformes, exhibit a unique combination of high mobility and strong site fidelity, which may influence their genetic structure across populations.
- The study focused on the little shearwater complex, analyzing multiple genetic markers from various populations in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, revealing significant differentiation between populations separated by landmasses.
- Findings suggest that the Atlantic populations likely originated from the Indian Ocean, with their distribution influenced by historical variations in sea surface temperatures, rather than the expected strong philopatry.
Article Synopsis
- Strictly maternal inheritance of mitochondria is typical in animals, but the doubly uniparental inheritance (DUI) observed in bivalves allows for the transmission of distinct male and female mitogenomes.
- The study focuses on two newly identified DUI species, Scrobicularia plana and Limecola balthica, which show significant variations in their mitochondrial genomes, particularly a large (>10 kb) difference between sexes and high divergences (>50%).
- A major in-frame insertion in the male cox2 gene contributes to these size differences, with S. plana's cox2 being the largest recorded in the animal kingdom, suggesting that DUI species may possess shared sex-specific mitochondrial characteristics.
Article Synopsis
- The Dendrobrachiidae family, first described in 1889, has intrigued scientists due to its unclear taxonomy within the Octocorallia group.
- A study utilized one nuclear gene (18S) and two mitochondrial genes (mtMutS and cox1) to investigate the relationship of Dendrobrachia with related families Chrysogorgiidae and Ifalukellidae.
- While mitochondrial data suggested Dendrobrachia is distantly related to other octocoral groups, the exact phylogenetic placement of Dendrobrachia remains unresolved.
Article Synopsis
- High Throughput Sequencing (HTS) has transformed phylogenetics but remains costly and complex, especially for non-model taxa, with 74% of published trees in 2018 still relying on traditional Sanger sequencing.
- The study focused on sequencing 32 transcriptomes from the marine mollusk family Turridae to assess various genetic loci for reconstructing phylogenies, comparing their robustness and accuracy.
- The findings suggest that while full mitogenomes are cost-effective, they may introduce biases, and it is recommended to include a mix of commonly used phylogenetic loci when designing data capture strategies.
Article Synopsis
- * Research showed that lower HUFA levels combined with higher temperatures led to changes in heart muscle function, such as increased calcium channel activity and improved force generation.
- * This enhanced cardiac response, while potentially beneficial in the short term, comes with increased energy costs and could negatively impact vital functions like growth, reproduction, and migration.
Evidence for a duplicated mitochondrial region in Audubon's shearwater based on MinION sequencing.
Mitochondrial DNA A DNA Mapp Seq Anal
March 2019
Article Synopsis
- Researchers studied the mitochondrial genomes of seabirds, particularly albatrosses, to better understand their evolution, noting that some parts of their DNA may be duplicated.
- They successfully sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome of Audubon's shearwater, discovering two different mitogenomes from the same individual, differing in length and SNPs.
- The study revealed interesting findings, such as the duplication of certain genes that differ from albatrosses, suggesting complex evolutionary patterns in the mitochondrial DNA of this bird group.
Article Synopsis
- Dendrobrachia was initially proposed by Xian-Guan et al. in 2006 as a new phylum of entoproct-like animals from the Lower Cambrian period in China.
- The name Dendrobrachia is problematic because it conflicts with a pre-existing octocoral name, creating a case of homonymy.
- To resolve this issue, the author suggests changing the name to Dendrobrachion, deriving from the Greek word for "arm."
Article Synopsis
- * Biomarkers like laccase and malondialdehyde were measured to assess oxidative stress and immune response, showing significant correlations with cadmium levels and seasonal variations linked to scallop reproductive cycles.
- * Surprisingly, a site designated as a reference for low inorganic contaminants had similar levels of hazardous organic pollutants compared to more polluted areas, raising concerns about the potential long-term impacts on genetic diversity in scallop populations.
Article Synopsis
- - Connectivity among populations is crucial for understanding their dynamics and evolution, and accurately defining evolutionary units (like populations and species) is essential for ecology and conservation biology.
- - There is a disconnect between taxonomists and molecular ecologists, especially in marine environments, where many species remain unidentified and cryptic species are common, leading to biased estimates of population connectivity.
- - The study proposes ways to improve species delimitation by treating it as testable hypotheses and suggests better sampling strategies to enhance the accuracy of connectivity studies in relation to taxonomic work.
Background: Allopatric divergence across lineages can lead to post-zygotic reproductive isolation upon secondary contact and disrupt coevolution between mitochondrial and nuclear genomes, promoting emergence of genetic incompatibilities. A previous F ST scan on the transcriptome of the Baltic clam Macoma balthica highlighted several genes potentially involved in mito-nuclear incompatibilities (MNIs). As proteins involved in the mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHO) chain are prone to MNIs and can contribute to the maintenance of genetic barriers, the mitochondrial genomes of six Ma.
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- RAD-tag sequencing is gaining popularity for generating SNPs in population genomics, but its effectiveness for evolutionary studies across different species is less explored.
- This study assesses RAD-tag's ability to find polymorphisms in two cetacean species, the short-beaked common dolphin and the harbour porpoise, and investigates how different parameters in data analysis affect results.
- Despite a notable decrease in loci when comparing different species, a significant number of polymorphic loci were still identified, indicating that RAD-tag sequencing can be useful for examining evolutionary questions even among species that diverged relatively recently.
Article Synopsis
- The marmap package allows users to download, plot, and manipulate bathymetric and topographic data in R, facilitating easy access to the ETOPO1 database from NOAA.
- It features interactive functions for querying data directly from generated maps and can handle simple data formats like ASCII for latitude, longitude, and depth.
- The package supports advanced plotting for creating detailed maps and can analyze surface areas and path distances, making it useful in fields like molecular ecology to study genetic isolation by distance.
Article Synopsis
- Hybrid zones are important for understanding how species adapt to rapidly changing environments and maintain biodiversity, especially as they respond to climate changes.
- The study focuses on the infaunal bivalve Macoma balthica, which is experiencing range contraction due to climate shifts, using new molecular markers identified from the transcriptome of individuals from different populations.
- Findings reveal significant genetic diversity and divergence in key genes related to metabolism and stress, indicating potential cytonuclear incompatibilities, which will enhance our understanding of hybrid zone dynamics and gene flow barriers for this species.
Article Synopsis
- - The family Chrysogorgiidae, which contains octocorals found primarily in deep waters, is highlighted for studying biodiversity and evolutionary processes in the deep sea, supported by the first detailed phylogenetic analysis of its generas.
- - Researchers used mitochondrial and nuclear genetic markers to analyze phylogenetic relationships among 10 of the 14 Chrysogorgiidae genera, revealing that the family is polyphyletic, with some genera being more closely related to other families rather than to each other.
- - The study found that strictly deep-sea Chrysogorgiidae genera diversified in their deep-water environments, while some species previously identified in shallower depths suggest a possible emergence from these areas, indicating complex patterns of origin
Article Synopsis
- Most studies doubted the effectiveness of mitochondrial DNA for barcoding anthozoan cnidarians, particularly outside of scleractinian corals, so this study investigates its limitations in the diverse group Octocorallia.
- The research compared genetic differences using three potential barcoding regions: COI, msh1, and a combined region of both, finding low genetic variation both within and between species.
- While the barcoding method isn't perfect, the combination of COI, msh1, and an intergenic region (igr1) proved effective in identifying species, making it a useful tool for octocoral taxonomy.
Article Synopsis
- A study in South Carolina's estuarine system revealed that the striped mullet, Mugil cephalus, is commonly infected by a gill parasite, Metamicrocotyla macracantha, among other organisms.
- Over the course of a year, researchers collected 770 mullets of various ages and found an overall infection rate of 11.2%, with a higher prevalence in brackish waters but no significant correlation with factors like host age or sex.
- This study marks the first recorded instance of M. macracantha in South Carolina and suggests that the region may be at the northern edge of the parasite's geographical range due to temperature conditions.
The copepod Naobranchia lizae (Kroyer, 1863) and the monogenean Metamicrocotyla macracantha (Alexander, 1954; Koratha, 1955) are gill parasites found on the striped mullet (Mugil cephalus) in the Charleston Harbor Estuarine System (South Carolina, USA). Branchial distribution of each species was studied in mono- and bispecific conditions. No preference for the right or left side of the fish host was observed for either species in either condition.
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