Publications by authors named "M A Bitter"

Climate warming is expected to shift the distributions of mosquitoes and mosquito-borne diseases, promoting expansions at cool range edges and contractions at warm range edges. However, whether mosquito populations could maintain their warm edges through evolutionary adaptation remains unknown. Here, we investigate the potential for thermal adaptation in , a congener of the major disease vector species that experiences large thermal gradients in its native range, by assaying tolerance to prolonged and acute heat exposure, and its genetic basis in a diverse, field-derived population.

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Life-history trade-offs are an inherent feature of organismal biology that evolutionary theory posits play a key role in patterns of divergence within and between species. Efforts to quantify trade-offs are largely confined to phenotypic measurements and the identification of negative genetic-correlations among fitness-relevant traits. Here, we use time-series genomic data collected during experimental evolution in large, genetically diverse populations of to directly measure the manifestation of trade-offs in response to temporally fluctuating selection pressures on ecological timescales.

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A central challenge in evolutionary biology is to uncover mechanisms maintaining functional genetic variation in heterogeneous environments . Population genetics theory suggests that beneficial reversal of dominance, where alleles are dominant when beneficial and recessive when deleterious, can help maintain such variation in temporally varying environments . However, empirical examples are scarce due to difficulties in measuring dominance in fitness in field experiments .

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Article Synopsis
  • * Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (EXAFS) is an effective technique for assessing material temperature and density for certain elements under dynamic compression.
  • * The National Ignition Facility has created different configurations for EXAFS measurements using advanced x-ray sources and curved-crystal spectrometers to improve material analysis in both standard and extreme conditions.
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X-ray sources for a range of wavelengths are being considered for in situ calibration of X-ray Imaging Crystal Spectrometers (XICSs) and for monitoring line shifts due to changes in the crystal temperature, which can vary during experimental operation over a day [A. Ince-Cushman et al., Rev.

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