The evolutionary diversification of parrots supports a taxon pulse model with multiple trans-oceanic dispersal events and local radiations

Vicariance is thought to have played a major role in the evolution of modern parrots. However, as the relationships especially of the African taxa remained mostly unresolved, it has been difficult to draw firm conclusions about the roles of dispersal and vicariance. Our analyses using the broadest taxon sampling of old world parrots ever based on 3219 bp of three nuclear genes revealed well-resolved and congruent phylogenetic hypotheses. Agapornis of Africa and Madagascar was found to be the sister group to Loriculus of Australasia and Indo-Malayasia and together they clustered with the Australasian Loriinae, Cyclopsittacini and Melopsittacus. Poicephalus and Psittacus from mainland Africa formed the sister group Of the Neotropical Arini and Coracopsis from Madagascar and adjacent islands may be the closest relative of Psittrichas from New Guinea. These biogeographic relationships are best explained by independent colonization of the African continent via trans-oceanic dispersal from Australasia and Antarctica in the Paleogene following what may have been vicariance events in the late Cretaceous and/or early Paleogene. Our data support a taxon pulse model for the diversification of parrots whereby trans-oceanic dispersal played a more important role than previously thought and was the prerequisite for range expansion into new continents. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Diversification in the South American Pampas: the genetic and morphological variation of the widespread Petunia axillaris complex (Solanaceae)

Understanding the spatiotemporal distribution of genetic variation and the ways in which this distribution is connected to the ecological context of natural populations is fundamental for understanding the nature and mode of intraspecific and, ultimately, interspecific differentiation. The Petunia axillaris complex is endemic to the grasslands of southern South America and includes three subspecies: P.a.axillaris, P.a.parodii and P.a.subandina. These subspecies are traditionally delimited based on both geography and floral morphology, although the latter is highly variable. Here, we determined the patterns of genetic (nuclear and cpDNA), morphological and ecological (bioclimatic) variation of a large number of P.axillaris populations and found that they are mostly coincident with subspecies delimitation. The nuclear data suggest that the subspecies are likely independent evolutionary units, and their morphological differences may be associated with local adaptations to diverse climatic and/or edaphic conditions and population isolation. The demographic dynamics over time estimated by skyline plot analyses showed different patterns for each subspecies in the last 100000years, which is compatible with a divergence time between 35000 and 107000years ago between P.a.axillaris and P.a.parodii, as estimated with the IMa program. Coalescent simulation tests using Approximate Bayesian Computation do not support previous suggestions of extensive gene flow between P.a.axillaris and P.a.parodii in their contact zone.

Functional Diversification of Dicer-like Proteins and Small RNAs Required for Genome Sculpting.

In eukaryotes, small RNAs (sRNAs) have key roles in development, gene expression regulation, and genome integrity maintenance. In ciliates, such as Paramecium, sRNAs form the heart of an epigenetic system that has evolved from core eukaryotic gene silencing components to selectively target DNA for deletion. In Paramecium, somatic genome development from the germline genome accurately eliminates the bulk of typically gene-interrupting, noncoding DNA. We have discovered an sRNA class (internal eliminated sequence [IES] sRNAs [iesRNAs]), arising later during Paramecium development, which originates from and precisely delineates germline DNA (IESs) and complements the initial sRNAs ("scan" RNAs [scnRNAs]) in targeting DNA for elimination. We show that whole-genome duplications have facilitated successive differentiations of Paramecium Dicer-like proteins, leading to cooperation between Dcl2 and Dcl3 to produce scnRNAs and to the production of iesRNAs by Dcl5. These innovations highlight the ability of sRNA systems to acquire capabilities, including those in genome development and integrity.

Poverty, Educational Attainment and Health Among America’s Children: Current and Future Effects of Population Diversification and Associated Socioeconomic Change

A complex of interrelated factors including minority status, poverty, education, health status, and other factors determine the general welfare of children in America, particularly in heavily diverse states such as Texas. Although racial/ethnic status is clearly only a concomitant factor in that determination it is a factor for which future projections are available and for which the relationships with the other factors in the complex can be assessed. After examining the nature of the interrelationships between these factors we utilize direct standardization techniques to examine how the future diversification of the United States and Texas will affect the number of children in poverty, the educational status of the householders in households in which children in poverty live and the health status of children in 2040 assuming that the current relationships between minority status and these socioeconomic factors continue into the future. In the results of the analyses, data are compared with the total population of the United States and Texas in 2040 assumed in the first simulation scenario, to have the race/ethnicity characteristics of 2008 and in the second those projected for 2040 by the U.S. Census Bureau for the nation and by the Texas State Data Center for Texas in 2040. The results show that the diversification of the population could increase the number of children in poverty in the United States by nearly 1.8 million more than would occur with the lower levels of diversification evident in 2008. In addition, poverty would become increasingly concentrated among minority children with minority children accounting for 76.2 percent of all children in poverty by 2040 and with Hispanic children accounting for nearly half of the children in poverty by 2040. Results for educational attainment show an increasing concentration of minority children in households with householders with very low levels of education such that by 2040, 85.2 percent of the increase in the number of children in poverty would be in households with a householder with less than a high school level of education. Finally, the results related to several health status factors show that children in poverty will have a higher prevalence of nearly all health conditions. For example, the number of children with untreated dental conditions could increase to more than 4 million in the United States and to nearly 500,000 in Texas. The results clearly show that improving the welfare of children in America will require concerted efforts to change the poverty, educational, and health status characteristics associated with minority status and particularly Hispanic status. Failing to do so will lead to a future in which America’s children are increasingly impoverished, more poorly educated, and less healthy and which, as a result, is an America with a more tentative future.

Neutral biodiversity theory can explain the imbalance of phylogenetic trees but not the tempo of their diversification

Numerous evolutionary studies have sought to explain the distribution of diversity across the limbs of the tree of life. At the same time, ecological studies have sought to explain differences in diversity and relative abundance within and among ecological communities. Traditionally, these patterns have been considered separately, but models that consider processes operating at the level of individuals, such as neutral biodiversity theory (NBT), can provide a link between them. Here, we compare evolutionary dynamics across a suite of NBT models. We show that NBT can yield phylogenetic tree topologies with imbalance closely resembling empirical observations. In general, metacommunities that exhibit greater disparity in abundance are characterized by more imbalanced phylogenetic trees. However, NBT fails to capture the tempo of diversification as represented by the distribution of branching events through time. We suggest that population-level processes might therefore help explain the asymmetry of phylogenetic trees, but that tree shape might mislead estimates of evolutionary rates unless the diversification process is modeled explicitly.

Productive Diversification and Sustainable Use of Complex Social-Ecological Systems: A Comparative Study of Indigenous and Settler Communities in the Bolivian Amazon

Agricultural and forest productive diversification depends on multiple socioeconomic drivers—like knowledge, migration, productive capacity, and market—that shape productive strategies and influence their ecological impacts. Our comparison of indigenous and settlers allows a better understanding of how societies develop different diversification strategies in similar ecological contexts and how the related socioeconomic aspects of diversification are associated with land cover change. Our results suggest that although indigenous people cause less deforestation and diversify more, diversification is not a direct driver of deforestation reduction. A multidimensional approach linking sociocognitive, economic, and ecological patterns of diversification helps explain this contradiction.

CAP Reform vs WTO: Crop Diversification or Crop Rotation? : Legal opinion prepared by Dr. Christian Häberli at the request of APRODEV, the Association of World Council of Churches related Development Organisations in Europe

The European Commission’s proposals for the Legislative Framework of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the period 2014-2020 include, inter alia, the introduction of a “strong greening component”. For the first time, all EU farmers in receipt of support are to “go beyond the requirements of cross compliance and deliver environmental and climate benefits as part of their everyday activities crop diversification as a contribution to all EU farmers in receipt of support go beyond the requirements of cross compliance and deliver environmental and climate benefits as part of their everyday activities.” In a legal opinion prepared at the request of APRODEV, the Association of World Council of Churches related Development Organisations in Europe (www.aprodev.eu), Christian Häberli examines the WTO implications of this proposal, as compared with an alternative proposal to rather link direct payments to crop rotation. The conclusions are twofold: 1. Crop rotation is at least as likely to be found Green Box-compatible as crop diversification. Moreover, it will be more difficult to argue that crop diversification is “not more than minimally production-distorting” because it entails for most farmers less cost and work. 2. Even if (either of the two cropping schemes) were to be found “amber”, the EU would not have to relinquish this conditionality. This is because the direct payments involved would in all likelihood not, together with the other price support instruments, exceed the amount available under the presently scheduled maximum.

Parallel adaptations to nectarivory in parrots, key innovations and the diversification of the Loriinae

Specialization to nectarivory is associated with radiations within different bird groups, including parrots. One of them, the Australasian lories, were shown to be unexpectedly species rich. Their shift to nectarivory may have created an ecological opportunity promoting species proliferation. Several morphological specializations of the feeding tract to nectarivory have been described for parrots. However, they have never been assessed in a quantitative framework considering phylogenetic nonindependence. Using a phylogenetic comparative approach with broad taxon sampling and 15 continuous characters of the digestive tract, we demonstrate that nectarivorous parrots differ in several traits from the remaining parrots. These trait-changes indicate phenotype–environment correlations and parallel evolution, and may reflect adaptations to feed effectively on nectar. Moreover, the diet shift was associated with significant trait shifts at the base of the radiation of the lories, as shown by an alternative statistical approach. Their diet shift might be considered as an evolutionary key innovation which promoted significant non-adaptive lineage diversification through allopatric partitioning of the same new niche. The lack of increased rates of cladogenesis in other nectarivorous parrots indicates that evolutionary innovations need not be associated one-to-one with diversification events.

Process and pattern in cichlid radiations - inferences for understanding unusually high rates of evolutionary diversification

The cichlid fish radiations in the African Great Lakes differ from all other known cases of rapid speciation in vertebrates by their spectacular trophic diversity and richness of sympatric species, comparable to the most rapid angiosperm radiations. I review factors that may have facilitated these radiations and compare these with insights from recent work on plant radiations. Work to date suggests that it was a coincidence of ecological opportunity, intrinsic ecological versatility and genomic flexibility, rapidly evolving behavioral mate choice and large amounts of standing genetic variation that permitted these spectacular fish radiations. I propose that spatially orthogonal gradients in the fit of phenotypes to the environment facilitate speciation because they allow colonization of alternative fitness peaks during clinal speciation despite local disruptive selection. Such gradients are manifold in lakes because of the interaction of water depth as an omnipresent third spatial dimension with other fitness-relevant variables. I introduce a conceptual model of adaptive radiation that integrates these elements and discuss its applicability to, and predictions for, plant radiations.

Identification of a new genomic hot spot of evolutionary diversification of protein function.

Establishment of phylogenetic relationships remains a challenging task because it is based on computational analysis of genomic hot spots that display species-specific sequence variations. Here, we identify a species-specific thymine-to-guanine sequence variation in the Glrb gene which gives rise to species-specific splice donor sites in the Glrb genes of mouse and bushbaby. The resulting splice insert in the receptor for the inhibitory neurotransmitter glycine (GlyR) conveys synaptic receptor clustering and specific association with a particular synaptic plasticity-related splice variant of the postsynaptic scaffold protein gephyrin. This study identifies a new genomic hot spot which contributes to phylogenetic diversification of protein function and advances our understanding of phylogenetic relationships.

Can FDI promote export diversification and sophistication of host countries? : dynamic panel system GMM analysis

Recent trade literature highlights the importance of export diversification and upgrading in fostering faster and sustainable economic growth. This study investigates the impact of FDI inflow and stock on the level of export diversification and sophistication in host country's export baskets. By utilizing the dynamic panel data model, we find that the five-year lagged FDI inflow correlates positively with both export diversification and sophistication, and FDI stock makes the positive contribution to export sophistication. These findings provide support for the possibility of successful capabilities transfer to and building by local firms. We also find that these positive impacts of FDI exist only in developing countries.

Food crop diversification as a risk mitigating strategy during conflict : evidence from Cote d'Ivoire

This study examines the significance of food crop diversification as a household risk mitigating strategy to achieve "self-sufficiency" to ensure food security during the civil conflict in Cote d’Ivoire. The main motivation for seeking self-sufficiency stems from the fact that during the period of heightened tension due to conflict, the north–south divide set by the UN peacekeeping line disrupted the agricultural supply chain from the food surplus zone, Savane in the north. While we theoretically predict a positive effect on crop diversification because of interrupted food supply chain, we also consider a negative effect due to the covariate shocks. We find robust and statistically significant empirical outcomes supporting such claims. The baseline outcomes withstand a series of robustness checks. The net effect of conflict on crop diversification is positive but not statistically significant. In addition, we find that increasing vulnerability to poverty and food insecurity during conflict seems to be the underlying factors that motivate farm households to adopt such coping strategies.