Understanding the impact of mitochondrial dysfunction on genome evolution has the potential not only to provide new insights on the basic evolutionary processes influencing mitochondrial and nuclear genomes, but may also reveal novel avenues for evolutionary adaptive recovery from harmful mutations. Aberrant mitochondrial activity is fundamental to the pathology of...
Postcopulatory sexual selection—sperm competition and cryptic female choice—has become a major area of research over the past 40 years. Within this field there are many outstanding questions at every level of analysis, from proximate to ultimate. The fitness consequences for both sexes in the period after copulation and before fertilization...
BACKGROUND: The oxidative stress theory of life-history tradeoffs states that oxidative stress caused by damaging
free radicals directly underpins tradeoffs between reproduction and longevity by altering the allocation of energetic
resources between these tasks. We test this theory by characterizing the effects of exogenous oxidative insult and
its interaction with...
Full Text:
Smith, S. W., Latta, L. C., Denver, D. R., & Estes, S. (2014). Endogenous ROS
levels in C. elegans
BACKGROUND: The oxidative stress theory of life-history tradeoffs states that oxidative stress caused by damaging
free radicals directly underpins tradeoffs between reproduction and longevity by altering the allocation of energetic
resources between these tasks. We test this theory by characterizing the effects of exogenous oxidative insult and
its interaction with...
BACKGROUND: The oxidative stress theory of life-history tradeoffs states that oxidative stress caused by damaging
free radicals directly underpins tradeoffs between reproduction and longevity by altering the allocation of energetic
resources between these tasks. We test this theory by characterizing the effects of exogenous oxidative insult and
its interaction with...
Concern regarding the large numbers of personal bankruptcies
in Oregon prompted this study. Although information was available
from a few studies in other parts of the United States, none was
available for Oregon. Very little data has been collected on personal
and family characteristics of people filing bankruptcy and less...
In We have analyzed natural variation in mitochondrial form and function among a set of Caenorhabditis briggsae isolates known to harbor mitochondrial DNA structural variation in the form of a heteroplasmic nad5 gene deletion (nad5 Delta) that correlates negatively with organismal fitness. We performed in vivo quantification of 24 mitochondrial...
We explored the relationship between relaxed selection, oxidative stress, and spontaneous mutation in a set of mutation-accumulation (MA) lines of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and in their common ancestor. We measured steady-state levels of free radicals and oxidatively damaged guanosine nucleosides in the somatic tissues of five MA lines for...
Selfish DNA poses a significant challenge to genome stability and organismal fitness in diverse eukaryotic lineages. Although selfish mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has known associations with cytoplasmic male sterility in numerous gynodioecious plant species and is manifested as petite mutants in experimental yeast lab populations, examples of selfish mtDNA in animals...
Evolutionary interactions across levels of biological organization contribute to a variety of fundamental processes including genome evolution, reproductive mode transitions, species diversification, and extinction. Evolutionary theory predicts that so-called “selfish” genetic elements will proliferate when the host effective population size (N[subscrit]e) is small, but direct tests of this prediction remain...
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, Anna L. Coleman-Hulbert2, Emily S. Weiss1, Dana K. Howe1, Sita Ping1, Riana I. Wernick1,
Suzanne Estes2