C. C. Nice results 38
· Newest (Page 1/2, per page 25)
Author: C. C. Nice ×Clear All Filters
Search Results
Impacts of Quaternary Climate History on the Biogeography of Specialized Butterflies in the Great Basin of North AmericaNARA Subscribed
Aim Dramatic Quaternary climate fluctuations impacted the evolutionary history and contemporary biogeography of many residents of the Great Basin Desert of western North America. This study investigates the historical biogeographic processes that shaped the contemporary distribution of genetic variation in a polytypic group of specialized butterflies that are residents of unique dune and playa habitats. Many of the subspecies...
Population genomic evidence of selection on structural variants in a natural hybrid zoneNARA Subscribed
Structural variants (SVs) can promote speciation by directly causing reproductive isolation or by suppressing recombination across large genomic regions. Whereas examples of each mechanism have been documented, systematic tests of the role of SVs in speciation are lacking. Here, we take advantage of long‐read (Oxford nanopore) whole‐genome sequencing and a hybrid zone between two Lycaeides butterfly taxa ( L . melissa and Jack...
Prolonging survival in good health is a fundamental societal goal. However, the leading determinants of disability-free survival in healthy older people have not been well established. Data from ASPREE, a bi-national placebo-controlled trial of aspirin with 4.7 years median follow-up, was analysed. At enrolment, participants were healthy and without prior cardiovascular events, dementia or persistent physical disability. Disab...
Founder effects shape linkage disequilibrium and genomic diversity of a partially clonal invaderNARA Subscribed
The genomic variation of an invasive species may be affected by complex demographic histories and evolutionary changes during the invasion. Here, we describe the relative influence of bottlenecks, clonality, and population expansion in determining genomic variability of the widespread red macroalga Agarophyton vermiculophyllum . Its introduction from mainland Japan to the estuaries of North America and Europe coincided with sh...
Host plant associations and geography interact to shape diversification in a specialist insect herbivoreNARA Subscribed
Disentangling the processes underlying geographic and environmental patterns of biodiversity challenges biologists as such patterns emerge from eco‐evolutionary processes confounded by spatial autocorrelation among sample units. The herbivorous insect, Belonocnema treatae (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae), exhibits regional specialization on three plant species whose geographic distributions range from sympatry through allopatry across...
Extreme heterogeneity of population response to climatic variation and the limits of predictionNARA Subscribed
Certain general facets of biotic response to climate change, such as shifts in phenology and geographic distribution, are well characterized; however, it is not clear whether the observed similarity of responses across taxa will extend to variation in other population‐level processes. We examined population response to climatic variation using long‐term incidence data (collected over 42 years) encompassing 149 butterfly specie...
The predictability of genomic changes underlying a recent host shift in Melissa blue butterfliesNARA Subscribed
Despite accumulating evidence that evolution can be predictable, studies quantifying the predictability of evolution remain rare. Here, we measured the predictability of genome‐wide evolutionary changes associated with a recent host shift in the Melissa blue butterfly ( Lycaeides melissa ). We asked whether and to what extent genome‐wide patterns of evolutionary change in nature could be predicted (i) by comparisons among inst...
Hybrid zones provide unique opportunities to examine reproductive isolation and introgression in nature. We utilized 45,384 single nucleotide polymorphism ( SNP ) loci to perform association mapping of 14 floral, vegetative and ecological traits that differ between Iris hexagona and Iris fulva, and to investigate, using a Bayesian genomic cline ( BGC ) framework, patterns of genomic introgression in a large and phenotypically...
Many areas of research in ecology and evolutionary biology depend on the quantification of dietary niche width. For herbivorous insects, diet breadth has most often been measured as simply the number and type of host plant taxa attacked. We propose an index of host range (which we refer to as “ordinated diet breadth”) based on observed associations between plants and insects, and the calculation of multivariate distances among...
Regional population differentiation in the morphologically diverse, elevationally widespread Nearctic skipper Polites sabuletiNARA Subscribed
Aim To evaluate three phylogeographical models associated with the presence of mountains (montane vicariance, sky island and parapatry) as drivers of intraspecific diversification in the sandhill skipper, Polites sabuleti (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae), a morphologically variable species found in a variety of habitats from sea level to the alpine zone. Location Western North America. Methods The mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase...
The evolution of novel host use is unlikely to be constrained by trade‐offs or a lack of genetic variationNARA Subscribed
The genetic and ecological factors that shape the evolution of animal diets remain poorly understood. For herbivorous insects, the expectation has been that trade‐offs exist, such that adaptation to one host plant reduces performance on other potential hosts. We investigated the genetic architecture of alternative host use by rearing individual Lycaeides melissa butterflies from two wild populations in a crossed design on two...
Admixture and the organization of genetic diversity in a butterfly species complex revealed through common and rare genetic variantsNARA Subscribed
Detailed information about the geographic distribution of genetic and genomic variation is necessary to better understand the organization and structure of biological diversity. In particular, spatial isolation within species and hybridization between them can blur species boundaries and create evolutionary relationships that are inconsistent with a strictly bifurcating tree model. Here, we analyse genome‐wide DNA sequence and...
A hierarchical perspective on the diversity of butterfly species' responses to weather in the Sierra Nevada MountainsNARA Subscribed
An important and largely unaddressed issue in studies of biotic–abiotic relationships is the extent to which closely related species, or species living in similar habitats, have similar responses to weather. We addressed this by applying a hierarchical, Bayesian analytical framework to a long‐term data set for butterflies which allowed us to simultaneously investigate responses of the entire fauna and individual species. A sma...
Aim The aim of this study was to investigate patterns of genetic isolation associated with populations in discrete habitat patches in a North American cold desert through analysis of the pallid dotted‐blue butterfly, Euphilotes pallescens . This small butterfly is largely restricted to low‐elevation habitats across the Great Basin. The apparent geographical isolation and reported morphological variation among E. pallescens pop...