Department of BiologySurprisingly, the fastest motions are not produced by large animals or robots. Rather, small organisms or structures, including cnidarian stinging cells, fungal shooting spores, and mandible strikes of ants, termites, and spiders, hold the world acceleration records.1-5 These diverse systems share… read more about this publication »
Actin filament crosslinking, bundling and molecular motor proteins are necessary for the assembly of epithelial projections such as microvilli, stereocilia, hairs, and bristles. Mutations in such proteins cause defects in the shape, structure, and function of these actin - based protrusions. One… read more about this publication »
Mouse lemurs (Microcebus) are a radiation of morphologically cryptic primates distributed throughout Madagascar for which the number of recognized species has exploded in the past two decades. This taxonomic revision has prompted understandable concern that there has been substantial oversplitting… read more about this publication »
Early root growth is critical for plant establishment and survival. We have identified a molecular pathway required for helical root tip movement known as circumnutation. Here, we report a multiscale investigation of the regulation and function of this phenomenon. We identify key cell signaling… read more about this publication »
Gene expression is reconfigured rapidly during the cell cycle to execute the cellular functions specific to each phase. Studies conducted with synchronized plant cell suspension cultures have identified hundreds of genes with periodic expression patterns across the phases of the cell cycle, but… read more about this publication »
The increasing availability of high-frequency freshwater ecosystem metabolism data provides an opportunity to identify links between metabolic regimes, as gross primary production and ecosystem respiration patterns, and consumer energetics with the potential to improve our current understanding of… read more about this publication »
Seeds are the colonizing propagules for many plants and may therefore contribute to the filtering of species during the process of colonization and community assembly. Environmental filtering of seed traits may occur among species and influence community composition, or within species and influence… read more about this publication »
Bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) perform a variety of functions in bacterial survival and virulence. In mammalian systems, OMVs activate immune responses and are exploited as vaccines. However, little work has focused on the interactions of OMVs with plant hosts. Here, we report that OMVs… read more about this publication »
Motivation: Trait data are fundamental to the quantitative description of plant form and function. Although root traits capture key dimensions related to plant responses to changing environmental conditions and effects on ecosystem processes, they have rarely been included in large-scale… read more about this publication »
Cryptococcal disease is estimated to affect nearly a quarter of a million people annually. Environmental isolates of Cryptococcus deneoformans, which make up 15 to 30% of clinical infections in temperate climates such as Europe, vary in their pathogenicity, ranging from benign to hyper-virulent.… read more about this publication »
Sexual selection theory predicts that females face contrasting selection pressures when choosing the age of their mate. On the one hand, older males have demonstrated their ability to survive and they may be more experienced than younger males. At the same time, however, younger males are expected… read more about this publication »
Age-related changes in assessment signals occur in a diverse array of animals, including humans. Age-related decline in vocal quality in humans is known to affect perceived attractiveness by potential mates and voters, but whether such changes have functional implications for nonhuman animals is… read more about this publication »
Primate offspring often depend on their mothers well beyond the age of weaning, and offspring that experience maternal death in early life can suffer substantial reductions in fitness across the life span. Here, we leverage data from eight wild primate populations (seven species) to examine two… read more about this publication »
Stream solute monitoring has produced many insights into ecosystem and Earth system functions. Although new sensors have provided novel information about the fine-scale temporal variation of some stream water solutes, we lack adequate sensor technology to gain the same insights for many other… read more about this publication »
The Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (HBEF) was established in 1955 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service out of concerns about the effects of logging increasing flooding and erosion. To address this issue, within the HBEF hydrological and micrometeorological monitoring was… read more about this publication »
In Arabidopsis, the root clock regulates the spacing of lateral organs along the primary root through oscillating gene expression. The core molecular mechanism that drives the root clock periodicity and how it is modified by exogenous cues such as auxin and gravity remain unknown. We identified the… read more about this publication »
Studying the spread of infections is an important tool in limiting or preventing future outbreaks. A first step in understanding disease dynamics is constructing networks that reproduce features of real-world interactions. In this paper, we generate networks that maintain some features of the… read more about this publication »
Mating systems have profound effects on genetic diversity and compatibility. The convergent evolution of self-fertilization in three Caenorhabditis species provides a powerful lens to examine causes and consequences of mating system transitions. Among the selfers, Caenorhabditis tropicalis is the… read more about this publication »
BackgroundInhibitors of apoptosis (IAPs) are critical regulators of programmed cell death that are essential for development, oncogenesis, and immune and stress responses. However, available knowledge regarding IAP is largely biased toward humans and model species, while the distribution, function… read more about this publication »
Humans have undergone large migrations over the past hundreds to thousands of years, exposing ourselves to new environments and selective pressures. Yet, evidence of ongoing or recent selection in humans is difficult to detect. Many of these migrations also resulted in gene flow between previously… read more about this publication »
The ectomycorrhizal fungal symbiont Cenococcum geophilum is of high interest as it is globally distributed, associates with many plant species, and has resistance to multiple environmental stressors. C. geophilum is only known from asexual states but is often considered a cryptic species complex,… read more about this publication »
Caenorhabditis elegans survives on ephemeral food sources in the wild, and the species has a variety of adaptive responses to starvation. These features of its life history make the worm a powerful model for studying developmental, behavioral, and metabolic starvation responses. Starvation… read more about this publication »
Pattern-triggered immunity and effector-triggered immunity are two primary forms of innate immunity in land plants. The molecular components and connecting nodes of pattern-triggered immunity and effector-triggered immunity are not fully understood. Here, we report that the Arabidopsis calcium-… read more about this publication »