(Press-News.org) A study published in the journal Scientific Reports reveals the genetic structure of the land snail Xerocrassa montserratensis and it provides new scientific tools for the improvement of the conservation of this endemic and threatened species in Catalonia. This land mollusc, identified in the late 19th century in the Montserrat mountain, has a reduced geographical distribution limited to the province of Barcelona, and it is a protected species in the area of the natural parks of Montserrat and Sant Llorenç del Munt i l'Obac.
The study is led by the lecturer Marta Pascual, from the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute of the University of Barcelona (IRBio), and signed by Cristina Català (UB-IRBio), Vicenç Bros (Barcelona Provincial Council), Xavier Castelltort (University of Lleida), and Xavier Santos (Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources - CIBIO, Portugal). Both the paper and its publication received the collaboration of the team of the Office of the Natural Park of Sant Llorenç del Munt i l'Obac, and the economic support of the Technical Office of the Natural Parks from the Barcelona Provincial Council park network.
An endemic species described more than a hundred years ago in Montserrat
The species Xerocrassa montserratensis --previously named Helix montserratensis--, is a uniqueness of the terrestrial malacological fauna in Catalonia described by Joaquín González Hidalgo in 1870 in the Montserrat mountain. Also, in the late 19th century, Artur Bofill had described two sub-species according to the morphological character of the shell: X. m. betulonensis and X. m. delicatula.
This Catalan endemism, considered to be an excellent model in phylogeographical studies, is found in open spaces of typical bare stony slopes of conglomerate lithology, but not in forestal areas. Surprisingly, the species was detected in areas that had been previously burnt, "which would indicate a high ability to survive or colonize which is not described yet in the scientific literature", notes the expert Xavier Santos, from CIBIO.
As part of the research study, the team applied the methodology based on the so-called DNA barcoding, which uses a short and standardized fragment of DNA --in this case, the mitochondrial gen Cytochrome Oxidase I (COI)-- to facilitate the identification of species and detection of differenced evolutionary groups. This methodology allows researchers to classify most of the species with a high resolution, and in many cases, it provides a great intraspecific variability to detect barriers in the genic flow between populations.
"Since these molluscs have a low mobility, from the from a scientific perspective it was quite interesting to determine whether this endangered species had a populational structure", reveals Marta Pascual, lecturer at the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics.
The study enabled the researchers to test the hypothesis from a hundred years ago, which related the population of the mountain chain of Marina --in the Catalan littoral mountain chain-- with populations in the upstream waters in the Besòs River.
The team identified genetic groups in areas where different sub-species had been described, a hypothesis that had been under doubts recently by several morphological studies. The results show that the genetically differenced groups are in those populations where the different sub-species had been described more than a century ago. Moreover, researchers also identified a new area where the groups are strongly differenced --Munts, in the Catalan transversal mountain chain--, which should be studied in detail in future studies.
"Our study provides information favouring the validity of these sub-species but we need to advance with the research studies and to conduct morphometric and genomic studies to determine whether there is a reproductive isolation among the different mitochondrial groups", notes Marta Pascual.
A genetic diversification situation during the Pleistocene
According to the authors, the process of diversification of the genetic groups --combined with the specificity of their natural habitat-- could be related to the geological and paleoclimate processes during the Pleistocene, which finally contributed to shaping the current genetic structure of the species. These processes could explain the origins of the vast radiation of species of the gender Xerocrassa in some Mediterranean islands, such as Crete or the Balearic Islands, as stated by the authors.
"It is shocking to find that close populations are that genetically differenced, and at the same time, that a species with such a reduced distribution area can present genetically differenced groups at a mitochondrial level", notes Xavier Santos.
INFORMATION:
The paper published in Scientific Reports will provide new scientific knowledge to adopt management measures for the conservation of the genetic diversity of the species, now threatened by the impact of the massive human visits, unique habitats in many protected spaces, according to Vicenç Bros, from the Barcelona Provincial Council.
Skeletal muscles make a tremendous variety of actions stabilizing the body in different positions. Despite their endurance during daily activities, they can undergo several mild injuries caused by sport, accidental overstretching, or sudden overtwisting. Luckily mild injuries can be quickly healed; however, when a large part of muscles is damaged or resected surgically, the full recovery can be impossible. Muscle regeneration is challenging, but the development of innovative biocompatible materials tackles that problem. Recently, a multinational team of scientists led by dr. Marco Costantini from ...
Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B Volume 11, Issue 4 Publishes
https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/acta-pharmaceutica-sinica-b/vol/11/issue/4
Special Issue: The Biological Fate of Drug Nanocarriers
This special issue includes seven review and nine research articles from some leading scientists in the field that further the discussion on subtopics of in vivo fate of drug nanocarriers.
Guest Editors: Wei Wu, Professor, Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Fudan University, Shanghai, China; Tonglei Li, Professor, Department of Industrial & Physical Pharmacy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA; Ying Zheng, Professor, State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences, University of Macau, Macau, China.
The Journal ...
How to predict the sound produced by a tonewood block once carved into the shape of a violin plate? What is the best shape for the best sound? Artificial Intelligence offer answers to these questions.
These are the conclusions that researchers of the Musical Acoustics Lab of Politecnico di Milano presented in a study that was recently published in Scientific Reports.
In the article "A Data-Driven Approach to Violinmaking" the Chilean physicist and luthier Sebastian Gonzalez (post-doc researcher) and the professional mandolin player Davide Salvi (PhD student) show how a simple and effective neural network is able to predict the vibrational be-havior of violin plates. This prediction is obtained from a limited set of geometric and mechanical ...
The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) has helped Gaia achieve millimagnitude (mmag) precision in photometry, according to a study led by researchers from National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) and Beijing Normal University (BNU).
Their study was published in The Astrophysical Journal.
If you look at the sky on a clear, starry night, you may notice that Aldebran is relatively red and Rigel is blue. Why? The answer stems from their intrinsic physical properties. Precisely measuring magnitudes ...
The polar vortex is a large area of upper-atmosphere cyclonic air circulation surrounding both poles. It is bounded by the polar jet stream and its associated cold air is usually confined to the polar regions. Within the Antarctic circle, and southern polar vortex, ozone quantities are the lowest, globally. A research published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, led by Dr. LUO Yuhan, corresponding author and Associate Professor at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), suggests that the polar vortex plays a key role in Antarctic stratospheric ozone depletion.
"The atmosphere over Antarctica is controlled by a strong ...
May 1, 2021 - Rheumatologists in Hong Kong joined hands to develop a set of consensus statements on COVID-19 vaccination for local adult patients with autoimmune rheumatic diseases. These timely statements would serve to be a guide for rheumatologists, other specialists, family physicians, specialty nurses, and the public regarding COVID-19 vaccination for patients with rheumatic diseases.
Vaccination against SAR-CoV-2 is a new campaign and a high immunization rate is believed to be the key to end the pandemic. Currently, there are two COVID-19 vaccines available in Hong Kong--the inactivated virus vaccine CoronaVac® ...
Parks played an important role for people seeking respite from the toll of social isolation during the pandemic, and according to new research from Drexel University, they did so without increasing the spread of COVID-19. The study looked at how people used 22 parks in Philadelphia and New York during the height of the pandemic and it found no strong correlation between park use and the number of confirmed cases in surrounding neighborhoods.
Published in the Journal of Extreme Events, Drexel's study "Urban Park Usage During the COVID-19 Pandemic" surveyed park visitors over a three-month period from May to July 2020 at small and mid-size parks in New York and Philadelphia. And it compared park usage numbers ...
An essential preliminary to building and construction or resource extraction is studying the geological structure of the site. One of steps of this process is geophysical investigation. This provides a continuous overview of the geological horizons rather than just data on points: boreholes. The standard methods of geophysics help successfully solve this problem in comparatively simple conditions. Yet the classical direct current methods may lead to serious inaccuracy if we have to investigate geologically complex structures with thin layers of sandy and clayey soils.
Among the most popular methods ...
Leipzig/Jena/Ilmenau. Mobile apps like Flora Incognita that allow automated identification of wild plants cannot only identify plant species, but also uncover large scale ecological patterns. These patterns are surprisingly similar to the ones derived from long-term inventory data of the German flora, even though they have been acquired over much shorter time periods and are influenced by user behaviour. This opens up new perspectives for rapid detection of biodiversity changes. These are the key results of a study led by a team of researchers from Central Germany, which has recently been published in Ecography.
With the help of Artificial Intelligence, plant species ...
The gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) is declining because of habitat loss and fragmentation, human interaction including collisions with vehicles, predation by domestic animals, and disease. These long-lived reptiles are found throughout Florida and are affected by various diseases including upper respiratory tract disease. A number of pathogens such as Mycoplasma spp., Herpesvirus, and Ranavirus are known to cause upper respiratory tract disease in gopher tortoises. Chronic disease resulting from these pathogens can lead to reduced reproduction, abnormal growth and development, increased susceptibility to secondary ...
