Afrikas Savannen sind 10 Millionen Jahre älter – Weltweit ältester fossiler Nachweis für C4-Gräser erbracht

Ein internationales Forschungsteam aus Geolog*innen und Paläontolog*innen, mit Senckenberg-Wissenschaftler Dr. Thomas Lehmann, hat mit einem Multi-Methoden-Ansatz die Umwelt von frühen Menschenartigen vor etwa 20 Millionen Jahren, zur Zeit des frühen Miozäns, in Kenia und Uganda untersucht. In ihrer heute im renommierten Fachjournal „Science“ erschienenen Studie kommen die Forschenden zu dem Schluss, dass es schon vor etwa 20 Millionen Jahren ausgedehnte Graslandschaften in Afrika gab – 10 Millionen Jahre früher als bislang angenommen. Die Untersuchung des vergangenen Lebensraums ist für die Interpretation der Evolution zahlreicher Säugetierarten, einschließlich der Hominine, entscheidend.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Wie Rochen gelernt haben, durchs Wasser zu gleiten

Gene sind nicht die einzigen Triebkräfte der Evolution. Die charakteristischen Flossen der Rochen entstanden, weil sich die nicht-kodierenden Teile des Genoms und seine dreidimensionale Struktur verändert hatten, berichtet ein Forschungsteam um Darío Lupiáñez vom Max Delbrück Center in „Nature“.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Evolution von Muskeln: gemeinsamer Ursprung bei Seeanemonen und Mensch

Entwicklung verschiedener Muskelzelltypen beruht auf Duplikation & Diversifikation von Genen

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Blind Dating in der Bakterien-Evolution

Gemeinsame Pressemeldung des Max-Planck-Instituts für terrestrische Mikrobiologie und der Technischen Universität Berlin

Ein Forscherteam des Max-Planck-Instituts für terrestrische Mikrobiologie in Marburg und der Technischen Universität Berlin rekonstruierte längst ausgestorbene Proteine eines UV-Schutzsystems von Cyanobakterien. Das überraschende Ergebnis: die Proteine passten bereits perfekt zueinander, als sie aufeinandertrafen. Diese Entdeckung erweitert die bisherigen Kenntnisse zu den Spielregeln der Evolution.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Mikroplastik verändert Darmflora von Seevögeln Weniger vorteilhafte Bakterien, dafür mehr Krankheitserreger

Je mehr Mikroplastik wilde Seevögel wie Eissturmvogel und Corysturmtaucher mit der Nahrung aufnehmen, desto stärker verändert sich die mikrobielle Vielfalt im Darm. Die Folge: vorteilhafte, „gute“ Bakterien nehmen ab und Krankheitserreger zu. Dies kann nicht nur kurzfristig individuelle Schäden, sondern möglicherweise langfristig artübergreifende Folgen haben, da eine Anreicherung der Schadstoffe über die Nahrungskette zu erwarten ist, so Forschende der Universität Ulm zusammen mit Partnern aus Portugal und Kanada. Die Studie zu Auswirkungen von Mikroplastik auf das Darmmikrobiom von Seevögeln ist in „Nature Ecology & Evolution“ erschienen

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Neue Augen bei Trilobiten entdeckt

Wissenschaftler*innen der Universitäten Köln und Edinburgh entdecken bisher übersehene Augen / Form und Funktion der Augen können in Zukunft helfen, auch archaische Gliedertiere besser in den evolutionären Stammbaum einzuordnen / Veröffentlichung in „Scientific Reports – Nature“

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

How fishermen benefit from reversing evolution of cod

Intense fishing and overexploitation have led to evolutionary changes in fish stocks like cod, reducing both their productivity and value on the market. These changes can be reversed by more sustainable and far-sighted fisheries management. The new study by researchers from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Leipzig University and the Institute of Marine Research in Tromsø, which was published in Nature Sustainability, shows that reversal of evolutionary change would only slightly reduce the profit of fishing, but would help regain and conserve natural genetic diversity.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Was der Fischer davon hat, die Evolution des Kabeljaus zurückzudrehen

Überfischung und Übernutzung der Meere haben bei Fischbeständen wie dem Kabeljau zu evolutionären Veränderungen geführt, die die Produktivität und den Marktwert der Fischebestände schmälern. Ein nachhaltigeres und vorausschauendes Management der Fischereien könnte diese Veränderungen rückgängig machen. Eine neue Studie, die im Fachmagazin Nature Sustainability veröffentlicht wurde, zeigt, dass diese Umkehr der evolutionären Veränderungen sich nur geringfügig auf den Gewinn der Fischereien auswirken, aber zum Erhalt der natürlichen genetischen Vielfalt beitragen würde.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Insights into the evolution of the sense of fairness

A sense of fairness has long been considered purely human – but animals also react with frustration when they are treated unequally by a person. In a study with long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis), researchers at the German Primate Center – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research (DPZ) have now confirmed an alternative explanatory approach. A combination of social disappointment with the human experimenter and some degree of food competition best explains their behavior in an ‚inequity aversion‘ experiment.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Bryophytes branch differently… also at the molecular level

Non-vascular bryophytes live in colonies that cover the ground and resemble tiny forests. In a real forest, plants compete for light in different layers of the canopy. If a plant does not receive enough sunlight, it stops lateral branching and instead grows vertically to reach the sunlight. Researchers from the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (GMI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences discovered that the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha, whose plant body is fundamentally different from those of vascular plants, also adapts its architecture in response to shade. These new insights into the evolution of genetic pathways governing branching were published in Current Biology.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Largest amber-preserved flower

Scientists of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and the University of Vienna studied an exceptionally large flower inclusion, almost measuring 3 cm across. This flower and its pollen were enclosed and preserved in resin about 38-34 million years ago. It is about three times as large as most floral inclusions and therefore the largest flower, which was discovered from any amber so far. These new findings help to shed new light into the Baltic amber forest and allow drawing conclusions about the climate of the past, as well as the evolution of forests.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

The vertebral column develops in the same way in modern animals as it did 300 million years ago

A study conducted by researchers from the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin revealed the evolution of ossification patterns in the backbones of four-legged vertebrates. Antoine Verrière and his colleagues were able to reconstruct the patterns of how the bones in the vertebral column formed in the ancestor to all land vertebrates based on a large dataset of modern and fossil vertebrates with the inclusion of rare new data from the 300 Ma old reptile Mesosaurus tenuidens. The results are published this week in Scientific Reports.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Rapid Evolution of Spermatogenesis

Evolutionary pressure across male mammals to guarantee the procreation of their own offspring led to a rapid evolution of the testicle. Bioinformatic studies – conducted by an international team of researchers led by Prof. Dr Henrik Kaessmann from the Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University – show that this pressure particularly accelerated the evolution of later stages of sperm formation.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

How cells gain control over their bacterial symbionts

Biology: Publication in Current Biology

Modern eukaryotic cells contain numerous so-called organelles, which once used to be independent bacteria. In order to understand how these bacteria were integrated into the cells in the course of evolution and how they are controlled, a research team from the Institute of Microbial Cell Biology at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has examined the single-celled flagellate Angomonas deanei, which contains a bacterium that was taken up relatively recently. In the journal Current Biology, the biologists now describe how certain proteins in the flagellate control the cell division process of the bacterium, among other things.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

More flexible than we thought: Worms give us new insights into the evolution and diversification of TGF-ß signaling

The TGF-ß cellular signaling network, essential to various functions in all metazoans and involved in many severe human pathologies like autoimmune diseases and cancer, is more flexible than previously thought. Researchers at the MPI for Neurobiology of Behavior and the MPI for Biology discovered an unknown genetic variability in this signaling pathway amongst different nematode species resulting in morphological and behavioral variations. This fresh view on the TGF-ß machinery, published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, is important for understanding the evolution of signaling pathways, their adaptability to acquire novel functions and for new strategies to control parasitic nematodes.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Two-billion-year-old enzyme reconstructed – Detective work by molecular biologists and bioinformatics researchers

Basic researchers at Leipzig University have solved a puzzle in the evolution of bacterial enzymes. By reconstructing a candidate for a special RNA polymerase as it existed about two billion years ago, they were able to explain a hitherto puzzling property of the corresponding modern enzymes. Unlike their ancestors, they do not work continuously and are thus significantly more effective – these pauses in activity constitute evolutionary progress. The reconstruction of the protein from prehistoric times was made possible thanks to interdisciplinary cooperation between molecular biochemistry and bioinformatics.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

New personalized test for an earlier and more accurate prediction of cancer relapse

Researchers have developed a new protocol for monitoring acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common cancer in children, to inform more effective treatment strategies and detect disease recurrence. The personalized mediator probe PCR (MP PCR) uses multiple genomic cancer cell markers in a single assay and is simpler than current techniques. It improves monitoring clonal tumor evolution to detect a relapse sooner and avoid false negative results.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Systematically examining the way spatial structure influences the evolution of cancer

Characterizing the way, manner or pattern of evolution in tumors may be important for clinical forecasting and optimizing cancer treatment. Researchers are systematically examining how spatial structure influences tumor evolution. To do this the group developed a computational model with the flexibility to simulate alternative spatial structures and types of cell dispersal.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Mitochondria and the evolutionary roots of cancer

Cancer is a group of almost 200 diseases that involve variety of changes in cell structure, morphology, and physiology. Cancer phenotype is underlying several alterations in cellular dynamics with three most critical features, which includes self-sufficiency in growth signals and insensitivity to inhibitory signals, evasion of programmed cell death and limitless replicative potential with a potential for the invasion of other organs. Cancer disease is widespread among metazoans. Some properties of cancer cells such as uncontrolled cell proliferation, lack of apoptosis, hypoxia, fermentative metabolism and free cell motility, i.e. metastasis, resemble a prokaryotic lifestyle, which leads to the assumption of a reversal like evolution from eucariotic back to proteobacterial state. This phenotype matches the phenotype of the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) that resulted from the endosymbiosis between archaebacteria and α-proteobacteria, which later became the mitochondria.

 Davila AF and Zamorano P (2013) Mitochondria and the evolutionary roots of cancer. Phys. Biol. 10 (2013) 026008, doi:10.1088/1478-3975/10/2/026008

Quantum Tunnelling to the Origin and Evolution of Life

Quantum tunnelling is a phenomenon which becomes relevant at the nanoscale and below. It is a paradox from the classical point of view as it enables elementary particles and atoms to permeate an energetic barrier without the need for sufficient energy to overcome it. Tunnelling is being of vital importance for life: physical and chemical processes can be traced directly back to the effects of quantum tunnelling. These processes include the   prebiotic chemistry as well as the function of biomolecular nanomachines and has many highly important implications that can be derived from to the field of molecular, prebiotic chemistry and biological evolution, respectively.

Trixler, F (2013) Quantum Tunnelling to the Origin and Evolution of Life. Curr Org Chem. 2013 Aug; 17(16): 1758–1770. doi: 10.2174%2F13852728113179990083