Morphological Variation in Wild and Domestic Suids

Pigs occupy a special place in the human psyche. They are kept both as stock domesticates, like cattle and sheep, and they are treated as companions and aids, like cats and dogs. There are currently nearly two billion (c.1,984,607,000) domesticated pigs in the world kept as stock animals bred for slaughter (Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), 2012). Keeping pigs as pets has become increasingly popular in western society in recent years and commensalism with pigs is a long-held tradition in Island South East Asia (McDonald-Brown, 2009). Pigs are a key economic resource; however, they are also an animal that inspires strong emotions of attachment or revulsion; seen as loyal, intelligent, courageous and resourceful or unclean, licentious, gluttonous and ignorant (Albarella et al., 2007, Phillips, 2007). As such pigs and pig products are extensively referenced in classical literature and modern pop culture; examples include George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Circe, a minor Greek goddess who transforms Odysseus’ men into pigs when they feast at her table in Homer’s Odyssey; the warthog Pumba from the movie The Lion King, Miss Piggy from The Muppets and Spiderpig in the Simpsons; pigs continued popularity is a testament to their enduring importance. As a result of this unique dual positions of pet and produce, pigs have been intensively studied both as domestic and wild animals. The earliest studies of domestic pigs, their form and origins, come from Charles Darwin (1868) and Ludwig Rutimeyer (1860, 1864), whilst the first scientific description of wild Sus was by Karl Linnaeus (1740, 1758). Here I continue the investigation of the pig, particularly the evolution of wild and domestic pigs, through a geometric morphometric analysis of cranial form. Whist the original concept of this study was derived from a grant concerned with the spread of domestic pigs across Europe at the beginning of the Neolithic, this thesis encompasses wider studies. By applying geometric morphometrics to questions of suid evolution and variability and domestication, we can effect a deeper understanding of how pigs colonised Africa, how suid morphology is affected by climate and geography, that wild and domestic pig cranial morphologies are distinct enough to discriminate between. These have implications for evolutionary studies of the suid family, explaining apparent incongruence between morphological studies and genetics. There are significant implications for archaeological studies, especially those concerned with identifying the origins of domestication where inadequacies in the traditional methodology can be overcome through the application of geometric morphometrics. We also test and reject the traditional hypothesis of heterochrony as the causal mechanism for the development of the domestic morphotype. Methodologies to test this have recently been developed for geometric morphometrics (Mitteroecker et al., 2005), but had not been applied to stock domesticates before. What is seen in suid ontogeny is not explained by the traditional language of heterochrony, nor are domestic pigs paedomorphic wild pigs. This leaves the cause of morphological changes observed during domestication unexplained, which should be a focus of future work

Conserving woodland biodiversity: an evaluation of the Woodland Grant Scheme in Kent

Imperial Users onl

Reducing uncertainty in the assessment of the Australian spanner crab fishery

In collaboration with the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries we compared the effectiveness of the spanner crab monitoring systems used by New South Wales and Queensland and developed a fishery-independent survey protocol acceptable to both states. The objectives of this project were to: 1. Determine the age at which spanner crabs (Ranina ranina) recruit to the fishery 2. Develop a common methodology for monitoring and assessing the Australian spanner crab stock 3. Investigate sources of variability in apparent population density

Innervation of the Teeth

The combination of methods described in the thesis to demonstrate the nerves of the dental pulp gave rapid and consistent results which were superior to those obtained by previously described processes. In the author's experience, the great stumbling-block to the successful demonstration of pulpal nerves was the harmful effect of the acid used to decalcify the dentine. The ability of chelating agents to perform at neutral or alkaline pH suggested that the tooth might be decalcified without harm to the staining affinities of the pulpal nerves. The selection of an alkaline pH actually improved the selectivity of the silver method employed and was later discovered to be based upon an accepted method of improving silver impregnation. The success of the methods adopted permitted the observation of the pattern of distribution of the nerve fibres in a large number of permanent teeth from patients of all age groups. The author was able to demonstrate that nerve fibres were present in the odontoblast layer and in the predentine zone of uncalcified dentine matrix. The affinity of the inner border of the calcified dentine for the silver stain prevented the fine terminal nerve fibres from being easily followed beyond this layer. There was, however, ample evidence in support of the belief that nerve fibres did extend into the layers of calcified dentine. It is believed that the majority were calcified within the intertubular matrix. An occasional nerve fibre may have been enclosed beside the dentinal process of an odontoblast and, by virtue of its intra-tubular position, may have escaped the wave of calcification which passes through the intertubular matrix. The attempt which was made to demonstrate the presence of nerve fibres in the dentine matrix by means of the electron microscope was unsuccessful. Nevertheless the author still believes that it will be possible to demonstrate silver impregnated nerve fibres within the predentine zone and so prove conclusively the relationship between the nerve fibres and the collagen fibres of the dereine matrix. He also believes that the question of the presence of fine intratubular nerve fibres (described as being 0.2mu in diameter) within the calcified dentine matrix will only be satisfactorily proved or disproved by evidence from the electron microscope. In the numerous electron micrographs of the dentinal tubules in cross-section from areas where fine intratubular fibres have been described, the author was unable to observe any appearance which might confirm their existence

Treatment-resistant ophthalmoplegia in Myasthenia gravis: extraocular muscle pathology, the role of TGFβ1 and the derivation of induced pluripotency towards 'disease-in-a-dish' modeling

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is an autoimmune disease in which pathogenic antibodies target specific neuromuscular junction proteins, most frequently acetylcholine receptors (AChR). Among those without detectable AChR-antibodies, a subgroup of patients has antibodies directed against muscle-specific tyrosine kinase (MuSK). In MG the pathogenic antibodies result in failure of neuromuscular transmission with consequent fatiguable skeletal muscle weakness. MG frequently affects the extraocular muscles (EOMs) early in the course of the disease, resulting in diplopia and ptosis, which is usually reversible with treatment. A treatment-resistant ophthalmoplegia and ptosis occurs as a complication of MG in a distinct subset of cases referred to as OP-MG. The EOMs are highly specialised muscle tissue with a unique physiological and immunological microenvironment with a large satellite cell niche, a distinct muscle fibroblast population, different transcriptional and cellular signaling pathways and fewer intrinsic complement regulatory proteins to protect them against antibody- activated complement-mediated damage. We hypothesised that in OP-MG, there is a differential response of the EOMs to the underlying MG disease process(es) on a genetic and molecular level, resulting in abnormal myofibre homeostasis. We aimed to report descriptive clinical-pathological data pertaining to EOM function and histopathological and ultrastructural EOM tissue analysis of a patient with OP- MG versus that of a non-MG control (both consented to EOM donation at ocular realignment surgery). EOM tissue from an OP-MG individual with AChR- and MuSK- antibody negative MG, demonstrated predominantly myopathic pathology and ultrastructural evidence of mitochondrial stress. The OP-MG EOM findings differ from the control EOM, which showed normal muscle histopathology in a patient undergoing strabismus surgery for a sensory exotropia in a non-seeing eye (loss of retinal stimulus for fusion) and a similar duration of deviation. These OP-MG findings appear to better correlate with previously reported histology/ultrastructure in limb muscle in MuSK-positive MG rather than AChR-positive MG. We next focussed on transforming growth factor beta-1 (TGFβ1) as a critical cytokine involved in muscle repair. An auto-induction pathway in muscle allows TGFβ1 expression to influence the transdifferentiation of satellite cells into myofibroblasts or myoblasts. In orbital fibroblasts, TGFβ1 has also been shown to upregulate decay accelerating factor (DAF), a complement regulatory protein expressed at lower levels in EOMs than other muscles, which should protect against complement-mediated injury. We established OP-MG and control-MG phenotype-specific dermal fibroblast cell lines and performed immunoblotting to evaluate TGFβ1-induced Smad3 phosphorylation and Daf expression in mouse myotubes. We demonstrated repression of phosphorylated-Smad3, a marker of the canonical TGFβ1 pathway, in OP-MG versus control MG fibroblasts after treatment with TGFβ1. We also demonstrated that TGFβ1 significantly upregulates Daf expression levels in mouse myoblasts. Taken together, these results suggest that OP-MG fibroblasts (and possibly myofibroblasts) are likely to be more susceptible to complement-mediated damage and abnormal myofibrogenesis due to their altered response to TGFβ1 stimulation and secondary DAF upregulation. Finally we investigated the feasability of establishing an in vitro disease model for MG or OP-MG by reprogramming dermal fibroblasts into disease phenotype-specific induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. We successfully generated and characterised iPS cells for one individual. However, this process was very labour-intensive, cost-inefficient and time-consuming, taking approximately four months to establish pluripotency in a single patient and thereby limited its further application(s). In conclusion, the EOM ultrastructural findings of an OP-MG case are novel and show similar findings to those described in limb skeletal muscle of MuSK-positive MG patients. The TGFβ1 pathway appears to be differentially regulated in OP-MG compared to control-MG cases and this may impact DAF upregulation in the EOMs in MG patients. Finally, our group is exploring an alternative method of establishing a 'disease-in-a-dish' model that is more cost-effective and practically feasible than the iPS cell route

GROWING TIMBER TREES WITH STRAIGHT STEMS: AN EXPLORATION OF RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MORPHOLOGICAL TRAITS IN SOME BROADLEAVED TREE SPECIES

The research described here had two novel aims: first, to assess the morphological characteristics of the regrowth, in particular stem straightness, of juvenile broadleaved trees following coppicing; and second, to investigate why some trees have straight stems and others do not. These questions were investigated by carrying out a series of field experiments in a range of species, age classes and locations. Coppicing produced rapid regrowth from the stump sprouts of juvenile oak (Quercus robur) and sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa). Multi-stemming and mortality were not significant. Height regrowth was almost three times faster than the height growth in the uncoppiced trees in the first year following coppicing. Thereafter vigour in the coppice trees declined. After five years there was little difference between the height of the coppiced trees and the height of the uncoppiced trees. The regrowth of the coppiced trees was much straighter than the uncoppiced trees. Branch length was also reduced as a result of coppicing. The improvements in stem straightness declined gradually but after five years the coppiced trees were still significantly straighter than the uncoppiced trees. This is a novel approach to inducing stem straightness in young trees without the need for close spacing. The coppice experiments suggested that stem straightness was related to branch length. A series of investigations were carried out in juvenile populations of oak, sweet chestnut, ash (Fraxinus e.xcelsior) and sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) to explore relationships between morphological characteristics. The work was extended to semi mature and mature populations of broadleaved trees of various species. Branch length, tree height and stem straightness were found to be related in all species, age classes and locations. The morphological characteristics of the trees in the study were proportional to one another. Trees with symmetrical crowns had straighter stems than those with asymmetrical crowns. In trees with asymmetrical crowns those with proportionately shorter branches had straighter stems than trees with long branches. In effect, crown symmetry is the most important single factor that is related to stem straightness in trees. When trees do not have symmetrical crowns, branch length is the most important factor that is related to stem straightness. Finally, a new and practical method of ranking stem quality, based on branch length and stem straightness is presented. Broadleaved trees with straight stems follow rules of proportionality. This is an original insight into the nature of tree growth.De Montfort University School of Agricultur

Historic Landscape Analysis: Deciphering the countryside

Reproduced with permission of the publisher. All of the images and illustrations have been reproduced with permission of the copyright holders. This is the author's final post-print version of a book as accepted for publication by the Council for British Archaeology. Copyright © 2004 Author and Council for British Archaeology. The definitive publication is available at: http://www.britarch.ac.uk/pubs/[SUMMARY] The British landscape is remarkably varied in its character. To a considerable extent this results from the different ways that successive generations of human communities have created regionally distinctive patterns of agriculture and industry. Our 'historic landscape' - the patterns of settlement, roads, fields, and other land-uses that make up the physical fabric of our present countryside - was described by Hoskins as the 'richest historical record we possess'. This handbook introduces some of the techniques that archaeologists, historians, historical geographers and planners can use to unravel the complex history of the countryside. A series of case studies demonstrate practical applications of historic landscape analysis for a broad range of uses and at a variety of national and regional levels. The well-illustrated and clear guide will be essential reading for anyone trying to understand the origins and development of regional variation in historic landscape character