Cave-Obligate Biodiversity on the Campus of Sewanee: The University of the South, Franklin County, Tennessee

The southern Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee and Alabama has the greatest diversity of cave-obligate animals in the United States. The University of the South in Franklin County, TN is one of the largest private landholders on the southern Cumberland Plateau. Its 13,000-acre campus has more than 30 caves and is underlain by more than 14 km of horizontal passageways. We examined the biodiversity of cave animals on the campus at the species level and at the genetic level. Through a survey of seven caves on the campus, we identified 24 cave-obligate species, including two new county records. This total accounts for half of the cave-obligate species reported for Franklin County. For our genetic analysis, we selected six diverse taxa (two millipedes, a beetle, a fly, an aquatic isopod, and a spider) that were collected from multiple caves, and compared their mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene sequences. Across the six taxa we found: (1) low genetic diversity within caves (mean nucleotide diversity within caves across all taxa: 0.25%), (2) high genetic divergence between caves (divergence between caves within taxa ranged from 2.5%–10.9%, with two exceptions), and (3) little evidence for gene flow between caves (FST between caves within taxa \u3e 0.57, with one exception). Thus, the campus supports tremendous species diversity, and even more remarkable genetic diversity within those species on a small geographic scale (no studied caves were \u3e7 km apart). The divergence between cave populations and lack of gene flow between them that we observed across a range of taxa highlight the importance of cave conservation on a regional scale

The Genome Sequence of Taurine Cattle:A Window to Ruminant Biology and Evolution

To understand the biology and evolution of ruminants, the cattle genome was sequenced to about sevenfold coverage. The cattle genome contains a minimum of 22,000 genes, with a core set of 14,345 orthologs shared among seven mammalian species of which 1217 are absent or undetected in noneutherian (marsupial or monotreme) genomes. Cattle-specific evolutionary breakpoint regions in chromosomes have a higher density of segmental duplications, enrichment of repetitive elements, and species-specific variations in genes associated with lactation and immune responsiveness. Genes involved in metabolism are generally highly conserved, although five metabolic genes are deleted or extensively diverged from their human orthologs. The cattle genome sequence thus provides a resource for understanding mammalian evolution and accelerating livestock genetic improvement for milk and meat production.Fil: Bovine Genome Sequencing and Analysis Consortium. Bovine Genome Sequencing And Analysis Consortium; Estados UnidosFil: Amadio, Ariel Fernando. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Santa Fe. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Rafaela; ArgentinaFil: Poli, Mario Andres. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Genética; Argentin