Speciation with gene flow in a narrow endemic West Virginia cave salamander (\u3ci\u3eGyrinophilus subterraneus\u3c/i\u3e)

Due to their limited geographic distributions and specialized ecologies, cave species are often highly endemic and can be especially vulnerable to habitat degradation within and surrounding the cave systems they inhabit. We investigated the evolutionary history of the West Virginia Spring Salamander (Gyrinophilus subterraneus), estimated the population trend from historic and current survey data, and assessed the current potential for water quality threats to the cave habitat. Our genomic data (mtDNA sequence and ddRADseq-derived SNPs) reveal two, distinct evolutionary lineages within General Davis Cave corresponding to G. subterraneus and its widely distributed sister species, Gyrinophilus porphyriticus, that are also differentiable based on morphological traits. Genomic models of evolutionary history strongly support asymmetric and continuous gene flow between the two lineages, and hybrid classification analyses identify only parental and first generation cross (F1) progeny. Collectively, these results point to a rare case of sympatric speciation occurring within the cave, leading to strong support for continuing to recognize G. subterraneus as a distinct and unique species. Due to its specialized habitat requirements, the complete distribution of G. subterraneus is unresolved, but using survey data in its type locality (and currently the only known occupied site), we find that the population within General Davis Cave has possibly declined over the last 45 years. Finally, our measures of cave and surface stream water quality did not reveal evidence of water quality impairment and provide important baselines for future monitoring. In addition, our unexpected finding of a hybrid zone and partial reproductive isolation between G. subterraneus and G. porphyriticus warrants further attention to better understand the evolutionary and conservation implications of occasional hybridization between the species

Endocrine responses in mares and geldings with high body condition scores grouped by high vs. low resting leptin concentrations1

Previous observations from this laboratory indicated that horses with high BCS could have resting plasma leptin concentrations ranging from low (1 to 5 ng/mL) to very high (10 to 50 ng/mL). To study the possible interactions of leptin secretion with other endocrine systems, BCS and plasma leptin concentrations were measured on 36 mares and 18 geldings. From mares and geldings that had a mean BCS of at least 7.5, five with the lowest (low leptin) and five with the highest (high leptin) leptin concentrations were selected. Jugular blood samples were collected twice daily for 3 d from the 20 selected horses to determine average resting hormone concentrations. Over the next 12 d, glucose infusion, injection of thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH), exercise, and dexamethasone treatment were used to perturb various hormonal systems. By design, horses selected for high leptin had greater (P \u3c 0.0001) leptin concentrations than horses selected for low leptin (14.1 vs. 2.8 ± 0.92 ng/mL, respectively). In addition, mares had greater (P = 0.008) leptin concentrations than geldings. Horses selected for high leptin had lower (P = 0.027) concentrations of GH but higher (P = 0.0005) concentrations of insulin and thriiodothyronine (T3) than those selected for low leptin. Mares had greater (P = 0.0006) concentrations of cortisol than geldings. There was no difference (P \u3e 0.10) in concentrations of IGF-1, prolactin, or thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH). Horses selected for high leptin had a greater (P = 0.0365) insulin response to i.v. glucose infusion than horses selected for low leptin. Mares had a greater (P = 0.0006) TSH response and tended (P = 0.088) to have a greater prolactin response to TRH than geldings; the T 3 response was greater (P = 0.047) in horses selected for high leptin. The leptin (P = 0.0057), insulin (P \u3c 0.0001), and glucose (P = 0.0063) responses to dexamethasone were greater in horses selected for high leptin than in those selected for low leptin. In addition, mares had a greater (P \u3c 0.0001) glucose response to dexamethasone than geldings. Cortisol concentrations were decreased (P = 0.029) by dexamethasone equally in all groups. In conclusion, differences in insulin, T3, and GH associated with high vs. low leptin concentrations indicate a likely interaction of these systems with leptin secretion in horses and serve as a starting point for future study of the cause-and-effect nature of the interactions. © 2003 American Society of Animal Science. All rights reserved

Knowledge graphs evolution and preservation

One of the grand challenges discussed during the Dagstuhl Seminar "Knowledge Graphs: New Directions for Knowledge Representation on the Semantic Web" and described in its report is that of a: "Public FAIR Knowledge Graph of Everything: We increasingly see the creation of knowledge graphs that capture information about the entirety of a class of entities. [...] This grand challenge extends this further by asking if we can create a knowledge graph of "everything" ranging from common sense concepts to location based entities. This knowledge graph should be "open to the public" in a FAIR manner democratizing this mass amount of knowledge." Although linked open data (LOD) is one knowledge graph, it is the closest realisation (and probably the only one) to a public FAIR Knowledge Graph (KG) of everything. Surely, LOD provides a unique testbed for experimenting and evaluating research hypotheses on open and FAIR KG. One of the most neglected FAIR issues about KGs is their ongoing evolution and long term preservation. We want to investigate this problem, that is to understand what preserving and supporting the evolution of KGs means and how these problems can be addressed. Clearly, the problem can be approached from different perspectives and may require the development of different approaches, including new theories, ontologies, metrics, strategies, procedures, etc. This document reports a collaborative effort performed by 9 teams of students, each guided by a senior researcher as their mentor, attending the International Semantic Web Research School (ISWS 2019). Each team provides a different perspective to the problem of knowledge graph evolution substantiated by a set of research questions as the main subject of their investigation. In addition, they provide their working definition for KG preservation and evolution