Reaction Time and Verbal Working Memory Differences in NCAA Concussed Female Athletes

Empirical evidence suggests that female collegiate athletes participating in soccer are likely to suffer from TBI and subsequent concussion syndrome. Studies further indicate that TBI adversely affects the quality of life of athletes both on an academic level and social life. This study examined data with the intent to fill existing gaps in the current literature and focused on the experiences of NCAA female collegiate soccer athletes who have suffered TBI and neurocognitive deficit symptoms in verbal memory and reactional time. This quantitative research method relied on the theory of mind (ToM) as the theoretical basis to investigate research questions in investigating TBI\u27s relationship and an individual\u27s cognitive performance in verbal and reaction time. This quantitative study relied on a de-identified secondary dataset from the ImPACT injury database to evaluate baseline and post injury TBI evaluations, assessed injuries, and cognitive domains. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, paired sample t tests and independent sample t tests. There were significant differences in reaction time, but not statistically significant in verbal working memory. The implications of the study for positive change included the provision of insight into practical strategies for better management of the challenges associated with TBI to enable effect minimization of the cognitive deficits on the athlete\u27s social and academic life. The study findings will therefore facilitate the development of strategies to enhance safety in sport

On the importance of balancing selection in plants

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Delph, L. F. and Kelly, J. K. (2014), On the importance of balancing selection in plants. New Phytol, 201: 45–56. doi:10.1111/nph.12441, which has been published in final form at http://doi.org/10.1111/nph.12441. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.Balancing selection refers to a variety of selective regimes that maintain advantageous genetic diversity within populations. We review the history of the ideas regarding the types of selection that maintain such polymorphism in flowering plants, notably heterozygote advantage, negative frequency-dependent selection, and spatial heterogeneity. One shared feature of these mechanisms is that whether an allele is beneficial or detrimental is conditional on its frequency in the population. We highlight examples of balancing selection on a variety of discrete traits. These include the well-referenced case of self-incompatibility and recent evidence from species with nuclear-cytoplasmic gynodioecy, both of which exhibit trans-specific polymorphism, a hallmark of balancing selection. We also discuss and give examples of how spatial heterogeneity in particular, which is often thought unlikely to allow protected polymorphism, can maintain genetic variation in plants (which are rooted in place) as a result of microhabitat selection. Lastly, we discuss limitations of the protected polymorphism concept for quantitative traits, where selection can inflate the genetic variance without maintaining specific alleles indefinitely. We conclude that while discrete-morph variation provides the most unambiguous cases of protected polymorphism, they represent only a fraction of the balancing selection at work in plants

Sex-specific natural selection on SNPs in Silene latifolia

Selection that acts in a sex-specific manner causes the evolution of sexual dimorphism. Sex-specific phenotypic selection has been demonstrated in many taxa and can be in the same direction in the two sexes (differing only in magnitude), limited to one sex, or in opposing directions (antagonistic). Attempts to detect the signal of sex-specific selection from genomic data have confronted numerous difficulties. These challenges highlight the utility of “direct approaches,” in which fitness is predicted from individual genotype within each sex. Here, we directly measured selection on Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in a natural population of the sexually dimorphic, dioecious plant, Silene latifolia. We measured flowering phenotypes, estimated fitness over one reproductive season, as well as survival to the next year, and genotyped all adults and a subset of their offspring for SNPs across the genome. We found that while phenotypic selection was congruent (fitness covaried similarly with flowering traits in both sexes), SNPs showed clear evidence for sex-specific selection. SNP-level selection was particularly strong in males and may involve an important gametic component (e.g., pollen competition). While the most significant SNPs under selection in males differed from those under selection in females, paternity selection showed a highly polygenic tradeoff with female survival. Alleles that increased male mating success tended to reduce female survival, indicating sexual antagonism at the genomic level. Perhaps most importantly, this experiment demonstrates that selection within natural populations can be strong enough to measure sex-specific fitness effects of individual loci

A fossil fuchsia (Onagraceae) flower and an anther mass with in situ pollen from the early Miocene of New Zealand

PREMISE OF THE STUDY: Fuchsia (Onagraceae) anthers, pollen, and an ornithophilous Fuchsia-like flower from an earliest Miocene lacustrine diatomite deposit at Foulden Maar, southern New Zealand confirm a long record for Fuchsia in New Zealand and probably an equally long history for its distinctive honeyeater pollination syndrome. The anthers contain in situ pollen of the fossil palynomorph previously assigned to Diporites aspis Pocknall et Mildenh. (Onagraceae: Fuchsia L.). METHODS: We undertook comparative studies of the flower and anther morphology of the newly discovered macrofossils and compared the in situ pollen grains from the anthers with dispersed pollen grains from extant species. KEY RESULTS: The anther mass is referred to a new, extinct species, Fuchsia antiqua D.E.Lee, Conran, Bannister, U.Kaulfuss & Mildenh. (Onagraceae), and is associated with a fossilized Fuchsia-like flower from the same small mining pit. Because Diporites van der Hammen is typified by a fungal sporomorph, the replacement name for D. aspis is Koninidites aspis (Pocknall & Mildenh.) Mildenh. gen. & comb. nov. Phylogenetic placement of the fossils agrees with a proximal position to either sect. Skinnera or sect. Procumbentes. These are the oldest macrofossils of Fuchsia globally. CONCLUSIONS: The floral structures are remarkably similar to those of modern New Zealand Fuchsia. They suggest that the distinctive honeyeater bird-pollination syndrome/association seen in modern New Zealand was already established by the late Oligocene–earliest Miocene. The implications for the biogeography and paleoecology of Fuchsia in Australasia are discussed.Daphne E. Lee, John G. Conran, Jennifer M. Bannister, Uwe Kaulfuss, And Dallas C. Mildenhal