25 research outputs found
The functional brain networks that underlie Early Stone Age tool manufacture
After 800,000 years of making simple Oldowan tools, early humans began manufacturing Acheulian handaxes around 1.75 million years ago. This advance is hypothesized to reflect an evolutionary change in hominin cognition and language abilities. We used a neuroarchaeology approach to investigate this hypothesis, recording brain activity using functional near-infrared spectroscopy as modern human participants learned to make Oldowan and Acheulian stone tools in either a verbal or nonverbal training context. Here we show that Acheulian tool production requires the integration of visual, auditory and sensorimotor information in the middle and superior temporal cortex, the guidance of visual working memory representations in the ventral precentral gyrus, and higher-order action planning via the supplementary motor area, activating a brain network that is also involved in modern piano playing. The right analogue to Brocaâs areaâwhich has linked tool manufacture and language in prior work1,2âwas only engaged during verbal training. Acheulian toolmaking, therefore, may have more evolutionary ties to playing Mozart than quoting Shakespeare
DNA markers linked to the R (2) rust resistance gene in sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) facilitate anticipatory breeding for this disease variant
Pre-emptive breeding for host disease resistance is an effective strategy for combating and managing devastating incursions of plant pathogens. Comprehensive, long-term studies have revealed that virulence to the R sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) rust resistance gene in the line MC29 does not exist in the Australian rust (Puccinia helianthi) population. We report in this study the identification of molecular markers linked to this gene. The three simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers ORS795, ORS882, and ORS938 were linked in coupling to the gene, while the SSR marker ORS333 was linked in repulsion. Reliable selection for homozygous-resistant individuals was efficient when the three markers, ORS795, ORS882, and ORS333, were used in combination. Phenotyping for this resistance gene is not possible in Australia without introducing a quarantinable race of the pathogen. Therefore, the availability of reliable and heritable DNA-based markers will enable the efficient deployment of this gene, permitting a more effective strategy for generating sustainable commercial cultivars containing this rust resistance gene
Estimation of mating system parameters in an evolving gynodioecous population of cultivated sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.).
Cultivated plants have been molded by human-induced selection, including manipulations of the mating system in the twentieth century. How these manipulations have affected realized parameters of the mating system in freely evolving cultivated populations is of interest for optimizing the management of breeding populations, predicting the fate of escaped populations and providing material for experimental evolution studies. To produce modern varieties of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.), self-incompatibility has been broken, recurrent generations of selfing have been performed and male sterility has been introduced. Populations deriving from hybrid-F1 varieties are gynodioecious because of the segregation of a nuclear restorer of male fertility. Using both phenotypic and genotypic data at 11 microsatellite loci, we analyzed the consanguinity status of plants of the first three generations of such a population and estimated parameters related to the mating system. We showed that the resource reallocation to seed in male-sterile individuals was not significant, that inbreeding depression on seed production averaged 15-20% and that cultivated sunflower had acquired a mixed-mating system, with âŒ50% of selfing among the hermaphrodites. According to theoretical models, the female advantage and the inbreeding depression at the seed production stage were too low to allow the persistence of male sterility. We discuss our methods of parameter estimation and the potential of such study system in evolutionary biology.Lâapparition et le maintient de divergences adaptatives entre populations occupant des niches Ă©cologiques diffĂ©rentes dĂ©pend de lâimportance relative de la sĂ©lection et de lâeffet homogĂ©nĂ©isant des flux de gĂšnes. Chez les plantes Ă reproduction sexuĂ©e, les flux de gĂšnes entres groupes dâindividus gĂ©ographiquement proches, peuvent ĂȘtre rĂ©duit du fait de divergences phĂ©nologiques (i.e., date du pic de floraison, Ă©tendue et intensitĂ© de la pĂ©riode de floraison...) favorisant les croisements entre individus Ă floraison synchrone (« temporal assortative mating», Fox 2003). En dĂ©pit de son impact sur lâĂ©volution et lâadaptation des populations lâeffet des divergences phĂ©nologiques sur les flux de gĂšnes a rarement quantifi