Scenario of the spread of the invasive species Zaprionus indianus Gupta, 1970 (Diptera, Drosophilidae) in Brazil

Zaprionus indianus was first recorded in Brazil in 1999 and rapidly spread throughout the country. We have obtained data on esterase loci polymorphisms (Est2 and Est3), and analyzed them, using Landscape Shape Interpolation and the Monmonier Maximum Difference Algorithm to discover how regional invasion occurred. Hence, it was apparent that Z. indianus, after first arriving in São Paulo state, spread throughout the country, probably together with the transportation of commercial fruits by way of the two main Brazilian freeways, BR 153, to the south and the surrounding countryside, and the BR 116 along the coast and throughout the north-east

Polaritonic molecular clock for all-optical ultrafast imaging of wavepacket dynamics without probe pulses

Conventional approaches to probing ultrafast molecular dynamics rely on the use of synchronized laser pulses with a well-defined time delay. Typically, a pump pulse excites a molecular wavepacket. A subsequent probe pulse can then dissociate or ionize the molecule, and measurement of the molecular fragments provides information about where the wavepacket was for each time delay. Here, we propose to exploit the ultrafast nuclear-position-dependent emission obtained due to large light–matter coupling in plasmonic nanocavities to image wavepacket dynamics using only a single pump pulse. We show that the time-resolved emission from the cavity provides information about when the wavepacket passes a given region in nuclear configuration space. This approach can image both cavity-modified dynamics on polaritonic (hybrid light–matter) potentials in the strong light–matter coupling regime and bare-molecule dynamics in the intermediate coupling regime of large Purcell enhancements, and provides a route towards ultrafast molecular spectroscopy with plasmonic nanocavitiesThis work has been funded by the European Research Council grant ERC-2016-STG-714870 and the Spanish Ministry for Science, Innovation, and Universities—AEI grants RTI2018-099737-B-I00, PCI2018-093145 (through the QuantERA program of the European Commission), and CEX2018-000805-M (through the María de Maeztu program for Units of Excellence in R&D

Quantitative Control of Organ Shape by Combinatorial Gene Activity

A novel combination of molecular genetics, shape analysis, and computational modelling shows how the complex three-dimensional shape of the Snapdragon flower can arise through local gene activity

Cryptic Variation between Species and the Basis of Hybrid Performance

Studies on natural variation in gene expression and its phenotypic effects provide fresh insights into the origins of vigour and sterility in species hybrids

Genetic Control of Organ Shape and Tissue Polarity

A combination of experimental analysis and mathematical modelling shows how the genetic control of tissue polarity plays a fundamental role in the development and evolution of form