Using Population Genetic Theory and DNA Sequences for Species Detection and Identification in Asexual Organisms

It is widely agreed that species are fundamental units of biology, but there is little agreement on a definition of species or on an operational criterion for delimiting species that is applicable to all organisms.We focus on asexual eukaryotes as the simplest case for investigating species and speciation. We describe a model of speciation in asexual organisms based on basic principles of population and evolutionary genetics. The resulting species are independently evolving populations as described by the evolutionary species concept or the general lineage species concept. Based on this model, we describe a procedure for using gene sequences from small samples of individuals to assign them to the same or different species. Using this method of species delimitation, we demonstrate the existence of species as independent evolutionary units in seven groups of invertebrates, fungi, and protists that reproduce asexually most or all of the time.This wide evolutionary sampling establishes the general existence of species and speciation in asexual organisms. The method is well suited for measuring species diversity when phenotypic data are insufficient to distinguish species, or are not available, as in DNA barcoding and environmental sequencing. We argue that it is also widely applicable to sexual organisms

Search for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons decaying to a pair of tau leptons in pp collisions

Peer reviewe

Searches for electroweak production of charginos, neutralinos, and sleptons decaying to leptons and W, Z, and Higgs bosons in pp collisions at 8 TeV

Peer reviewe

Constraints on parton distribution functions and extraction of the strong coupling constant from the inclusive jet cross section in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV

Peer reviewe

Measurement of prompt J/ψ pair production in pp collisions at √s = 7 Tev

Peer reviewe

Study of hadronic event-shape variables in multijet final states in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV

Peer reviewe

Measurement of top quark–antiquark pair production in association with a W or Z boson in pp collisions at √s=8 TeV

Peer reviewe

The Builders of the Oceans – Part I: Coral Architecture from the Tropics to the Poles, from the Shallow to the Deep

At any scale, corals are live buildings. Their carbonate skeletons constitute three-dimensional frameworks allowing the delicate coral polyp to emerge from the sea bottom and populate vast areas of the ocean. These constructions, reminders of the structural complexity found in the forest, are found everywhere in the Earth’s oceans, from the polar regions to the tropics and from the tidal pools to the dark abyssal plains. They can be found as solitary or in modest aggregations of a few centimeters in size or gargantuan colonies of mythological proportions; when many, they can create the largest nonhuman structures built by organisms. Life and death of the coral “trees” are influenced by the mineral architecture and the presence of bioeroders. Shape and size facilitate or restrict their access to food and light and influence structural strength tested by currents and swells. The role that corals play in the oceans defies any attempt at simplification since it transcends the life span of the small polyp, geological time, and ecological space. Long after the polyps are gone, coral skeletons continue to harbor numerous organisms of disparate nature by overgrowing, drilling, and dissolving the carbonates. These chapters are a personal journey into the coral forest of the world’s oceans, with stations along singular aspects of their present and past. Our point of departure is the ecosystem engineering of the coral polyp through the construction of its skeleton, followed by selected examples of human interactions with the “stone from the sea” ( see Chapter “The Builders of the Oceans – Part II: Corals from the Past to the Present (The Stone from the Sea)