Fluorescence in situ hybridization: a new method for determining primary sex ratio in ants

Abstract The haplodiploid sex determining system in Hymenoptera, whereby males develop from haploid eggs and females from diploid eggs, allows females to control the primary sex ratio (the proportion of each sex at oviposition) in response to ecological and /or genetic conditions. Surprisingly, primary sex ratio adjustment by queens in eusocial Hymenoptera has been poorly studied, because of difficulties in sexing the eggs laid. Here, we show that fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) can be used to accurately determine the sex (haploid or diploid) of eggs, and hence the primary sex ratio, in ants. We first isolated the homologue coding sequences of the abdominal-A gene from 10 species of 8 subfamilies of Formicidae. Our data show that the nucleotide sequence of this gene is highly conserved among the different subfamilies. Second, we used a sequence of 4.5 kbp from this gene as a DNA probe for primary sex ratio determination by FISH. Our results show that this DNA probe hybridizes successfully with its complementary DNA sequence in all ant species tested, and allows reliable determination of the sex of eggs. Our proposed method should greatly facilitate empirical tests of primary sex ratio in ants

Initiation of ensemble data assimilation

A B S T R A C T The specification of the initial ensemble for ensemble data assimilation is addressed. The presented work examines the impact of ensemble initiation in the Maximum Likelihood Ensemble Filter (MLEF) framework, but is also applicable to other ensemble data assimilation algorithms. Two methods are considered: the first is based on the use of the KardarParisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation to form sparse random perturbations, followed by spatial smoothing to enforce desired correlation structure, while the second is based on the spatial smoothing of initially uncorrelated random perturbations. Data assimilation experiments are conducted using a global shallow-water model and simulated observations. The two proposed methods are compared to the commonly used method of uncorrelated random perturbations. The results indicate that the impact of the initial correlations in ensemble data assimilation is beneficial. The root-mean-square error rate of convergence of the data assimilation is improved, and the positive impact of initial correlations is notable throughout the data assimilation cycles. The sensitivity to the choice of the correlation length scale exists, although it is not very high. The implied computational savings and improvement of the results may be important in future realistic applications of ensemble data assimilation

Universal decay of scalar turbulence

The asymptotic decay of passive scalar fields is solved analytically for the Kraichnan model, where the velocity has a short correlation time. At long times, two universality classes are found, both characterized by a distribution of the scalar -- generally non-Gaussian -- with global self-similar evolution in time. Analogous behavior is found numerically with a more realistic flow resulting from an inverse energy cascade.Comment: 4 pages, 3 Postscript figures, submitted to PR

Molecular Systematics and Biogeography of Crawfurdia, Metagentiana and Tripterospermum (Gentianaceae) Based on Nuclear Ribosomal and Plastid DNA Sequences

Background and Aims The systematic position of the genus Metagentiana and its phylogenetic relationships with Crawfurdia, Gentiana and Tripterospermum have not been explicitly addressed. These four genera belong to one of two subtribes (Gentianinae) of Gentianeae. The aim of this paper is to examine the systematic position of Crawfurdia, Metagentiana and Tripterospermum and to clarify their phylogenetic affinities more clearly using ITS and trnL intron sequences. Methods Nucleotide sequences from the internal transcribed spacers (ITS) of nuclear ribosomal DNA and the plastid DNA trnL (UAA) intron were analysed phylogenetically. Ten of fourteen Metagentiana species were sampled, together with 40 species of other genera in the subtribe Gentianinae. Key Results The data support several previously published conclusions relating to the separation of Metagentiana from Gentiana and its closer relationships to Crawfurdia and Tripterospermum based on studies of gross morphology, floral anatomy, chromosomes, palynology, embryology and previous molecular data. The molecular clock hypothesis for the tested sequences in subtribe Gentianinae was not supported by the data (P < 0Á05), so the clockindependent non-parametric rate smoothing method was used to estimate divergence time. This indicates that the separation of Crawfurdia, Metagentiana and Tripterospermum from Gentiana occurred about 11Á4-21Á4 Mya (million years ago), and the current species of these three genera diverged at times ranging from 0Á4 to 6Á2 Mya. Conclusions The molecular analyses revealed that Crawfurdia, Metagentiana and Tripterospermum do not merit status as three separate genera, because sampled species of Crawfurdia and Tripterospermum are embedded within Metagentiana. The speciation and rapid radiation of these three genera is likely to have occurred in western China as a result of upthrust of the Himalayas during the late Miocene and the Pleistocene

Four-dimensional ensemble Kalman filtering

A B S T R A C T Ensemble Kalman filtering was developed as a way to assimilate observed data to track the current state in a computational model. In this paper we show that the ensemble approach makes possible an additional benefit: the timing of observations, whether they occur at the assimilation time or at some earlier or later time, can be effectively accounted for at low computational expense. In the case of linear dynamics, the technique is equivalent to instantaneously assimilating data as they are measured. The results of numerical tests of the technique on a simple model problem are shown

Evolution of emission line activity in intermediate mass young stars

We present optical spectra of 45 intermediate mass Herbig Ae/Be stars. Together with the multi-epoch spectroscopic and photometric data compiled for a large sample of these stars and ages estimated for individual stars by using pre-main sequence evolutionary tracks, we have studied the evolution of emission line activity in them. We find that, on average, the H_alpha emission line strength decreases with increasing stellar age in HAeBe stars, indicating that the accretion activity gradually declines during the PMS phase. This would hint at a relatively long-lived (a few Myr) process being responsible for the cessation of accretion in Herbig Ae/Be stars. We also find that the accretion activity in these stars drops substantially by ~ 3 Myr. This is comparable to the timescale in which most intermediate mass stars are thought to lose their inner disks, suggesting that inner disks in intermediate mass stars are dissipated rapidly after the accretion activity has fallen below a certain level. We, further find a relatively tight correlation between strength of the emission line and near-infrared excess due to inner disks in HAeBe stars, indicating that the disks around Herbig Ae/Be stars cannot be entirely passive. We suggest that this correlation can be understood within the frame work of the puffed-up inner rim disk models if the radiation from the accretion shock is also responsible for the disk heating.Comment: 39 pages, accepted for publication in Ap

Absence of Meissner State and Robust Ferromagnetism in the Superconducting State of UCoGe: Possible Evidence of Spontaneous Vortex State

We report ac magnetic susceptibility and dc magnetization measurements on the superconducting ferromagnet UCoGe (with superconducting and Curie temperatures of $T_{{\rm SC}} \sim 0.5$~K and $T_{{\rm Curie}} \sim 2.5$~K, respectively). In the normal, ferromagnetic state ($T_{{\rm SC}} < T < T_{{\rm Curie}}$), the magnetization curve exhibits a hysteresis loop similar to that of a regular itinerant ferromagnet. Upon lowering the temperature below $T_{{\rm SC}}$, the spontaneous magnetization is unchanged, but the hysteresis is markedly enhanced. Even deeply inside the superconducting state, ferromagnetism is not completely shielded, and there is no Meissner region, a magnetic field region of $H < H_{\rm c1}$ (a lower critical field). From these results, we suggest that UCoGe is the first material in which ferromagnetism robustly survives in the superconducting state and a spontaneous vortex state without the Meissner state is realized.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to be published in J. Phys. Soc. Jp

Identification and characterization of microsatellite loci in the common fig ( Ficus carica L.) and representative species of the genus Ficus

Abstract We developed microsatellites in Keywords : Ficus , fig cultivars, microsatellites Received 4 January 2001; revision received 19 February 2001; accepted 8 March 2001 The fig-pollinator mutualism is a model system for the study of coevolution In this note, we report the development of eight microsatellite primers from F. carica and their polymorphism in fig cultivars and two French wild-growing populations. We also report results of amplification on species of Ficus covering the whole phylogeny of the genus Genomic DNA from the French cultivar &apos;Violette de Solliès&apos; of F. carica was digested with Rsa I. DNA fragments were ligated to synthetic adapters, denatured and hybridized to biotinylated (TC) 15 and (TG) 15 oligonucleotides. Oligofragment hybrids were selectively separated from the remaining DNA using streptavid-coated paramagnetic beads (Streptavidin MagneSphere Paramagnetic Particles, Promega). The DNA fragments containing simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were eluted as single strands from beads and the second strand was regenerated and amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), using an adapterspecific primer For PCR, DNA was extracted from 100 mg of frozen material (leaves) according to the Dneasy Plant Mini Kit (Qiagen) with the following modification: 1% of Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP 40 000) was added to buffer AP1. . The samples were denatured by incubation at 95 ° for 5 min and placed on ice. Four µ L of each sample were loaded onto 6% denaturing polyacrylamide gels (7.5 m urea, 6% acrylamide, 1 × TBE). The gels were run in 1 × TBE at 70 W. Microsatellites were visualized by silver staining with a commercial kit (Promega)

Nonperturbative Evolution Equation for Quantum Gravity

A scale--dependent effective action for gravity is introduced and an exact nonperturbative evolution equation is derived which governs its renormalization group flow. It is invariant under general coordinate transformations and satisfies modified BRS Ward--Identities. The evolution equation is solved for a simple truncation of the space of actions. In 2+epsilon dimensions, nonperturbative corrections to the beta--function of Newton's constant are derived and its dependence on the cosmological constant is investigated. In 4 dimensions, Einstein gravity is found to be ``antiscreening'', i.e., Newton's constant increases at large distances.Comment: 35 pages, late

Analytic calculation of nonadiabatic transition probabilities from monodromy of differential equations

The nonadiabatic transition probabilities in the two-level systems are calculated analytically by using the monodromy matrix determining the global feature of the underlying differential equation. We study the time-dependent 2x2 Hamiltonian with the tanh-type plus sech-type energy difference and with constant off-diagonal elements as an example to show the efficiency of the monodromy approach. The application of this method to multi-level systems is also discussed.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure