Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

The sequence of mudball placement by male fiddler crabs, <i>Uca tangeri</i>

Male Uca tangeri place mudballs in the area surrounding their burrows each low tide to delineate territory boundaries. We investigated the sequence of mudball placement by noting the distance at which each mudball was placed and its location in one of eight sectors around the burrow. Ten of the 13 focal males placed their mudballs in a pattern that was significantly different from random. No relationship was found between mudball distance from burrow and order of placement in the mudball sequence. However, most males placed each mudball in the same or a nearby sector to that of the previous mudball

Mudballing revisited: further investigations into the construction behaviour of male Uca tangeri

Male and female Uca tangeri (the only ddler crab species to inhabit Europe) construct mudballs from mud excavated from within their burrows. Individual males placed similar patterns of mudballs each low tide, suggesting that there is some degree of stereotypy. When mudballs were experimentally moved further from the burrow or closer to it, males only repositioned those that were moved closer, placing them further away again. However, males did not replace mudballs that had been experimentally destroyed at the end of the mudballing phase when they had started to court females. In binary presentation tests, females showed no signi cant differences in response to mudballs made from different types of mud, or different numbers of mudballs. These results are consistent with earlier ndings that male mudballs function as territory boundaries. However, we provide evidence that male mudballs have no function in female attraction, contrasting with previous studies