Contact-mediated control of radial migration of corneal epithelial cells

We thank Darrin Sheppard and other staff at the University of Aberdeen Medical Research Facility for specialist technical assistance. We thank Patsy D. Goast for overnight microscope monitoring. This work was performed under the Biotechnology and Bioscience Research Council Grant number BB/E015840/1 to JMC.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Taxonomic status of the Liberian Greenbul Phyllastrephus leucolepis and the conservation importance of the Cavalla Forest, Liberia

We thank Jochen Martens for his long-lasting patience in dealing with the specimen of leucolepis, and Brian Hillcoat for comments and advice. It is hardly possible to thank by name all those who have supported WG over the past 30 years and more since 1981 in the fields of forest ecology and ornithology in eastern Liberia. In particular, we express gratitude to Alex Peal and Theo Freeman, both Heads of Wildlife and National Parks, for their many years of cooperation, and the Silviculture Officers Wynn Bryant, Momo Kromah and Steve Miapeh. The knowledge of the tree experts Joe Keper and Daniel Dorbor helped us to gain insights into the ecological complexities of the relationship between man, birds and trees. William Toe worked for three years as bird trapper and assistant in bird banding. WG’s attachment to the University of Liberia and to the students who so often accompanied him was made possible by Ben Karmorh from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and University of Liberia. NABU, the German Conservation Society, has supported the Liberian projects for almost 30 years now. We also thank Nigel Collar, Françoise Dowsett-Lemaire and Hannah Rowland for comments and advice. We thank the African Bird Club and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds for helping to fund the 2013 expedition to the Cavalla Forest, in particular Alice Ward-Francis, Robert Sheldon, Alan Williams and Keith Betton. We also are extremely grateful to Michael Garbo and staff of the Society for the Conservation of Nature in Liberia for all manner of help with the expedition, to Harrison Karnwea and colleagues at the Forest Development Authority of Liberia for permissions and other support, as well as to Emmanuel Loqueh, Trokon Grimes, Flomo Molubah and Amos ‘Dweh’ Dorbor for being such excellent companions in the field. YL performed the genetic work as part of her M.Sc. (Genetics) at the University of Aberdeen, whose support is acknowledged.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Multi-locus barcoding confirms the occurrence of Elegant Tern in Western Europe

We are very grateful to the following people who helped in various ways with sample collection: Jérome Fuchs and Eric Pasquet (National Museum of Natural History, Paris), Sharon M. Birks (Burke Museum of Naturel History of Seattle), Charlotte Francesiaz, Benjamin Vollot and Gilles Balança (Sandwich Tern, France), Charles Collins (Elegant Tern, USA), Arnaud Lenoble (Royal Tern, Guadeloupe), Lorien Pichegru (Crested Tern, South Africa), Abdulmaula Hamza (Lesser Crested Tern, Libya) and Clive Barlow (The Gambia). Marcio Efe and Eli Bridge helped with genotyping and shared unpublished sequences. We thank Juan Antonio Gómez for advice and Miguel Chardí and Francisco Javier García-Gans for field assistance in Valencia (Spain). Mathias Grandpierre (Société pour l’Etude et l’Aménagement de la Nature dans le Sud-Ouest) helped with fieldwork at the Banc d’Arguin (France). All the experiments comply with the current laws of the country in which they were performed.Peer reviewedPostprin

What is John Latham’s Rose-fronted Parrot?

Funding Information: We are grateful to two reviewers whose comments substantially improved the submitted manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The molecular basis of defective lens development in the Iberian mole

Background: Fossorial mammals face natural selection pressures that differ from those acting on surface dwelling animals, and these may lead to reduced visual system development. We have studied eye development in a species of true mole, the Iberian mole Talpa occidentalis, and present the molecular basis of abnormal lens development. This is the first embryological developmental study of the eyes of any fossorial mammal at the molecular level. Results: Lens fibre differentiation is not completed in the Iberian mole. Although eye development starts normally (similar to other model species), defects are seen after closure of the lens vesicle. PAX6 is not down-regulated in developing lens fibre nuclei, as it is in other species, and there is ectopic expression of FOXE3, a putative downstream effector of PAX6, in some, but not all lens fibres. FOXE3-positive lens fibres continue to proliferate within the posterior compartment of the embryonic lens, but unlike in the mouse, no proliferation was detected anywhere in the postnatal mole lens. The undifferentiated status of the anterior epithelial cells was compromised, and most of them undergo apoptosis. Furthermore, β-crystallin and PROX1 expression patterns are abnormal and our data suggest that genes encoding β-crystallins are not directly regulated by PAX6, c-MAF and PROX1 in the Iberian mole, as they are in other model vertebrates. Conclusion: In other model vertebrates, genetic pathways controlling lens development robustly compartmentalise the lens into a simple, undifferentiated, proliferative anterior epithelium, and quiescent, anuclear, terminally differentiated posterior lens fibres. These pathways are not as robust in the mole, and lead to loss of the anterior epithelial phenotype and only partial differentiation of the lens fibres, which continue to express 'epithelial' genes. Paradigms of genetic regulatory networks developed in other vertebrates appear not to hold true for the Iberian mole.This work was supported by the Alfonso Martín Escudero Foundation and Junta de Andalucía through Group PAI CVI-109 (BIO-109). Work in JMC's laboratory is supported by Wellcome Trust grant 074127 and BBSRC grant BB/E015840/1

Limbal epithelial stem cell activity and corneal epithelial cell cycle parameters in adult and aging mice

NS was funded by a Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia PhD studentship. LK was funded by Saving Sight in Grampian, University of Aberdeen Development Trust. This work was performed under University of Aberdeen Development Trust Funding (‘Research into Corneal Blindness’) to JMC, LE and NV and BBSRC Research Grant BB/J015237/1 to JMC.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The tangled nomenclatural history of Haplopelia forbesi Salvadori, 1904 : Were Forbes and Robinson right all along?

Acknowledgements: Alex Bond (NHMUK) and Rachel Petts (Manchester Museum) provided information about the only other specimen known to have been identified as Haplopelia forbesi. We are grateful to Martim Melo and Luís Lima Valente for access to Hugo José Eira Pereira's M.Sc. thesis and information about recent Lemon Dove samples collected in the Gulf of Guinea. We are indebted to Peter Jones for invaluable comments on the manuscript. Robert Prŷs-Jones, Alan Tye and an anonymous reviewer provided very helpful suggestions on the submitted draft.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

First genetic data for the critically endangered Cuban endemic Zapata Rail Cyanolimnas cerverai, and the taxonomic implications

Funding Information: GMK and AK are grateful to staff, particularly Ianela García-Lau, Manolo Barro and volunteers at the Museo de Historia Natural ‘Felipe Poey’, La Habana, Cuba, for access to relevant specimens. This study was funded by University of Aberdeen (AB) and The Sound Approach Ph.D. Studentship (TJS).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Computer simulation of neutral drift among limbal epithelial stem cells of mosaic mice

Acknowledgements We thank Graham West for writing the software that made this study possible and Ronnie Grant for help with some of the figures. Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest The authors indicate no potential conflicts of interest. Funding information This work was supported by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (grants BB/J015172/1 and BB/J015237/1).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Penetrance of eye defects in mice heterozygous for mutation of Gli3 is enhanced by heterozygous mutation of Pax6

BACKGROUND: Knowledge of the consequences of heterozygous mutations of developmentally important genes is important for understanding human genetic disorders. The Gli3 gene encodes a zinc finger transcription factor and homozygous loss-of-function mutations of Gli3 are lethal. Humans heterozygous for mutations in this gene suffer Greig cephalopolysyndactyly or Pallister-Hall syndromes, in which limb defects are prominent, and mice heterozygous for similar mutations have extra digits. Here we examined whether eye development, which is abnormal in mice lacking functional Gli3, is defective in Gli3(+/- )mice. RESULTS: We showed that Gli3 is expressed in the developing eye but that Gli3(+/- )mice have only very subtle eye defects. We then generated mice compound heterozygous for mutations in both Gli3 and Pax6, which encodes another developmentally important transcription factor known to be crucial for eye development. Pax6(+/-); Gli3(+/- )eyes were compared to the eyes of wild-type, Pax6(+/- )or Gli3(+/- )siblings. They exhibited a range of abnormalities of the retina, iris, lens and cornea that was more extensive than in single Gli3(+/- )or Pax6(+/- )mutants or than would be predicted by addition of their phenotypes. CONCLUSION: These findings indicate that heterozygous mutations of Gli3 can impact on eye development. The importance of a normal Gli3 gene dosage becomes greater in the absence of a normal Pax6 gene dosage, suggesting that the two genes co-operate during eye morphogenesis