Intraspecific mitochondrial gene variation can be as low as that of nuclear rRNA:
- Authors: Matumba, Tshifhiwa G , Oliver, Jody , Barker, Nigel P , McQuaid, Christopher D , Teske, Peter R
- Date: 2020
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/160401 , vital:40442 , https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.23635.2
- Description: Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has long been used to date historical demographic events. The idea that it is useful for molecular dating rests on the premise that its evolution is neutral. Even though this idea has long been challenged, the evidence against clock-like evolution of mtDNA is often ignored. Here, we present a particularly clear and simple example to illustrate the implications of violations of the assumption of selective neutrality.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Modern supratidal microbialites fed by groundwater: functional drivers, value and trajectories
- Authors: Rishworth, Gavin M , Dodd, Carla , Perissinotto, Renzo , Bornman, Thomas G , Adams, Janine B , Anderson, Callum R , Cawthra, Hayley C , Dorrington, Hayley C , du Toit, Hendrik , Edworthy, Carla , Gibb, Ross-Lynne A , Human, Lucienne R D , Isemonger, Eric W , Lemley, David A , Miranda, Nelson A , Peer, Nasreen , Raw, Jacqueline L , Smith, Alan M , Steyn, Paul-Pierre , Strydom, Nadine A , Teske, Peter R , Welman, Peter R
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/426008 , vital:72306 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2020.103364"
- Description: Microbial mats were the dominant habitat type in shallow marine environments between the Palaeoarchean and Phanerozoic. Many of these (termed ‘microbialites’) calcified as they grew but such lithified mats are rare along modern coasts for reasons such as unsuitable water chemistry, destructive metazoan influences and competition with other reef-builders such as corals or macroalgae. Nonetheless, extant microbialites occur in unique coastal ecosystems such as the Exuma Cays, Bahamas or Lake Clifton and Hamelin Pool, Australia, where limitations such as calcium carbonate availability or destructive bioturbation are diminished. Along the coast of South Africa, extensive distributions of living microbialites (including layered stromatolites) have been discovered and described since the early 2000s. Unlike the Bahamian and Australian ecosystems, the South African microbialites form exclusively in the supratidal coastal zone at the convergence of emergent groundwater seepage. Similar systems were documented subsequently in southwestern Australia, Northern Ireland and the Scottish Hebrides, as recently as 2018, revealing that supratidal microbialites have a global distribution. This review uses the best-studied formations to contextualise formative drivers and processes of these supratidal ecosystems and highlight their geological, ecological and societal relevance.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020