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1st gene transfer from plant to insect + Is the dingo a dog? (identity debate renews)

#1
C C Offline
Why do humans have bigger brains than apes? - Researchers identify key genetic switch in brains grown in a dish.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/evolut...than-apes/


First known gene transfer from plant to insect identified
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-0...-w#ref-CR1

EXCERPT: A pernicious agricultural pest owes some of its success to a gene pilfered from its plant host millions of years ago. The finding, reported in Cell, is the first known example of a natural gene transfer from a plant to an insect. It also explains one reason why the whitefly Bemisia tabaci is so adept at munching on crops: the gene that it swiped from plants enables it to neutralize a toxin that some plants produce to defend against insects.

Early work suggests that inhibiting this gene can render the whiteflies vulnerable to the toxin, providing a potential route to combating the pest. “This exposes a mechanism through which we can tip the scales back in the plant’s favour,” says Andrew Gloss, who studies plant–pest interactions at the University of Chicago in Illinois. “It’s a remarkable example of how studying evolution can inform new approaches for applications like crop protection.”

[...] That some species of whitefly could owe part of their predatory prowess to genes from other organisms is not entirely surprising, because genetic thievery is common in the arms race between plants and their pests. Over millions of years, plants and insects alike have borrowed heavily from microbial genomes, sometimes using their newly acquired genes to develop defensive or offensive strategies.


[...] But how the whitefly managed to swipe a plant gene is unclear. One possibility, says Turlings, is that a virus served as an intermediate, shuttling genetic material from a plant into the whitefly genome. As researchers sequence more genomes, it’s possible that they’ll uncover more examples of gene transfer between plants and animals, says Gloss... (MORE - details)


How much of a dog is a dingo? New research rekindles identity debate
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021.../100014928

EXCERPTS: . . . But pure dingoes may not be as rare as we think, according to authors of a new genetic study. "While some dingoes have a dash of domestic dog, as a population they are retaining their genetic identity," researcher Kylie Cairns of the University of New South Wales said.

But she found there was less genetic purity of dingoes in states where there is more culling of the animals as "wild dogs". "If we want to keep dingoes in the wild, we need to reduce culling and we need to think better about how we do it," Dr Cairns said.

The new research, published in the CSIRO journal Australian Mammalogy, has renewed longstanding debates about the identity of the dingo and how to manage it. Researchers announced in 2015 that genetic tests had shown "extensive hybridisation" between dingoes and domestic dogs was amounting to "death by sex in an Australian icon". Dr Cairns and colleagues challenge these conclusions in their analysis of DNA samples from over 5,000 wild canids.

[...] "Over the past 200 years there's definitely been a process of hybridisation … but the animals that are in the wild are still mostly dingo," said Dr Cairns, who is supported by a grant from the Australian Dingo Foundation. ... Dingoes are a native predator that play an important role in the ecology and should not be killed in national parks, Dr Cairns said. Culling should not be carried out in the dingo breeding season, and needs to be more targeted to areas where there are stock losses, she added.

But Peter Fleming, a research leader at the NSW Department of Primary Industry, disagrees with the conclusions made by Dr Cairns and her colleagues. He said the data in the new paper in fact showed a lot of similarities to earlier research he co-authored, which found hybridisation was extensive.

But Dr Cairns and colleagues had used different definitions of key terms, Dr Fleming added. “It’s a bit of a straw man argument. First of all you redefine what 'feral' is, you redefine what a 'pure dingo' is, and then all the arguments fall into place afterwards. Dr Fleming said dingoes were in greater numbers now than before European settlement, and that culling was necessary to prevent negative impacts on livestock, wildlife and human wellbeing. [...]
"There is no data to support the idea that culling is a threat to dingo purity," Dr Fleming said.

[...] At the heart of the disagreement appears to be a question of whether dingoes are so different from dogs they should be considered their own species (called Canis dingo instead of Canis familiaris). “Cairns et al. refuse to accept the verdict of Australian and international taxonomists that all dogs, including dingoes, are Canis familiaris,” Dr Fleming said.

But some scientists like Dr Cairns argue dingoes can be distinguished as a separate species from domestic dogs in a range of ways... (MORE - details)
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#2
Zinjanthropos Offline
When Dingoes start humping your leg, you'll know the battle is lost... It's become a dog then. Not even a wild animal is safe from your pet pooch. I am in favour of releasing canines back into the wild. With the exception of dogs that actually do work, let domesticated dogs be bred out. That one TV show about what would happen if all humans suddenly disappeared said it would only take only 25 years for the special breeds to be eliminated entirely.
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