The analysis of 627 bp of the C-terminal of cyt b and the hypervariable left domain of the noncoding control region (labeled as MDL fragment) sequences revealed the existence of two mtDNA lineages (a and beta clade). Analysis of the MDL confirmed that North American captive Asian elephants belong to either the previously characterized

a or beta clade. An average nucleotide diversity of 0.017 was observed for the Asian elephant mtDNA MDL fragment sequences. Regardless whether an individual possessed mtDNA a or beta clade haplotype, all individuals belonged to one nuclear gene lineage for the two X-linked (BGN and PHKA2) and one Y-linked (AMELY) genes sequenced. Analysis of multilocus genotypes indicated an average observed and expected heterozygosities were 0.543 and selleck Selleck NSC-23766 0.539 in wild-sourced and 0.579 and 0.547 in the captive-born Asian elephants, respectively. No subdivision among the sampled individuals was detected, including data partitioned by mtDNA clades. Aside from parentoffspring dyads, no further relationships were detected among wild-sourced and captive-born Asian elephants (average relatedness value <0.000).”
“Clinical

studies have suggested that bla(OXA-40)-positive Acinetobacter baumannii isolates are associated with poor patient outcomes; however, reasons for unfavorable outcomes are difficult to discern in clinical studies. The objective of this study was to assess the virulence of carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii according to bla(OXA-40) and epidemiological outbreak status in a Galleria mellonella Proteasome structure model. Eight isolates of A. baumannii were studied. Nonoutbreak isolates and bla(OXA-40)-negative isolates more rapidly killed infected G. mellonella (P smaller than 0.01).”
“Beta diversity describes how local communities within an area or region differ in species composition/abundance.

There have been attempts to use changes in beta diversity as a biotic indicator of disturbance, but lack of theory and methodological caveats have hampered progress. We here propose that the neutral theory of biodiversity plus the definition of beta diversity as the total variance of a community matrix provide a suitable, novel, starting point for ecological applications. Observed levels of beta diversity (BD) can be compared to neutral predictions with three possible outcomes: Observed BD equals neutral prediction or is larger (divergence) or smaller (convergence) than the neutral prediction. Disturbance might lead to either divergence or convergence, depending on type and strength. We here apply these ideas to datasets collected on oribatid mites (a key, very diverse soil taxon) under several regimes of disturbances. When disturbance is expected to increase the heterogeneity of soil spatial properties or the sampling strategy encompassed a range of diverging environmental conditions, we observed diverging assemblages.