Entire Tree Research Articles

Adversarial decisions on complex dynamical systems using game theory

We apply computational Game Theory to a unification of physics-based models that represent decision-making across a number of agents within both cooperative and competitive processes. Here the competitors try to both positively influence their own returns, while negatively affecting those of their competitors. Modelling these interactions with the so-called Boyd–Kuramoto–Lanchester (BKL) complex dynamical system model yields results that can be applied to business, gaming and security contexts. This paper studies a class of decision problems on the BKL model, where a large set of coupled, switching dynamical systems are analysed using game-theoretic methods.Due to their size, the computational cost of solving these BKL games becomes the dominant factor in the solution process. To resolve this, we introduce a novel Nash Dominant solver, which is both numerically efficient and exact. The performance of this new solution technique is compared to traditional exact solvers, which traverse the entire game tree, as well as to approximate solvers such as Myopic and Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS). These techniques are assessed, and used to gain insights into both nonlinear dynamical systems and strategic decision making in adversarial environments.

Observer repeatability and interscan reproducibility of 18F-sodium fluoride coronary microcalcification activity

BackgroundWe aimed to establish the observer repeatability and interscan reproducibility of coronary 18F-sodium-fluoride positron emission tomography (PET) uptake using a novel semi-automated approach, coronary microcalcification activity (CMA). MethodsPatients with multivessel coronary artery disease underwent repeated hybrid PET and computed tomography angiography (CTA) imaging (PET/CTA). CMA was defined as the integrated standardized uptake values (SUV) in the entire coronary tree exceeding 2 standard deviations above the background SUV. Coefficients of repeatability between the same observer (intraobserver repeatability), between 2 observers (interobserver repeatability) and coefficient of reproducibility between 2 scans (interscan reproducibility), were determined at vessel and patient level. ResultsIn 19 patients, CMA was assessed twice in 43 coronary vessels on two PET/CT scans performed 12 ± 5 days apart. There was excellent intraclass correlation for intraobserver and interobserver repeatability as well as interscan reproducibility (all ≥ 0.991). There was 100% intraobserver, interobserver and interscan agreement for the presence (CMA > 0) or absence (CMA = 0) of coronary18F-NaF uptake. Mean CMA was 3.12 ± 0.62 with coefficients of repeatability of ≤ 10% for all measures: intraobserver 0.24 and 0.22, interobserver 0.30 and 0.29 and interscan 0.33 and 0.32 at a per-vessel and per-patient level, respectively. ConclusionsCMA is a repeatable and reproducible global measure of coronary atherosclerotic activity.

Ultrahigh-density genetic map construction and identification of quantitative trait loci for growth in rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis)

Ultrahigh-density genetic mapping is used extensively for gene discovery, mapping quantitative trait loci (QTL), and assisting in crop breeding. However, genetic mapping of rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis) has hitherto been limited in terms of both types and resolution. In this study, 214 F1 progenies derived from a cross of IAN 873 × REYAN 106 were genotyped via a whole-genome resequencing-based (WGRS) approach. From the 44,438,656 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) obtained from the genotyping, an ultrahigh-density genetic map was constructed using 203,124 SNPs, which included 2099.12 cM across eighteen linkage groups of the entire rubber tree genome. To the best of our knowledge, an ultrahigh-density genetic map of a rubber tree constructed via the WGRS approach has not yet been reported in literature. Two phenotypes associated with growth, namely, the girth at breast height (GBH) and tree height (TH), were investigated under a six-month interval. A total of six QTLs were found, in which qGBH11 and qGBH18 were detected repeatedly. Based on the physical positions of the bin markers that flank the QTLs, 47 genes identified within the qGBH11 locus, as well as the gene HB11G00752, were selected as the candidate genes that encodes ent-kaur-16-ene synthase (KS), regulating gibberellin biosynthesis. The search results for the KS gene family in the genome indicated that six out of ten KS family members were located in the qGBH11 allele. Expression analysis further shed light on the differential expressions of the KS family genes between F1 individuals having fast and slow growth. These results are expected to provide new insight into the genomic regions that control growth in rubber trees, and also facilitate the development of more effective approaches for breeding fast-growing timber latex clones.

Darwinian genomics and diversity in the tree of life

Genomics encompasses the entire tree of life, both extinct and extant, and the evolutionary processes that shape this diversity. To date, genomic research has focused on humans, a small number of agricultural species, and established laboratory models. Fewer than 18,000 of ∼2,000,000 eukaryotic species (<1%) have a representative genome sequence in GenBank, and only a fraction of these have ancillary information on genome structure, genetic variation, gene expression, epigenetic modifications, and population diversity. This imbalance reflects a perception that human studies are paramount in disease research. Yet understanding how genomes work, and how genetic variation shapes phenotypes, requires a broad view that embraces the vast diversity of life. We have the technology to collect massive and exquisitely detailed datasets about the world, but expertise is siloed into distinct fields. A new approach, integrating comparative genomics with cell and evolutionary biology, ecology, archaeology, anthropology, and conservation biology, is essential for understanding and protecting ourselves and our world. Here, we describe potential for scientific discovery when comparative genomics works in close collaboration with a broad range of fields as well as the technical, scientific, and social constraints that must be addressed.

Characterization and Control of Thielaviopsis punctulata on Date Palm in Saudi Arabia.

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is the most important edible fruit crop in Saudi Arabia. Date palm cultivation and productivity are severely affected by various fungal diseases in date palm-producing countries. In recent years, black scorch disease has emerged as a devastating disease affecting date palm cultivation in the Arabian Peninsula. In the current survey, leaves and root samples were collected from deteriorated date palm trees showing variable symptoms of neck bending, leaf drying, tissue necrosis, wilting, and mortality of the entire tree in the Al-Ahsa region of Saudi Arabia. During microscopic examination, the fungus isolates growing on potato dextrose agar (PDA) media produced thick-walled chlamydospores and endoconidia. The morphological characterization confirmed the presence of Thielaviopsis punctulata in the date palm plant samples as the potential agent of black scorch disease. The results were further confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), sequencing, and phylogenetic dendrograms of partial regions of the ITS, TEF1-α, and β-tubulin genes. The nucleotide sequence comparison showed that the T. punctulata isolates were 99.9–100% identical to each other and to the T. punctulata isolate identified from Iraq-infecting date palm trees. The pathogenicity of the three selected T. punctulata isolates was also confirmed on date palm plants of Khalas cultivar. The morphological, molecular, and pathogenicity results confirmed that T. punctulata causes black scorch disease in symptomatic date palm plants in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, seven commercially available fungicides were also tested for their potential efficacy to control black scorch disease. The in vitro application of the three fungicides Aliette, Score, and Tachigazole reduced the fungal growth zone by 86–100%, respectively, whereas the in vivo studies determined that the fungicides Aliette and Score significantly impeded the mycelial progression of T. punctulata with 40% and 73% efficiency, respectively. These fungicides can be used in integrated disease management (IDM) strategies to curb black scorch disease.

Canopy-attention-YOLOv4-based immature/mature apple fruit detection on dense-foliage tree architectures for early crop load estimation

Accurate detection of both immature and mature apples in orchard environments is essential for early crop load management. A near real-time method is proposed in this study for detecting green (early-stage), green–red-mixed (mid-stage; red varieties), or red apples (harvest-stage; red varieties). Both the number of fruits and fruit size were estimated for the entire tree with a single image captured by a low-cost smartphone using two different imaging methods (oblique and panorama modes). An attention mechanism module called the convolutional block attention module (CBAM) was added to the generic YOLOv4 detector to improve the detection accuracy by only focusing on the target canopies. Furthermore, an adaptive layer and larger-scale feature map were included in the modified network structure, enabling it to adapt to various characteristics of fruits and canopies during the entire growing season, such as different fruit colors and sizes, dense-foliage conditions, and severe occlusions. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, we compared our improved model, canopy-attention-YOLOv4 (or CA-YOLOv4), with other commonly adopted models available in the literature, such as the original YOLOv4, Faster R-CNN, and single-shot multibox detector (SSD). Two commonly planted apple varieties, “Envy” and “Scifresh”, were used in the study. The results showed that the proposed CA-YOLOv4 detector performed the best among all the algorithms, with up to ∼3% improvement in terms of fruit counting over the original YOLOv4. With the “Envy” variety, fruit detection accuracies were 86.2%, 87.5%, and 92.6% for the early-, mid-, and harvest stages, respectively, whereas the same were 71.0%, 83.6%, and 86.3% for the “Scifresh” variety, which has denser canopy foliage. Both imaging methods proposed in this study only needed one/single shot targeting the entire fruiting tree, which can be highly efficient for real-world applications in crop load management. Finally, CA-YOLOv4 estimated fruit sizes were compared to manual measurements, achieving up to R2 values of 0.68 in fruit height and 0.66 in fruit width estimations.

Two new stenosis detection methods of coronary angiograms.

Coronary angiography is the "gold standard" for diagnosing coronary artery disease. At present, the methods for detecting and evaluating coronary artery stenosis cannot satisfy the clinical needs, e.g., there is no prior study of detecting stenoses in prespecified vessel segments, which is necessary in clinical practice. Two vascular stenosis detection methods are proposed to assist the diagnosis. The first one is an automatic method, which can automatically extract the entire coronary artery tree and mark all the possible stenoses. The second one is an interactive method. With this method, the user can choose any vessel segment to do further analysis of its stenoses. Experiments show that the proposed methods are robust for angiograms with various vessel structures. The precision, sensitivity, and [Formula: see text] score of the automatic stenosis detection method are 0.821, 0.757, and 0.788, respectively. Further investigation proves that the interactive method can provide a more precise outcome of stenosis detection, and our quantitative analysis is closer to reality. The proposed automatic method and interactive method are effective and can complement each other in clinical practice. The first method can be used for preliminary screening, and the second method can be used for further quantitative analysis. We believe the proposed solution is more suitable for the clinical diagnosis of CAD.

A divide-and-conquer phylogenomic approach based on character supermatrices resolves early steps in the evolution of the Archaea

BackgroundThe recent rise in cultivation-independent genome sequencing has provided key material to explore uncharted branches of the Tree of Life. This has been particularly spectacular concerning the Archaea, projecting them at the center stage as prominently relevant to understand early stages in evolution and the emergence of fundamental metabolisms as well as the origin of eukaryotes. Yet, resolving deep divergences remains a challenging task due to well-known tree-reconstruction artefacts and biases in extracting robust ancient phylogenetic signal, notably when analyzing data sets including the three Domains of Life. Among the various strategies aimed at mitigating these problems, divide-and-conquer approaches remain poorly explored, and have been primarily based on reconciliation among single gene trees which however notoriously lack ancient phylogenetic signal.ResultsWe analyzed sub-sets of full supermatrices covering the whole Tree of Life with specific taxonomic sampling to robustly resolve different parts of the archaeal phylogeny in light of their current diversity. Our results strongly support the existence and early emergence of two main clades, Cluster I and Cluster II, which we name Ouranosarchaea and Gaiarchaea, and we clarify the placement of important novel archaeal lineages within these two clades. However, the monophyly and branching of the fast evolving nanosized DPANN members remains unclear and worth of further study.ConclusionsWe inferred a well resolved rooted phylogeny of the Archaea that includes all recently described phyla of high taxonomic rank. This phylogeny represents a valuable reference to study the evolutionary events associated to the early steps of the diversification of the archaeal domain. Beyond the specifics of archaeal phylogeny, our results demonstrate the power of divide-and-conquer approaches to resolve deep phylogenetic relationships, which should be applied to progressively resolve the entire Tree of Life.

A systematic review on the materialistic use of Pithecellobium dulce in food formulations

Pithecellobium dulce is a local fruit used to treat many ailments by ancient people due to its extraordinary medicinal qualities. The entire tree, from root to fruit seems to be having one medicinal quality or other. It contains bioactive compounds such as sterols, flavonoids, triterpenoids, tannins and so on and seem to have disease preventing qualities such as antiviral, antibacterial, antioxidant, anti-diabetic, anti-pyretic, anti-helminthic, anti-inflammatory, and sedative activities which are still under investigation. The fruit also contains health promoting nutrients such as proteins, plant steroids, and carbohydrates. This review revolves around the various nutritional properties and incorporation of the fruit aiding in promoting value-added novel food.

Entire Whitening of Apple Trees to Increase Chill Units in Regions of Warm Temperatures during the Fall-Winter Seasons

Different studies have shown that global warming and climate change have increased the planet’s temperature in different locations. For the apple-growing farmers, this may have a negative impact on the accumulations of chill units when the air temperature during the fall-winter season increases. When the entire trees are covered with a reflective material, the wood temperature may decrease. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of whitening (with calcium hydroxide) the entire apple trees (Malus domestica Borkh) after defoliation, on the branches and trunks’ internal temperature (under the bark), the accumulation of chill units (CU), its effects on fruit yield and quality and the relation with the use of thidiazuron (TDZ) (inducer of budbreak). The study was conducted during the fall-winter seasons of 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. The results of this study showed that at the hours of the highest incidence of solar radiation, the internal temperature of the whitened trunks and leaves decreases up to 9°C and 6°C respectively. The accumulated CU during the time of the study, of the whitened branches were up to 81% higher than the ones recorded on the branches with no whitening; while the CU was lost at the hours of highest solar radiation (due to a high temperature) were up to 37.2% smaller. Entire tree whitening increased up to 26% of the yield per tree compared to the application of TDZ. No statistical difference in fruit quality was observed between whitened trees and those with no whitening but with the application of thidiazuron.

Delay in Resection of Choledochal Cysts Highlights the Significance of Malignancy Potential: A Case Report

Risks of choledochal cysts include obstructive jaundice, cholangitis, and malignancy. Therefore, cysts are typically resected especially if symptomatic. A 69 year old female who presented with cholangitis due to a common bile duct stone. Past medical history significant for type III choledochal cyst and recurrent cholangitis. Previous surgical interventions included biliary bypass at age 10 and revision in early 20s; choledochal cyst was not resected at either surgery. Imaging suggested hepaticojejunostomy stricture leading to recurrent cholangitis. Initially patient was very hesitant to undergo any further surgical intervention and opted for close surveillance. Shortly after patient develop rigors and while still reluctant to undergo large procedure did consent to choledochal cyst resection and hepaticojejunostomy revision. During the operation, choledochal cyst identified, mobilized and approximately 80% of it was excised. Hepaticojejunostomy appeared to incorporate remnant gallbladder based on intraoperative evaluation. Cholangiogram was attempted through duct of Luschka but was not completed due to difficult angle and subsequently ligated. New hepaticojejunostomy was created using original roux limb and good biliary drainage of right and left hepatic lobes demonstrated on completion cholangiogram. Final pathology significant for poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma, biliary type in choledochal cyst and remnant gallbladder; additionally bile duct margin showed invasive adenocarcinoma. Patient then underwent a completion pancreaticoduodenectomy with partial hepatectomy for complete oncologic resection. In adults presenting with a symptomatic choledochal cyst, excision should be recommended treatment. Risk of malignancy is present in biliary tree despite resection. Thus, the entire biliary tree should be inspected for multiple areas of neoplasm.

Oscillometry and Asthma Control in Patients With and Without Fixed Airflow Obstruction

Asthma is defined by the presence of reversible airflow limitation, yet persistently abnormal spirometry may develop despite appropriate asthma treatment. Fixed airflow obstruction (FAO) describes abnormal postbronchodilator spirometry that is associated with greater symptom burden and disease severity. Respiratory oscillometry measures the mechanics of the entire airway tree, including peripheral airway changes that have been shown to influence asthma symptoms. To evaluate the relationship between abnormal oscillometry following bronchodilator and symptom control in adults with asthma. A prospective cohort of patients with asthma attending an airways clinic completed oscillometry (resistance and reactance), spirometry, and the Asthma Control Test. Postbronchodilator lung function below the lower limit of normal was considered abnormal. Spirometric FAO was defined as FEV1/forced vital capacity below the lower limit of normal. Spearman's rank coefficient and multiple linear regression were performed to assess associations of lung function parameters with Asthma Control Test. The discriminative ability of abnormal lung function to identify poor asthma control was determined using Cohen's kappa. Ninety patients with asthma were included; 48% had spirometric FAO. Only reactance parameters, not spirometry, significantly related to (rs ≥ 0.315; P < .05) and identified asthma control (r2= 0.236; P < .001). Lung function was more strongly associated with asthma control in patients with FAO compared with those without. Abnormal oscillometry identified an additional 24% of patients with poor asthma control as compared with spirometric FAO. Reactance related to asthma control, independently of spirometric FAO. Abnormal postbronchodilator reactance identified more patients with poor asthma control compared with spirometry. These findings confirm that oscillometry is a relevant lung function test in the clinical assessment of asthma.

The Role of Coronary Physiology in Contemporary Percutaneous Coronary Interventions.

Invasive assessment of coronary physiology has radically changed the paradigm of myocardial revascularization in patients with coronary artery disease. Despite the prognostic improvement associated with ischemia-driven revascularization strategy, functional assessment of angiographic intermediate epicardial stenosis remains largely underused in clinical practice. Multiple tools have been developed or are under development in order to reduce the invasiveness, cost, and extra procedural time associated with the invasive assessment of coronary physiology. Besides epicardial stenosis, a growing body of evidence highlights the role of coronary microcirculation in regulating coronary flow with consequent pathophysiological and clinical and prognostic implications. Adequate assessment of coronary microcirculation function and integrity has then become another component of the decision-making algorithm for optimal diagnosis and treatment of coronary syndromes. This review aims at providing a comprehensive description of tools and techniques currently available in the catheterization laboratory to obtain a thorough and complete functional assessment of the entire coronary tree (both for the epicardial and microvascular compartments).

PRESERVATION OF HIERARCHY STRUCTURES IN RELATIVE DATABASES

Relational database management systems and the SQL language itself do not have any built-in mechanisms for storing and managing hierarchical structures. There are several different ways to represent trees in relational databases. This paper considers the method of modeling hierarchical data structures in the form of Adjacency Lists and Closure Tables. For each method, there are examples of writing queries to solve typical problems encountered when working with tree structures: finding all descendant leaves, all descendants and ancestors of a given leaf, moving a leaf to another ancestor leaf, and deleting leaves with all its descendants. The possibility of using recursive queries when displaying the entire tree in the Adjacency List model is considered. If the depth of the tree is not known, or it is not known at what level the specified element is, the query can not be built by standard means of the SELECT statement, then you need to create a recursive procedure, or write a recursive query. In order to avoid recursion when outputting the whole tree, all nodes of the subtree, and finding the path from a certain place to the root, the modeling of hierarchical data structures is performed in the form of a connection table (Closure Table). This complicates the process of adding a new leaf and moving the leaf to another ancestor leaf. In this case, to simplify the writing of queries, it is suggested to create triggers that will build or rebuild the links. Given the fact that sometimes there is a need to preserve dependent, in particular hierarchical structures in a relational database, you need to be able to plow the model of preservation of such data. The choice of method for solving a specific problem is influenced by the speed of basic operations with trees. Exploring different options for organizing SQL tree structures will allow you to understand and choose the best way to build such a structure in a relational database for a specific task. All SQL queries in this paper were created and tested for Oracle relational databases.

ДЕРЕВООБРАБОТКА У НАСЕЛЕНИЯ ЗАУРАЛЬЯ В ЭПОХУ РАННЕГО МЕТАЛЛА

The article is devoted to woodworking — a complex, multi-level system of stages and operations of the technical and technological process of the Early Metal Age of the Trans-Urals. The natural resources of the forest zone of the region provided the necessary material — wood — for the manufacture of wooden structures, hunting and fishing tools, household and religious products. The technological sequence of woodworking of this time is illustrated in detail by the example of the manufacture of one of the most complex categories of wood products — a sledge runner, discovered in 1928 at the VI Section of the Gorbunovsky peat bog. A set of tools has been defined with which the skid is made: an axe for chopping an entire tree trunk and pre-processing for making a workpiece; an adze for facing the product; chisels with a flat and semicircular blade for cutting holes, additional secondary processing and a lower sliding surface. The skid from the VI Section of the Gorbunovsky peat bog, according to the existing typology, belongs to the keuru type with a U-shaped grooved cross section and holes in the sides, to type B4: it has vertical grooves for hooves and mounting holes. Depending on the design of the recesses and mounting holes on the basis of these runners, it is possible to reconstruct both single-pole and double-pole sleds. In the Early Metal era in the Trans-Urals, woodworking was probably a traditional activity with established techniques and methods of material processing. Logging, splitting and cutting, cutting, planing, scraping, chiseling, drilling and smoothing of wood, as well as the technique of spike connection of parts, using wedges or belt binding, bending, are fixed.

ЛЕСОПАТОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ МОНИТОРИНГ ЛЕСОВ ГОРОДА СТАВРОПОЛЯ

The main purpose of the research is to determine the sanitary and forest pathological state of the entire tree stand of the main forest areas located on the territory of the municipal formation of the city of Stavropol, located in the forest-steppe zone. The relevance for the ecology of a large city of forests, both natural and artifi cial origin, is considered. The characteristics of the forest, its origin and qualitative condition are given. The studies used standard methods of forest taxation and forest pathology survey with appropriate cameral treatment, namely, selective ground observations. An accelerated fall off of petiole oak, Caucasian hornbeam, and common ash was revealed. The main conclusion of the study is that in order to improve the tree stand, it is necessary to carry out sanitary and recreational measures in the form of selective sanitary cutting and harvesting of illiquid wood, as well as detailed observations of the pest population.

Emergence of synaptic organization and computation in dendrites.

Single neurons in the brain exhibit astounding computational capabilities, which gradually emerge throughout development and enable them to become integrated into complex neural circuits. These capabilities derive in part from the precise arrangement of synaptic inputs on the neurons’ dendrites. While the full computational benefits of this arrangement are still unknown, a picture emerges in which synapses organize according to their functional properties across multiple spatial scales. In particular, on the local scale (tens of microns), excitatory synaptic inputs tend to form clusters according to their functional similarity, whereas on the scale of individual dendrites or the entire tree, synaptic inputs exhibit dendritic maps where excitatory synapse function varies smoothly with location on the tree. The development of this organization is supported by inhibitory synapses, which are carefully interleaved with excitatory synapses and can flexibly modulate activity and plasticity of excitatory synapses. Here, we summarize recent experimental and theoretical research on the developmental emergence of this synaptic organization and its impact on neural computations.

Estimating the Potential of Carbon Sequestration in Tree Species of Chintapalle Forest Range, Narsipatnam Division, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India

The potential of carbon sequestration of tree species in the Chintapalle forest range, of Narsipatnam Division, was estimated by using a non-destructive method. The sequestration of 6033 trees belonging to 22 species was investigated; the approximate height of tree species and the diameter at breast height (DBH) were measured for the estimation of CO2 sequestration. The maximum weight of carbon was observed in Pongamia pinnata (L.) Pierre species i.e (37987.06 kg) and the minimum weight of carbon was noted in Phyllanthus emblica L. species i.e is (61.8kg). The total carbon sequestrated by the entire tree species was (2370614.0 kg), The average carbon sequestered was (39865.81 kg). The highest sequestration was noted in the species P. pinnata (L.) Pierre i.e. (139271.95 kg) and the lowest (226.79 kg) was noted in the species P. emblica L. The maximum average DBH with maximum carbon sequestration potential was observed in Ficus benghalensis L. species, with higher total green (AGW) observed in all sites, whereas minimum average DBH with minimum carbon sequestration potential was noted in Bambusa vulgaris species. The regression analysis tests the relationship between two variables. The height of trees has no significant impact on the amount of CO2 sequestered F (32085087175.84, 12946607900) = 2.478262; P ? 0.05, which indicates that the tree height plays an insignificant role in CO2 sequestration (? = 2713.28 P ? 0.05). The dependent variable CO2 sequestered was also regressed on the predictor variable soil organic carbon (SOC) to test the relationship. SOC insignificantly predicted CO2 sequestrated F (5.83, 2.62) = 0.2236; P ? 0.25, indicating that the SOC has an insignificant role in CO2 sequestration (? = 102780.3 P ? 0.05). Insignificant relation was observed between the parameters SOC and height of tree species to the rate of carbon dioxide sequestered, and gave a regression equation of y = 10278x + 50863 with R2 = 0.100; y=2713.285803x-209800.8762 with R2 = 0.55

American fall webworm in China: A new case of global biological invasions

American fall webworm in China: A new case of global biological invasions

A mitochondrial genome phylogeny of voles and lemmings (Rodentia: Arvicolinae): Evolutionary and taxonomic implications.

Arvicolinae is one of the most impressive placental radiations with over 150 extant and numerous extinct species that emerged since the Miocene in the Northern Hemisphere. The phylogeny of Arvicolinae has been studied intensively for several decades using morphological and genetic methods. Here, we sequenced 30 new mitochondrial genomes to better understand the evolutionary relationships among the major tribes and genera within the subfamily. The phylogenetic and molecular dating analyses based on 11,391 bp concatenated alignment of protein-coding mitochondrial genes confirmed the monophyly of the subfamily. While Bayesian analysis provided a high resolution across the entire tree, Maximum Likelihood tree reconstruction showed weak support for the ordering of divergence and interrelationships of tribal level taxa within the most ancient radiation. Both the interrelationships among tribes Lagurini, Ellobiusini and Arvicolini, comprising the largest radiation and the position of the genus Dinaromys within it also remained unresolved. For the first time complex relationships between genus level taxa within the species-rich tribe Arvicolini received full resolution. Particularly Lemmiscus was robustly placed as sister to the snow voles Chionomys in the tribe Arvicolini in contrast with a long-held belief of its affinity with Lagurini. Molecular dating of the origin of Arvicolinae and early divergences obtained from the mitogenome data were consistent with fossil records. The mtDNA estimates for putative ancestors of the most genera within Arvicolini appeared to be much older than it was previously proposed in paleontological studies.