Iron Mountain Research Articles

Trying in Many Ways to Persuade: Agency and Local Politics in a Nineteenth-Century Iron Mining Scheme

Abstract: Relying on Chinese county gazetteers and contemporary publications by Western engineers working in China, this article examines the methods used by county officials to secure property needed for the Daye iron mine in Hubei Province. It focuses on a young scholar-turned magistrate, Lin Zuo, who grew up around the market city of Shanghai and the political center in Beijing under the dual clouds of imperialism and the Taiping Rebellion. Upon taking office in a remote but mineral-rich county along the Yangzi river, Lin Zuo was deputed to deterritorialize significant parts of the county’s rice fields and mountain farms to facilitate a modern iron ore mine and adjoining railroad that became part of the powerful Hanyeping Coal and Iron Company. To this end, he hired local gentry to coerce or force various landowners to give up lands that were deemed rich in minerals or suited for a proposed train track that skirted the southern face of Tieshan (Iron Mountain). Conversely, commoners utilized ingenious negotiating methods to fight back against the power of the imperial government, which led the county leaders to look elsewhere for properties and in some cases forced the government to pay much higher prices for the tracts they needed most. This article suggests that this significant modernization scheme was brought about in part utilizing the trappings of patronage-led county government policies but that even as it was designed to strengthen the empire, in fact it actually weakened the local community, leaving many landless if not impoverished. It therefore questions recent scholarship that looks more positively at late nineteenth-century industrialization attempts or critically at policies that undermined them.

Modification of the CSIRO method in the long-term monitoring of slope-induced stress

The in situ stress measurement technique can be used in long-term monitoring of induced stress to obtain three-dimensional stress states in slope engineering. In the monitoring, the ambient temperature fluctuation, “zero” drift of the logging data, and stable power supply should be considered. A dual temperature compensation circuit and experimental calibration techniques are proposed to increase accuracy based on the principle of the CSIRO method and considering the effect of a long-term disturbance of temperature in slope engineering. In view of the characteristics of the stress field distribution of the slope rock, the strain gauge layout scheme for induced stress monitoring of slope rock is modified to achieve the acquisition of three parallel measurements at one measurement and a stress–strain relationship equation for multilayer elastic layers is derived. An in situ stress logging system with the function of transient logging and data-connection in power cut condition is introduced to achieve a continuous correlation of measurement data under power cut conditions. An online cloud platform is established for the slope engineering of Au Mountain Iron Mine in Maanshan City. The results show that the data deviation of logging system is ±14 με with 24 days’ power off, and errors with amount of 15% were corrected by the dual temperature compensation method. The remotely transmitted data reflect the effect of temperature changes and the evolution of strain (induced stress) in real time to satisfy the demand of long-term monitoring of slope engineering.

Supergene potential of a selfish centromere.

Selfishly evolving centromeres bias their transmission by exploiting the asymmetry of female meiosis and preferentially segregating to the egg. Such female meiotic drive systems have the potential to be supergenes, with multiple linked loci contributing to drive costs or enhancement. Here, we explore the supergene potential of a selfish centromere (D) in Mimulus guttatus, which was discovered in the Iron Mountain (IM) Oregon population. In the nearby Cone Peak population, D is still a large, non-recombining and costly haplotype that recently swept, but shorter haplotypes and mutational variation suggest a distinct population history. Wedetected D in five additional populations spanning more than 200 km; together, these findings suggest that selfish centromere dynamics are widespread in M. guttatus. Transcriptome comparisons reveal elevated differences in expression between driving and non-driving haplotypes within, but not outside, the drive region, suggesting large-scale cis effects of D's spread on gene expression. We use the expression data to refine linked candidates that may interact with drive, including Nuclear Autoantigenic Sperm Protein (NASPSIM3), which chaperones the centromere-defining histone CenH3 known to modify Mimulus drive. Together, our results show that selfishly evolving centromeres may exhibit supergene behaviour and lay the foundation for future genetic dissection of drive and its costs. This article is part of the theme issue 'Genomic architecture of supergenes: causes and evolutionary consequences'.

Geochronology and geochemistry of the Huntington Formation, Olds Ferry terrane, Blue Mountains province, northern U.S. Cordillera: Implications for accreted terrane correlation and assembly

AbstractThe Olds Ferry terrane is the more inboard of two accreted volcanic arc terranes in the late Paleozoic–early Mesozoic Blue Mountains province of the northern U.S. Cordillera. We present geologic, geochronologic, and geochemical data from the volcano-sedimentary Huntington Formation of the Olds Ferry arc that place the terrane within a firm temporal and tectonomagmatic context, and establish its identity as a fringing arc terrane along the Triassic to Early Jurassic Cordilleran margin. The Huntington Formation is divided into two unconformity-bounded informal members: a Norian (ca. 220 Ma) lower member comprising a sequence of mafic-intermediate volcanics, massive volcaniclastic breccias, and minor carbonates deposited unconformably onto the 237.7 Ma Brownlee pluton and intruded by the 210.0 Ma Iron Mountain pluton; and a Rhaetian through Pleinsbachian (<210–187.0 Ma) upper member composed of massive conglomerates, abundant rhyodacite to rhyolite effusive and pyroclastic flows, and interlayered sandstone turbidites, deposited with angular unconformity onto the lower member. An erosional hiatus and regional tilting produced an angular unconformity separating the Huntington Formation from the overlying basal conglomerates of the late Early to Middle Jurassic Weatherby Formation of the Izee forearc basin transgressive onlap sequence. Huntington Formation volcanic rocks are isotopically enriched relative to depleted mantle and coeval igneous rocks in the outboard Wallowa terrane. A temporal evolution to more radiogenic 87Sr/86Sr ratios (0.7036–0.7057) and εNd values (+5.4 to +3.1) in the upper member volcanics suggests increasing involvement of continental-derived material in their petrogenesis. Precambrian xenocrystic zircons in both lower and upper member volcaniclastic rocks strongly support a proximal location of the Olds Ferry terrane to cratonal North America during much of its history. The chronology and tectonostratigraphic architecture of the Olds Ferry terrane allows its robust correlation to other fringing-arc terranes along the U.S. and Canadian Cordillera.

The Shepherd Mountain iron ore deposit in Southeast Missouri, USA – An extension of the Pilot Knob magmatic-hydrothermal ore system: Evidence from iron oxide chemistry

The Southeast Missouri Iron Metallogenic Province in the Midcontinent USA contains seven major and several minor IOA/IOCG-type deposits and a series of shallow vein-type deposits/prospects, all of which are spatially and temporally associated with early Mesoproterozoic (1500–1440 Ma) magmatism in the St. Francois Mountains terrane. One of the vein-type deposits is the Shepherd Mountain deposit, which consists of two northeast-trending ore veins dominated by magnetite and lesser amounts of hematite. Here we report the findings of a study that investigates the origin of the Shepherd Mountain deposit and a possible genetic link to the nearby (i.e., <5 km away) magmatic to magmatic-hydrothermal Pilot Knob ore system that comprises the massive-to-disseminated Pilot Knob Magnetite deposit and the overlying bedded and brecciated Pilot Knob Hematite deposit.Petrographic observations, whole-rock data and the trace element and Fe isotope composition of magnetite and hematite show that the Shepherd Mountain deposit formed from at least five pulses of magmatic-hydrothermal fluids with different compositions and physicochemical parameters. Integration of the data for the Shepherd Mountain deposit with new and published data from the Pilot Knob Magnetite and Pilot Knob Hematite deposits shows that the three deposits are genetically linked through two local faults. The Ironton and Pilot Knob faults provided fluid pathways that connected the Pilot Knob Magnetite deposit to the shallower Shepherd Mountain and Pilot Knob Hematite deposits. Consequently, we argue that the Shepherd Mountain and Pilot Knob Hematite deposits are near-surface extensions of the same magmatic to hydrothermal plumbing system that formed the Pilot Knob Magnetite deposit at depth.

When the medium is war: Marshall McLuhan, media, and militarisation

ABSTRACT This essay explores Marshall McLuhan’s argument in War and Peace in the Global Village that ‘the first television war’ of Vietnam was staged in a new technological ‘medium’ that reduced viewers’ capacity for critical distance, blurred divisions between civilians and soldiers, undercutting the war’s domestic legitimacy and painfully shattering the ‘old image’ of national identity. Considering postcolonial critiques of McLuhan’s reliance on ethnopsychiatrist, J.C. Carothers, I explore the critical potential of his textual citations of Fanon, Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, J.K. Galbraith, and the satirical hoax, Report from Iron Mountain, and of Quentin Fiore’s graphic designs. Extending McLuhan’s arguments to the US military’s 2003 Iraq war media embedding programme, I argue that although they sought to avoid the uncontrolled media reporting of Vietnam, the war planners were nevertheless subject to the same destabilising ‘invisible environments of technological innovation’. McLuhan’s discussion of the ways technological innovation destabilises identities and promotes a violent quest to recover ‘old images’ of personal and national identity thus suggests that post-Vietnam war planners may have drastically overestimated the power of metaphorical and narrative framing when applied to media spectacle of war.

Comparison of Two Enzyme Immunoassays and Four Lysate Antigens for the Detection of Antibody in Canine Blastomycosis

Blastomycosis, the systemic fungal disease of humans and animals caused by Blastomyces dermatitidis and the cryptic species Blastomyces gilchristii, is often misdiagnosed as a bacterial or viral pulmonary disease. Therefore, the development of improved immunodiagnostic assays for this disease has been the primary focus of research in our laboratory. The present study was designed to evaluate four Blastomyces yeast-phase lysate antigenic preparations (human, 597, Eagle River, WI; dog, ERC-2, WI; Human, B5927, Mountain Iron, MN; soil, 85, Georgia, ATCC 56920) for their ability to detect antibody in 48 serum specimens from dogs with diagnosed blastomycosis using an indirect ELISA (STD) compared to a biotin-streptavidin ELISA (B-SA). All four lysate antigens were able to detect antibodies in the specimens with mean absorbance values ranging from 0.930 (B5927) to 1.142 (ERC-2) with the STD ELSA and from 1.395 (B5927) to 1.775 (85) with the B-SA ELISA. The results indicated that both ELISA methods could be utilized for antibody detection, but the B-SA ELISA exhibited greater sensitivity than the STD ELISA with all four of the lysates.

The Dawn of Desmatophocidae: A New Species of Basal Desmatophocid Seal (Mammalia, Carnivora) from the Miocene of Oregon, U.S.A.

ABSTRACT Desmatophocidae (Mammalia, Carnivora) represents the first of the four major pinniped clades to appear in the fossil record. However, the majority of its known diversity consists of derived species and little is known about the nascence of this early pinniped lineage. Here we report the discovery of Eodesmus condoni, gen. et sp. nov., represented by a nearly complete cranium from the Burdigalian Iron Mountain Bed of the Astoria Formation from the central coast of Oregon, U.S.A. Notably, this specimen possesses nasolabialis fossae, a plesiomorphic trait shared with stem pinnipedimorphs and the basal phocid Devinophoca sp., but not with any other desmatophocid. Phylogenetic analysis (98 characters, 27 taxa) resolved Eodesmus condoni as the most basal desmatophocid yet described. Poor support for the monophyly of Otarioidea, Odobenidae, and Phocoidea demonstrate that high-level relationships within Pinnipedia have yet to be conclusively resolved. The identification of another desmatophocid species at the already pinniped-rich Iron Mountain Bed suggests that the approximately synchronous mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum played a role in this increase in pinnipedimorph species diversity. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:C9335617-3A0D-414A-937A-72C859C0075F

INTERPRETASI POTENSI EKOWISATA DUSUN DAROK KECAMATAN BONTI KABUPATEN SANGGAU KALIMANTAN BARAT

Darok hamlet is located in the bonti sub district of sanggau district. Has many tributaries such as the Hisi, river the Himua and Tangis, the Darok and the Bonti river. Darok hamlet has good natural forest. Has the status of protected forest areas Mount Budu, Iron Mountain, there are protected plants Amorphophallus titanium dan Rafflesia tuan mudaee young master one of West Kalimantan endemic. There are animals like tringgiling, jungle cats, and proboscis mongkeys which are still widely around the river. Darok village is also still thick with ‘Gawai’ traditions. The purpose of ths study was to record the potential of ecotourism and develop interpretations of the ecotourism potential of the village of Darok. The method used is exploration and ascending coordinates and direct interviews with hamlet heads, custom temenggung and local communities. The results of explroration there are 28 attractions that can support the interpretation of ecotourism potential, namely 18 physical potentials, 3 potential rare and endemic plants, 7 culture potentials. The results of the exploration were develoved into two tour package pathways, namely the protected forest path package and social culture this package was made based on field research. The protected forest package is on the heavy side, the settlement is 3 km away, there are potential waterfalls cascades, cascade amorphophallus titanium and others. While the social culture route in the north is 1 km away there is potential for tembawang forest, rice fields, traditional houses, and othersKeywords: Ecotourism, Interpretation, Pathway Interpretation.

Formation and prevention of pipe scale from acid mine drainage at iron Mountain and Leviathan Mines, California, USA

Pipelines carrying acid mine drainage (AMD) to treatment plants commonly form pipe scale, an Fe(III)-rich precipitate that forms inside the pipelines and requires periodic and costly cleanout and maintenance. Pipelines at Iron Mountain Mine (IMM) and Leviathan Mine (LM) in California carry acidic water from mine sources to a treatment plant and have developed pipe scale. Samples of scale and AMD were collected from both mine sites for mineralogical, microbiological, and chemical analysis. The scale mineralogy was primarily schwertmannite with minor amounts of poorly crystalline goethite. Although the bulk composition of the scale was similar along the length of the pipeline at IMM, the number of iron-oxidizing bacteria and concentrations of associated trace elements decreased along the flow path inside the pipeline. Laboratory batch experiments with unfiltered AMD from IMM and LM showed that Fe(II) oxidation was driven by microbial activity when the pH was <5. A remediation strategy of decreasing the pH to <2.2 was tested through geochemical modeling and laboratory experiments. These experiments indicated that scale formation could be prevented by decreasing the pH, which could be achieved at IMM by mixing source waters. However, the presence of Fe(III)-rich scale in a pipeline buffers the pH to higher values that may affect the efficacy of this remedial approach.

If You Believe You Exist: On Bon Iver, Midwestern Literature and Art, and a Tradition, of Sorts

If You Believe You ExistOn Bon Iver, Midwestern Literature and Art, and a Tradition, of Sorts Nickolas Butler (bio) Birchwood, Wisconsin winter 2007 The snow fell steadily while we slept, all night long, and in the morning, the forests and fields were well and truly swaddled in white. If you have lived at a northern latitude, then perhaps you can imagine the particular quiet that ensued. As if sound were an impossibility. The world was muffl ed by snow, and the quiet intensified, especially as snow continued to fall from the sky, making every soundscape dense. I think now of my friend, the music producer Brian Joseph who says the key to good acoustics is filling a room. The room, that morning, was steadily filling with snow. My best friend, Josh Swan (a wooden-boat builder now based in Washburn, Wisconsin), and I left his father's lakeside cabin, a Thermos hot with coffee between us in the cab of his hulking red Dodge Ram pickup truck. The truck's massive engine did indeed make noise, and maybe there was a pang of regret for ruining that unifying tranquility. Nonetheless, we departed, with nowhere in particular to be. This, however, has never stopped a stir-crazy Wisconsinite from simply going for a drive. Maybe we would find where we were going. Maybe we would find where we needed to be. Swan gravitated towards lumber roads. Forgotten two-tracks snaking through forests, the trees bent over the road like buttresses, the snow so heavy it bowed old, tall trees. Still, there was no sound. Later in the day, the world would come alive with snowmobiles, logging trucks, and chainsaws. But at that hour, we seemed to be, as my Dad would say, "the only going concern." A big red truck steaming through the snow, no destination in mind. [End Page 117] Swan slid a CD into the truck's stereo and an eerie, forlorn, beautiful music filled the cab. I had never heard anything like it. "Who is this?" I asked. "Vernon," Swan said, not taking his eyes off the narrow path before us. "Saw him up in Duluth little while ago. The room was packed." "Damn," I said. The music sounded like winter. Like sadness. Like loneliness. It felt both voluminous and ephemeral, like a January breath billowing out. It felt fragile, like an icicle forming on a gutter. Like a crystalline moon. In truth, I didn't yet know how to interact with that very new album, For Emma, Forever Ago. But what was important to me, and remains important to me, was that Justin Vernon, whom Swan and I had attended high school with, was out there, making his music, making his way. It was what I wanted to do with my writing. ________ One curse of living in a small place is that it can be easy to convince yourself that you don't exist. You don't exist, because you can't find cultural representations of yourself or your community. And if you are not represented, maybe you aren't worth representing, maybe you're not interesting enough. You become invisible. In this way, even if you do exist, you may as well not exist. I do not remember the specific Jim Harrison book that seemed to verify my existence on this planet, but I do remember what it was about his writing that made me, as folks say, feel seen. Harrison, who grew up in rural Michigan, oft en wrote about his place on Earth, and readers would inevitably encounter place-names such as Crystal Falls or Escanaba, Iron Mountain or Marquette. To my knowledge, Harrison never gestured towards Eau Claire, Wisconsin, but that didn't seem to matter to me. He mentioned La Crosse, Wisconsin, as one of his favorite American cities, and that was enough (or close enough) for me. His world was mine and just as importantly, my world was his. Places that I had traveled to, that I cared about, existed in print in his myriad books. I felt vindicated and powerful. As Vernon's career gained more and more steam, a strange thing happened. It felt like whatever quiet...

Protracted magmatism and magnetization around the McClure Mountain alkaline igneous complex

AbstractThe McClure Mountain–Iron Mountain igneous complex is an alkalic intrusive center in the northern Wet Mountains of southern Colorado. It was emplaced in early Cambrian time into gneissic/granitic 1.75–1.45 Ga Proterozoic host rocks. Numerous dikes are associated with the complex, primarily along the western side. Although the main intrusive nepheline-syenite body is well dated, the ages of the surrounding dikes are poorly known. Crosscutting relationships and poorly defined K-Ar dates suggest that the dikes are younger than the main intrusion. Paleomagnetic samples were collected from dikes associated with the McClure Mountain igneous complex. Geochronologic samples were also collected from two dikes sampled for their paleomagnetism. We obtained U-Pb zircon ages of 526 ± 8 Ma for a lamprophyric extracomplex dike and 483 ± 2 Ma for a trachytic extracomplex dike. These ages suggest either multistage or protracted dike intrusion around the ca. 524 Ma McClure Mountain complex. Our paleomagnetic data are consistent with previously published results. Dikes of the complex primarily exhibit southeast and shallow paleomagnetic directions, with variable declinations. Results from several baked contact tests indicate that the magnetizations are secondary. A steeply inclined magnetization is pervasive and was acquired over a protracted interval from late Laramide time to the present day.

Localisation of the painter’s canvas: landscape paintings from the Iron Mountains (Czech Republic)

ABSTRACTLandscape has always been the focus of artistic interest. Landscape is also the object of research interest of geographers, and it offers a field for cooperation between art and geography. Our study focuses on landscape painting as an important source in identifying landscape changes. We focused on discovering the location where the painter placed his canvas. We used Czech landscape paintings from the end of the nineteenth century in the Iron Mountains. We have combined information about paintings and their authors with terrain analysis in GIS. We have carried out field research and consulted a painter to localise the locations where the landscapes were painted. Main map depicts the sites of selected landscape paintings from where the painters captured the image of the landscape. Our proposed combination of terrain analysis with the information about the paintings and the painters is a convenient way to identify the sites of the paintings.

Tragedias de un Estado ausente: de Iron Mountain a Time Warp. Gabriel Fuks; contribuciones de Alberto Toro y Carlos Alberto Villalba

En el marco de una investigación parlamentariade la Legislatura de la Ciudad Autónoma de BuenosAires sobre el incendio de Iron Mountain,1 ellegislador Gabriel Fuks ofrece una discusión defondo que trasciende el hecho y los alcances de latragedia: el rol del Estado, el papel del Gobierno y-en otro plano- introduce la cuestión en el terrenodel debate sobre un Estado “ausente”: ¿se ausentarealmente el Estado o la inacción estatal es productode una decisión política?

Best Practices for using Cloud Services for Digital Data Archive and Disaster Recovery

Managing digital data for long-term archival and disaster recovery is a key component of our collective responsibility in managing digital data and metadata. As more and more data are collected digitally and as the metadata for traditional museum collections becomes both digitized and more comprehensive, the need to ensure that these data are safe and accessible in the long term becomes essential. Unfortunately, disasters do occur and many irreplaceable datasets on biodiversity have been permanently lost. Maintaining a long-term archive and putting in place reliable disaster recovery processes can be prohibitively expensive, both in the cost of hardware and software as well as the costs of personnel to manage and maintain an archival system. Traditionally, storing digital data for the long term and ensuring the data are loss-less, safe and completely recoverable when a disaster occurs has been managed on-premises with a combination of on-site and off-site storage. This requires complex data workflows to ensure that all data are securely and redundantly stored in multiple highly dispersed locations to minimize the threat of data loss due to local or regional disasters. Files are often moved multiple times across operating systems and media types on their way to and from a deep archive, increasing the risk of file integrity issues. With the recent advent of an array of Cloud Services from organizations such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google to more focused offerings from Iron Mountain, Atempo and others, we have a number of options for long term archival of digital data. Deep archive solutions, storage where retrieval expected only in the case of a disaster, are offered by many of these organizations at a rate substantially less than their normal data storage fees. The most basic requirement for an archival system is storing multiple replicates of the data in geographically isolated locations with a mechanism for guaranteeing file integrity, usually using a checksum algorithm. Additional components that are integral to a robust archive include a simple metadata search and reliable retrieval. In this presentation, we’ll discuss the need for long term archive and disaster recovery capabilities, detail the current best practices of data archival systems and review a variety of archival options that have become available with Cloud Services.

Smelting in the Shadow of the Iron Mountain: Preliminary Field Investigation of the Industrial Landscape around Phnom Dek, Cambodia (Ninth to Twentieth Centuries a.d.)

The high-grade mineral ores of the Phnom Dek region in central Cambodia have long been suspected of playing a major role in the rise of Angkor, the largest medieval polity in mainland Southeast Asia. This article presents the first comprehensive study by the Industries of Angkor Project (INDAP) to document the extent of industrial activity in this region and test this important relationship. Using a combination of intensive field survey, surface collection, and archaeometallurgical analysis, we evaluate the temporal and spatial patterning of iron production and the heterogeneity of smelting systems. The identification of at least three different smelting traditions has a significant impact on the current view that twentieth-century Kuay smelting practices extend deep into Cambodia’s history, and their relationship with Angkor in particular. More broadly, the survey demonstrates the importance of Phnom Dek as a major production zone on par with more well-known examples in Roman Europe and Africa.

Mechanical Testing and Application of Steel-plastic Geogrid Instead of Metal Mesh in Supporting Engineering

Abstract The theory of the steel-plastic geogrid employed in supporting engineering is behind the practice, seriously affecting its popularization and application in engineering. Thus the tensile strength and deflection of steel-plastic geogrid and its control of surrounding rock deformations were studied and analyzed using laboratory and engineering field tests. We have contrasted the tensile strength of steel-plastic geogrid to that of metal mesh. We have also contrasted the deflection deformation of the steel-plastic geogrid concrete slabs to that of the mesh concrete slabs. In the tensile strength test, we have tested the tensile properties of three different types of steel-plastic geogrid. In the defection deformation test, two kinds of steel-plastic geogrid concrete slabs and the mesh concrete slabs are made to investigate the load and displacement they bear. By combining with the experimental application of the Wohu Mountain iron mine, we summarized the process of steel-plastic geogrid construction and monitored the surrounding rock deformation of test section. Thus, we drew the following conclusions: (1) the tensile strength of the steel-plastic geogrid was greater than metal mesh; (2) compared with metal mesh concrete slabs, steel plastic grille with concrete slab had a larger deflection and its stress tolerance ability was better; (3) the use of the steel-plastic geogrid supporting in roadway can control the deformation of its bottom and sidewalls.

Population structure and local selection yield high genomic variation in Mimulus guttatus.

Across western North America, Mimulus guttatus exists as many local populations adapted to site-specific environmental challenges. Gene flow between locally adapted populations will affect genetic diversity both within demes and across the larger metapopulation. Here, we analyse 34 whole-genome sequences from the intensively studied Iron Mountain population (IM) in conjunction with sequences from 22 Mimulus individuals sampled from across western North America. Three striking features of these data address hypotheses about migration and selection in a locally adapted population. First, we find very high levels of intrapopulation polymorphism (synonymous π=0.033). Variation outside of genes is likely even higher but difficult to estimate because excessive divergence reduces the efficiency of read mapping. Second, IM exhibits a significantly positive genomewide average for Tajima's D. This indicates allele frequencies are typically more intermediate than expected from neutrality, opposite the pattern observed in many other species. Third, IM exhibits a distinctive haplotype structure with a genomewide excess of positive associations between rarer alleles at linked loci. This suggests an important effect of gene flow from other Mimulus populations, although a residual effect of population founding might also contribute. The combination of multiple analyses, including a novel tree-based analytic method, illustrates how the balance of local selection, limited dispersal and metapopulation dynamics manifests across the genome. The overall genomic pattern of sequence diversity suggests successful gene flow of divergent immigrant genotypes into IM. However, many loci show patterns indicative of local adaptation, particularly at SNPs associated with chromosomal inversions.

Biology of archaea from a novel family Cuniculiplasmataceae (Thermoplasmata) ubiquitous in hyperacidic environments.

The order Thermoplasmatales (Euryarchaeota) is represented by the most acidophilic organisms known so far that are poorly amenable to cultivation. Earlier culture-independent studies in Iron Mountain (California) pointed at an abundant archaeal group, dubbed ‘G-plasma’. We examined the genomes and physiology of two cultured representatives of a Family Cuniculiplasmataceae, recently isolated from acidic (pH 1–1.5) sites in Spain and UK that are 16S rRNA gene sequence-identical with ‘G-plasma’. Organisms had largest genomes among Thermoplasmatales (1.87–1.94 Mbp), that shared 98.7–98.8% average nucleotide identities between themselves and ‘G-plasma’ and exhibited a high genome conservation even within their genomic islands, despite their remote geographical localisations. Facultatively anaerobic heterotrophs, they possess an ancestral form of A-type terminal oxygen reductase from a distinct parental clade. The lack of complete pathways for biosynthesis of histidine, valine, leucine, isoleucine, lysine and proline pre-determines the reliance on external sources of amino acids and hence the lifestyle of these organisms as scavengers of proteinaceous compounds from surrounding microbial community members. In contrast to earlier metagenomics-based assumptions, isolates were S-layer-deficient, non-motile, non-methylotrophic and devoid of iron-oxidation despite the abundance of methylotrophy substrates and ferrous iron in situ, which underlines the essentiality of experimental validation of bioinformatic predictions.

Selfish evolution of cytonuclear hybrid incompatibility in Mimulus.

Intraspecific coevolution between selfish elements and suppressors may promote interspecific hybrid incompatibility, but evidence of this process is rare. Here, we use genomic data to test alternative models for the evolution of cytonuclear hybrid male sterility in Mimulus In hybrids between Iron Mountain (IM) Mimulus guttatus × Mimulus nasutus, two tightly linked M. guttatus alleles (Rf1/Rf2) each restore male fertility by suppressing a local mitochondrial male-sterility gene (IM-CMS). Unlike neutral models for the evolution of hybrid incompatibility loci, selfish evolution predicts that the Rf alleles experienced strong selection in the presence of IM-CMS. Using whole-genome sequences, we compared patterns of population-genetic variation in Rf at IM to a neighbouring population that lacks IM-CMS. Consistent with local selection in the presence of IM-CMS, the Rf region shows elevated FST, high local linkage disequilibrium and a distinct haplotype structure at IM, but not at Cone Peak (CP), suggesting a recent sweep in the presence of IM-CMS. In both populations, Rf2 exhibited lower polymorphism than other regions, but the low-diversity outliers were different between CP and IM. Our results confirm theoretical predictions of ubiquitous cytonuclear conflict in plants and provide a population-genetic mechanism for the evolution of a common form of hybrid incompatibility.