Long-lived Genera Research Articles

Drivers of longitudinal telomere dynamics in a long-lived bat species, Myotis myotis.

Age-related telomere shortening is considered a hallmark of the ageing process. However, a recent cross-sectional ageing study of relative telomere length (rTL) in bats failed to detect a relationship between rTL and age in the long-lived genus Myotis (M. myotis and M. bechsteinii), suggesting some other factors are responsible for driving telomere dynamics in these species. Here, we test if longitudinal rTL data show signatures of age-associated telomere attrition in M. myotis and differentiate which intrinsic or extrinsic factors are likely to drive telomere length dynamics. Using quantitative polymerase chain reaction, rTL was measured in 504 samples from a marked population, from Brittany, France, captured between 2013 and 2016. These represent 174 individuals with an age range of 0 to 7+years. We find no significant relationship between rTL and age (p=.762), but demonstrate that within-individual rTL is highly variable from year to year. To investigate the heritability of rTL, a population pedigree (n=1744) was constructed from genotype data generated from a 16-microsatellite multiplex, designed from an initial, low-coverage, Illumina genome for M. myotis. Heritability was estimated in a Bayesian, mixed model framework, and showed that little of the observed variance in rTL is heritable (h2 =0.01-0.06). Rather, correlations of first differences, correlating yearly changes in telomere length and weather variables, demonstrate that, during the spring transition, average temperature, minimum temperature, rainfall and windspeed correlate with changes in longitudinal telomere dynamics. As such, rTL may represent a useful biomarker to quantify the physiological impact of various environmental stressors in bats.

A ubiquitous ∼62-Myr periodic fluctuation superimposed on general trends in fossil biodiversity. I. Documentation

We use Fourier analysis and related techniques to investigate the question of periodicities in fossil biodiversity. These techniques are able to identify cycles superimposed on the long-term trends of the Phanerozoic. We review prior results and analyze data previously reduced and published. Joint time-series analysis of various reductions of the Sepkoski Data, Paleobiology Database, and Fossil Record 2 indicate the same periodicity in biodiversity of marine animals at 62 Myr. We have not found this periodicity in the terrestrial fossil record. We have found that the signal strength decreases with time because of the accumulation of apparently “resistant” long-lived genera. The existence of a 62-Myr periodicity despite very different treatment of systematic error, particularly sampling-strength biases, in all three major databases strongly argues for its reality in the fossil record.

Do deviants live longer? Morphology and longevity in trachyleberidid ostracodes

Persistent fossil taxa contravene paradigms of evolution: pervasive morphological change and taxic turnover. Comparative studies of taxic duration have often been approached from biogeographic, climatic, and ecological perspectives, with a focus on process. Here I use a mor- phological approach to study the pattern of longevity of a large family of marine living and fossil podocopid ostracodes, Trachyleberididae sensu lato. I test if geologically longer-lived genera are collectively morphologically more deviant from a group mean than their shorter-lived relatives by using both discrete morphological data and outline data. I discovered that long-lived genera are in general not significantly more or less morphologically deviant from the average morphology than their shorter-lived relatives. However, I found that contemporaneous subsets of long-lived trachyleberidids are often at least marginally significantly more deviant in discrete morphology than shorter-lived ones, especially in external morphology. No significant patterns of association between morphological deviation and durations in other subdivisions of the data emerged (i.e., whole data set, birth cohorts, groups of morphological characters, and outline data using both Fou- rier analysis and eigenshape analysis). This is in contrast to a previous finding that long-lived gen- era of crinoids within orders are often morphologically less deviant than their shorter-lived rela- tives than expected by chance.

Coral diseases on Philippine reefs: genus Porites is a dominant host

While it is generally assumed that Indo-Pacific reefs are not widely affected by diseases, limited data suggest a number of diseases and syndromes that appear to differ from those currently under study in the Caribbean. This report presents the results of a baseline survey of coral diseases in 2 regions in the Philippines: the Central Visayas and the Lingayen Gulf. Mean prevalence for all diseases observed was 8.3 +/- 1.2% (mean +/- SE; n = 8 reefs), with Central Visayas reefs showing higher disease prevalence (11.6 +/- 2.8%; n = 4 reefs) than those of Lingayen Gulf (5.1 +/- 1.4%; n = 4 reefs). Five diseases and syndromes were described; 3 of these-Porites ulcerative white spot disease (PUWS) (prevalence = 8.96 +/- 2.2%), tumors (prevalence = 1.0 +/- 0.5%) and pigmentation response (prevalence = 0.5 +/- 0.2%)--occurred frequently in both regions and targeted the genus Porites. Correlation between disease prevalence and number of Porites colonies was fairly strong (r2 = 43.4), though not significant, and no correlation was seen between prevalence and either the amount or diversity of hard coral. Porites is a major reef-builder in the Indo-Pacific comprising 30% of hard coral colonies on our surveyed reefs, and is generally thought to be a hardy, long-lived genus. Diseases targeting this robust group present an as yet unquantified risk to Philippine reefs and could result in major changes in reef structure.

Climatic basis for sluggish macroevolution during the late Paleozoic ice age

Rates of origination and extinction for marine invertebrates fell at the onset of the late Paleozoic ice age in late Mississippian time and remained low until glaciation ended in middle Permian time. Through the use of a database of stratigraphic and geographic occurrences of brachiopod genera, these macroevolutionary changes are traced to the loss of genera with narrow latitudinal ranges, which had intrinsically high turnover rates, at the onset of glaciation in late Visean time. When glaciation waned in late Sakmarian time, narrowly distributed genera rebounded abruptly and restored the global fauna to its pre– ice-age configuration. Because narrowly distributed brachiopod genera had dominated tropical diversity, the major biotic effects of the late Paleozoic ice age were felt at low latitudes. The climatic regime of this ice age thus altered the marine ecosystem to one characterized by broadly adapted, long-lived genera.

Survivorship in the Bivalvia: comparing living and extinct genera and families

George Gaylord Simpson was one of the first paleontologists to apply survivorship analysis to the study of fossil taxa. His finding that the survivorship curve for extant bivalve genera plotted above that for extinct genera led him to conclude that bivalve genera are drawn from at least two distinct distributions of longevities, and formed the fundamental basis for his influential concepts of horotelic and bradytelic evolutionary rates. Survivorship curves presented in this paper show the same pattern of disjunct survivorship in genera from the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology and in families from Sepkoski's compendium.Some of the observed differences between survivorship curves are artificial, occurring because long-lived genera and families are more likely to survive to the Recent than short-lived genera and families. The living fauna thus contains a disproportionate number of long-lived genera and families, and the survivorship curve for the living fauna is expected to lie above that for the extinct fauna for this reason alone—even if all longevities are drawn from the same distribution. Recognition of this bias led Raup (1975) to question the significance of the survivorship patterns presented by Van Valen (1973), and Stanley's (1984) acceptance of Raup's argument led him to dismiss the survivorship pattern discovered by Simpson. But statistical analysis using bootstrapping shows that this bias accounts for only a small proportion of the difference between survivorship curves. Other biases considered, such as “pull of the Recent,” “asymmetrical range truncation,” and erroneous concatenation of stratigraphic ranges, do not account for the pattern either. Although still other biases, as yet unknown, cannot definitively be ruled out, it appears that the longevities of extinct and living bivalve taxa are meaningfully different, and that the fundamental causes are biological.