Project description:This announcement describes corrections and comments to the paper entitled 'The plastid genome sequence of the invasive plant common Ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia, Asteraceae)' by A Amiryousefi, J Hyvönen, P Poczai.
Project description:A long-standing hypothesis in ecology and evolution is that trichromatic colour vision (the ability to distinguish red from green) in frugivorous primates has evolved as an adaptation to detect conspicuous (reddish) fruits. This could provide a competitive advantage over dichromatic frugivores which cannot distinguish reddish colours from a background of green foliage. Here, we test whether the origin, distribution and diversity of trichromatic primates is positively associated with the availability of conspicuous palm fruits, i.e. keystone fruit resources for tropical frugivores. We combine global data of colour vision, distribution and phylogenetic data for more than 400 primate species with fruit colour data for more than 1700 palm species, and reveal that species richness of trichromatic primates increases with the proportion of palm species that have conspicuous fruits, especially in subtropical African forests. By contrast, species richness of trichromats in Asia and the Americas is not positively associated with conspicuous palm fruit colours. Macroevolutionary analyses further indicate rapid and synchronous radiations of trichromats and conspicuous palms on the African mainland starting 10 Ma. These results suggest that the distribution and diversification of African trichromatic primates is strongly linked to the relative availability of conspicuous (versus non-conspicuous) palm fruits, and that interactions between primates and palms are related to the coevolutionary dynamics of primate colour vision systems and palm fruit colours.
Project description:We investigate the hypothesis that colour vision in primates was selected for discriminating the spectral modulations on the skin of conspecifics, presumably for the purpose of discriminating emotional states, socio-sexual signals and threat displays. Here we show that, consistent with this hypothesis, there are two dimensions of skin spectral modulations, and trichromats but not dichromats are sensitive to each. Furthermore, the M and L cone maximum sensitivities for routine trichromats are optimized for discriminating variations in blood oxygen saturation, one of the two blood-related dimensions determining skin reflectance. We also show that, consistent with the hypothesis, trichromat primates tend to be bare faced.
Project description:In October 2015 we published the paper 'Measurement of HbA1c in multicentre diabetes trials - should blood samples be tested locally or sent to a central laboratory: an agreement analysis'. Chatterjee and Pradhan have submitted a letter to the editor asking critical questions regarding the methods we used. We offer this letter in response. TRIAL REGISTRATION:Eudract No. 2010-023792-25. Registered on 4 November 2010. ISRCTN No. ISRCTN29255275 . Registered on 12 November 2010.