There have been numerous studies in which the reproductive cycles of teleosts have been correlated with either environmental cycles or associated physiological cycles, or both. Such correlation is seldom accurately achieved; usually because the reproductive cycle of the species concerned is lax, sometimes because only one or two factors of an integrated whole were examined. The powan of Loch Lomond, Coregonus lavaretus (L. ) (Teleostei, Salmoniformes) is the subject of a long-term study investigating its growth, in particular reproduction. This race is a freshwater glacial relict form of a boreal group, and thus has an exceptionally strictly times reproductive cycle. It thus represents an ideal subject for cyclical studies. This thesis investigates the relationship between lipid storage and the reproductive cycle and the role of thyroid gland.

From simple beginnings, when only one host was required, numerous parasitic organisms have evolved complex life-cycles involving two or more host species. For example, trematode parasites reproduce in vertebrates, their definitive host, but their current life cycle also typically involves two intermediate hosts that were added during the course of evolution. Vertebrates are often considered to be the ancestral hosts of trematodes although other scenarios exist. While multi-host life cycles are observed in distantly related groups of parasites, their evolution remains largely unexplored. In trematodes, while recent phylogenetic studies have shed light on the sequence along which the different hosts were incorporated in the cycle, conditions that favoured the evolution of such complex life cycles can only be hypothesized. However, one opportunity to understand the force shaping the evolution of complex life cycles is provided by the few trematode species in which the classical three-host cycle facultatively reverts to a shorter cycle (i.e. life cycle abbreviation). In this study, the effects of different environmental factors on the life history strategy of the trematode Coitocaecum parvum were investigated using laboratory and field studies. C. parvum is able to abbreviate its life cycle from three to two hosts by maturing early (i.e. progenesis) and producing eggs inside the second intermediate host; both life history strategies occur simultaneously in C. parvum populations. Environmental factors such as predator densities should strongly influence parasite life history strategies. In fact, this study shows that laboratory reared Coitocaecum parvum adopt preferentially the normal three-host cycle when chemical cues from the definitive host are added to their environment, while the shorter cycle is favoured when these cues are absent. However, in nature, multiple environmental factors are likely to be perceived by parasites. Consequently, C. parvum�s ability to adapt its developmental strategy to definitive host densities may be confounded by the complex combination of various environmental parameters. Within-host competition between parasites sharing a common host is also likely to influence individual life history strategies. Parasites could then use alternative life strategies to adaptively respond to intraspecific and interspecific competition. Indeed, this study found that C. parvum preferentially adopts the abbreviated cycle in the presence of competitors. However, in interspecific competition, C. parvum�s strategy also depends upon the competitor species, possibly influenced by the other species� transmission route. Furthermore, intensity of intraspecific competition proved to constrain C. parvum�s ability to use the abbreviated life cycle. Finally, genetic relatedness between co-infecting C. parvum individuals seems to affect parasite life strategy through kin selection: closely related individuals are more likely to adopt the same developmental strategy, when they share a host, than unrelated ones. C. parvum individuals adopting the abbreviated cycle are enclosed within a cyst in their intermediate host and must produce eggs by self-fertilization, the most severe case of inbreeding. It was hypothesized that their offspring would have reduced fitness due to inbreeding depression, therefore selecting against the shorter cycle. However, this study found no difference in the survival and infection success of offspring produced through the abbreviated and normal cycles. Furthermore, no evidence for a genetic basis of life cycle abbreviation was detected: the same proportion of offspring from both reproductive strategies adopted the shorter life cycle. The work in this thesis provides evidence that although life cycle abbreviation provides Coitocaecum parvum with a viable alternative life strategy, numerous factors promote or restrict the adoption of this strategy. While this life history strategy has no detectable effect on parasite fitness, both environmental parameters and within-host competition affect C. parvum life-history strategies, alternatively selecting for either the shorter or normal life cycle. Overall, the complexity of the parasite environment could maintain both developmental strategies in C. parvum populations and, on a broader scale, could have influenced the evolution of complex life cycles in parasites.

Mémoire (M.Ress.Renouv.)-- Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 1993. / Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-172). Description: xiv, 172 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm.

Ultrastructure, biochemistry and 5S rRNA sequences link tracheophytes, bryophytes and charalean green algae, but the precise interrelationships between these groups remain unclear. Further major clarification now awaits primary sequence data. These are also needed to determine directionality in possible evolutionary trends within the bryophytes, but are unlikely to overturn current schemes of classification or phylogeny. Comparative ultrastructural studies of spermatogenesis, sporogenesis, the cytoskeleton and plastids reinforce biochemical and morphogenetic evidence for the wide phyletic discontinuities between mosses, hepatics and hornworts, and also rule out direct lines of descent between them. Direct ancestral lineages from charalean algae to bryophytes and to tracheophytes are also unlikely. EM studies of gametophyte/sporophyte junctions, plus immunological investigations of bryophyte cytoskeletons, are likely to accentuate the differences between mosses, hepatirs and hornworts. Other priorities for systematics include elucidation of oil body ultrastructure, analysis of the changes in nuclear proteins during spermatogenesis and a detailed comparison of bryophyte and charalean plastids. The combined evidence from ultrastrueture, biochemistry, morphology and morphogenesis warrants general acceptance of the polyphyletic origin of the bryophytes. Ultrastructural attributes should be more widely used in bryophyte systematics.

No description available.

My dissertation is a study of firms’ strategic differences and the performance consequences of these differences in nascent industries. I relax the implicit assumption in the existing literature that a technological breakthrough is exogenous, and provide theoretical and empirical accounts of knowledge evolution before a new technology gets commercialized. In Chapter 2, I highlight the evolution of a technology at the industry level and argue that there exists a pre-commercialization technology life cycle. I develop a series of propositions related to the technology’s architectural evolution during the pre-commercialization phase, and show that an emerging architecture becomes fully integrated before the inception of a new market. In Chapter 3, I shift the focus to the firm level, and compare the pre-commercialization search strategies of market incumbents facing a technological obsolescence to those of technology incumbents disrupting an existing market. I show that these two groups of incumbent firms invest heavily in an emerging technology even before the market takes shape, and that they engage in different search strategies, specifically in the degree to which they integrate or modularize the knowledge about individual technology components across two stages of a pre-commercialization life cycle. In Chapter 4, I argue that such pre-commercialization strategies have post-commercialization consequences. This dynamic view suggests that a select group of established organizations enter a new product market and the heterogeneity in their pre-entry experiences has direct consequences for the product’s initial performance. Throughout, this study uses the emergence of the solid-state lighting (SSL) market as an empirical context. / Business Administration/Strategic Management

Understanding where and why organisms are distributed in the environment are central themes in ecology. Animals live in environments in which they are subject to competing demands, such as the need to forage, to find mates, to reproduce, and to avoid predation. Optimal habitats for these various activities are usually distributed heterogeneously in the landscape and may vary both spatially and temporally, causing animals to adjust their locations in space and time to balance these conflicting demands. In this dissertation, I outline three studies of Procambarus fallax in the ridge-slough landscape of Water conservation Area 3A (WCS-3A). The first section outlines an observational sampling study of crayfish population distribution in a four hectare plot, where I statistically model the density distribution at two spatial scales. ... Secondly, I use radio telemetry to study individual adult crayfish movements at two study sites and evaluate habitat selection using Resource Selection Functions. In the third section, I test the habitat selection theory, ideal free distribution, by assessing performance measures (growth and mortality) of crayfish in the two major vegetation types in a late wet season (November 2007) and early wet season (August 2009). / by Craig van der Heiden. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapter. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

Scientific data life cycles define how data is created, handled, accessed, and analyzed by users. Such data life cycles become increasingly sophisticated as the sciences they deal with become more and more demanding and complex with the coming advent of exascale data and computing. The overarching data life cycle management background includes multiple abstraction categories with data sources, data and metadata management, computing and workflow management, security, data sinks, and methods on how to enable utilization. Challenges in this context are manifold. One is to hide the complexity from the user and to enable seamlessness in using resources to usability and efficiency. Another one is to enable generic metadata management that is not restricted to one use case but can be adapted with limited effort to further ones. Metadata management is essential to enable scientists to save time by avoiding the need for manually keeping track of data, meaning for example by its content and location. As the number of files grows into the millions, managing data without metadata becomes increasingly difficult. Thus, the solution is to employ metadata management to enable the organization of data based on information about it. Previously, use cases tended to only support highly specific or no metadata management at all. Now, a generic metadata management concept is available that can be used to efficiently integrate metadata capabilities with use cases. The concept was implemented within the MoSGrid data life cycle that enables molecular simulations on distributed HPC-enabled data and computing infrastructures. The implementation enables easy-to-use and effective metadata management. Automated extraction, annotation, and indexing of metadata was designed, developed, integrated, and search capabilities provided via a seamless user interface. Further analysis runs can be directly started based on search results. A complete evaluation of the concept both in general and along the example implementation is presented. In conclusion, generic metadata management concept advances the state of the art in scientific date life cycle management.

published_or_final_version / Biological Sciences / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy