Elucidating the spatial dynamic and core constituents of the microbial communities found in association with arthropod hosts is of crucial importance for insects that may vector human or agricultural pathogens. The hematophagous Cimex lectularius (Hemiptera: Cimicidae), known as the human bed bug, has made a recent resurgence in North America, as well as worldwide, potentially owing to increased travel, climate change and resistance to insecticides. A comprehensive survey of the bed bug microbiome has not...

The Mexican tetra, Astyanax mexicanus, comprises 29 populations of cave-adapted fish distributed across a vast karst region in northeastern Mexico. These populations have a complex evolutionary history, having descended from "old" and "young" ancestral surface-dwelling stocks that invaded the region ~8 MYa and ~2.1 MYa, respectively. This study investigates a set of captive, pigmented Astyanax cavefish collected from the Micos cave locality in 1970, in which albinism appeared over the last two decades. We combined...

Hybrid zones may serve as bridges permitting gene flow between species, including alleles influencing the evolution of breeding systems. Using greenhouse crosses, we assessed the likelihood that a hybrid zone could serve as a conduit for transfer of nuclear male-sterility alleles between a gynodioecious species and a hermaphroditic species with very rare females in some populations. Segregation patterns in progeny of crosses between rare females of hermaphroditic Schiedea menziesii and hermaphroditic plants of gynodioecious Schiedea...