Biopedia

Almost no French king is more famous than Louis XVI, reigning during the turbulent times of the French Revolution at the tail-end of the eighteenth century. Previous studies have attempted to characterise his Y-chromosomal single tandem repeat (STR) profile, but were ultimately unsuccessful due to contradictions. So, today, let’s explore a 2016 study which analysed a loyalist-owned lock of hair and compared it to three living male-line relatives.
Sources for this episode: 1) Wikipedia articles were used to determine the number of generations between Louis XVI and Hugh Capet mentioned [Accessed 16/05/2021]. 2) Popkin, J. D. and Goodwin, A., Encyclopaedia Britannica (2021), Louis XVI (online) [Accessed 16/05/2021]. 3) Lucotte, G., Thomasset, T. and Wen, S. (2016), The DNA Y-STRs Profile of Louis XVI (1754-1793). International Journal of Sciences 5(4): 68-93. 4) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Karl Wilhelm Naundorff (online) [Accessed 16/05/2021].

Point mutations can have a huge impact on the genome depending on where in the genetic code they occur. To illustrate this, we’re going to be looking at a case study in the form of almonds- formerly poisonous nuts which had their metaphorical fangs taken out by a single base change…
Sources for this episode: 1) Hardy, E. R., Encyclopaedia Britannica (2021), Saint Basil the Great (online) [Accessed 22/05/2021]. 2) Herron, J. C. and Freeman, S. (2015), Evolutionary Analysis (Fifth Edition, Global Edition). Harlow: Pearson Education Limited. 3) Leman, J., Scientific American (2019), The Bitter Truth: Scientists Sequence the Almond Genome (online) [Accessed 18/05/2021]. 4) Petruzzello, M., Encyclopaedia Britannica (2021), almond (online) [Accessed 18/05/2021]. 5) Sánchez-Pérez, R., Pavan, S., Mazzeo, R., Molodovan, C., Cigliano, R. A., Del Cueto, J., Ricciardi, F., Lotti, C., Ricciardi, L., Dicenta, F., López-Marquéz, R. L. and Møller, B. L. (2019), Mutation of a bHLH transcription factor allowed almond domestication, Science 364(6445): 1095-1098. 6) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Almond (online) [Accessed 18/05/2021].

Bacteria are far simpler in molecular terms than eukaryotes. However, they still need to be able to sense and respond to their environment. How do they do this? Enter the two-component system; a two-protein system which allows stimuli to be detected and gene expression altered using phosphate transfer.
Sources for this episode: 1) Madigan, M. T., Martinko, J. M., Dunlap, P. V. and Clark, D. P. (2009), Brock Biology of Microorganisms (12th Edition, International Edition), San Francisco: Pearson Benjamin Cummings Ltd. 2) Thain, M. and Hickman, M. (2014), Dictionary of Biology (Eleventh Edition). London: Penguin Books Ltd. 3) Willey, J. M., Sherwood, L. M. and Woolverton, C. J. (2017), Prescott’s Microbiology (10th Edition, International Edition), Singapore: McGraw Hill Education Ltd. 4) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Osmotic concentration (online) [Accessed 27/05/2021].

No, the episode name isn’t a typo. Rather, it’s the name of a subspecies of zebra we’re going to be discussing today. Along the way, we will explore clines, the purpose of zebra stripes and an attempt to breed back the quagga from its zebra cousins. Why don’t we hear more about it? Well, because it no longer exists…

Sources for this episode: 1) Bryden, H. A. (1889), Kloof and karroo: Sport, legend and natural history in Cape Colony, with a notice of the game birds, and of the present distribution of antelopes and larger game, London and New York: Longmans, Green and Co. Available at: Internet Archive [Accessed 14/05/2021]. 2) Cain, M. L., Bowman, W. D. and Hacker, S. D. (2011), Ecology (Second Edition). Sunderland, Massachusetts, Sinauer Associated Ltd. 3) Davis, N., The Guardian (2019), Why the zebra got its stripes: to deter flies from landing on it (online) [Accessed 14/05/2021]. 4) Douglas, G. (1821), A Communication of a Singular Fact in Natural History, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1776-1886) 111: 20–22. Available at Internet Archive [Accessed 14/05/2021]. 5) The Editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica (2018), Quagga (online) [Accessed 14/05/2021]. 6) Heywood, P. (2020), Sexual dimorphism of body size in taxidermy specimens of Equus quagga quagga Boddaert (Equidae), Journal of Natural History 53(45-46): 2757-2761. 7) Author unknown, The Quagga Project (date unknown), Home (online) [Accessed 14/05/2021]. 8) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Quagga (online) [Accessed 14/05/2021].

Biological warfare has tragically been around for centuries, including the famous example of the Mongols catapulting heads over the walls of Kaffa (which I’m almost certainly oversimplifying here and won’t cover today). However, I want to talk today about experiments conducted with anthrax on Gruinard Island, right here in the UK.
Sources for this episode: 1) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Gruinard Island (online) [Accessed 26/04/2021]. 2) Author unknown, Gov.uk (date unknown), The Truth About Porton Down (online) [Accessed 21/05/2021]. 3) Riedel, S. (2004), Biological warfare and bioterrorism: a historical warfare, BUMC Proceedings 17: 400-406. 4) Johnson, M. P., Pye, S. and Allcock, L. (2008), Dispersal mode and assessments of recovery on the shores of Gruinard, the ‘anthrax island’, Biodiversity Conservation 17: 721-732. 5) Madigan, M. T., Martinko, J. M., Dunlap, P. V. and Clark, D. P. (2009), Brock Biology of Microorganisms (12th Edition, International Edition), San Francisco: Pearson Benjamin Cummings Ltd. 6) Author unknown, BBC News (2001), Britain’s ‘Anthrax Island’ (online) [Accessed 21/05/2021].

Today is more of a follow-up episode building on episode 39. Specifically, we’re going to examine two different schools of thought about plant succession, known as the Gleasonian and Clementsian models…
Sources for this episode: 1) Cain, M. L., Bowman, W. D. and Hacker, S. D. (2011), Ecology (Second Edition). Sunderland, Massachusetts, Sinauer Associated Ltd. 2) Hagen, J., Encyclopaedia Britannica (2020), Frederic Edward Clements (online) [Accessed 25/04/2021]. 3) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Henry A. Gleason (botanist) (online) [Accessed 25/04/2021].

Our discussion this week is going to head back into ecology and focus on succession- a change in the species composition of a community across space or time.
Sources for this episode: 1) Thain, M. and Hickman, M. (2014), Dictionary of Biology (Eleventh Edition) (p.674). London: Penguin Books Ltd. 2) Cain, M. L., Bowman, W. D. and Hacker, S. D. (2011), Ecology (Second Edition). Sunderland, Massachusetts, Sinauer Associated Ltd. 3) Thompson, J. N., Encyclopaedia Britannica (2018), Ecological succession (online) [Accessed 10/04/2021]. 4) Author unknown, Encyclopaedia.com (updated 2018), Plagioclimax (online) [Accessed 10/04/2021].

Haemophilia is a genetic condition which is characterised by one of the blood clotting factors, usually encoded for on the X chromosome, not being encoded for properly for various reasons- whether it’s a mobile genetic element inserting itself into the gene or a simple mutation. On the show today, we describe the cause and symptoms of haemophilia, as well as using the case study of Queen Victoria to show that new mutations are a surprisingly common root cause…
Sources for this episode: 1-2) Wikipedia entries for Factor VIII and Queen Victoria (online) [Accessed 08/04/2021]. 3) Thain, M. and Hickman, M. (2014), Dictionary of Biology (Eleventh Edition). London: Penguin Books Ltd. 4) Author unknown, The Haemophilia Society (date unknown), Bleeding Disorders > Haemophilia (online) [Accessed 08/04/2021]. 5) Francioli, L. C., et al. (2015), Genome-wide patterns and properties of de novo mutations in humans. Nature Genetics 47(7): 822- 826. 6) Mannucci, P. M. and Tuddenham, E. G. D. (2001), The Haemophilias- From Royal Genes to Gene Therapy. The New England Journal of Medicine 344(23): 1773- 1779.

We’re all familiar with populations, but what about a metapopulation? Put simply, these are populations of populations. Thanks to our sources and also my interpretation of the subject from back when I studied the concept, that’s the notion we’re going to unravel today…

Sources for this episode: 1) Cain, M. L., Bowman, W. D. and Hacker, S. D. (2011), Ecology (Second Edition). Sunderland, Massachusetts, Sinauer Associated Ltd. 2) Thompson, J. N., Encyclopaedia Britannica (2016), Metapopulation (online) [Accessed 17/04/2021]. 3) Wu, J., Encyclopaedia Britannica (2019), Patch dynamics (online) [Accessed 18/04/2021]. 4) In this episode, I use an analogy from how I understood the concept from back when I was taught the concept at university, which I’ve signposted.

Back in the early 20th century, an English mathematician and a German scientist both independently came up with an equation to portray the frequency of different phenotypes in a hypothetical population. As we’ll see today, this equation rests on some pretty big assumptions which effectively exclude evolution. Why is this useful? Well, because we can use it to see if evolution might be occurring…

Sources for this episode: 1-2) Wikipedia articles for ‘Wilhelm Weinberg’ and ‘G. H. Hardy’. 3)TED-Ed, YouTube (2012), Five fingers of evolution- Paul Anderson (online) [Accessed 18/04/2021]. 4) Thain, M., and Hickman, M. (2014), The Penguin Dictionary of Biology, 11th edition. London: Penguin Publishing Group (p.329- 330). 5) Herron, J. C. and Freeman, S. (2015), Evolutionary Analysis (Fifth Edition, Global Edition). Harlow: Pearson Education Limited (p.257). 5) Chen, B., Cole, J. W. and Grond-Ginsbach, C. (2017), Departure from Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium and Genotyping Error. Frontiers in Genetics 8(167).