Post Genome Biology Of Primates

In 2001, first reports of the human draft genome were published. Since then, genomes of many other organisms have been sequenced, including several primate species: the chimpanzee, rhesus macaque, gorilla, orangutan, gibbon, baboon, marmoset, tarsier, galago, lemur, and more recently Neanderthals. In a new era of "post-genome biology", scientists now have the vast amount of information revealed by genome research to confront one of the most challenging, fundamental questions in primatology and anthropology: What makes us human? This volume comprises a collection of articles on a variety of topics relevant to primate genomes, including evolution, human origins, genome structure, chromosome genomics, and bioinformatics. The book covers the cutting-edge research in molecular primatology and provides great insights into the functional diversity of primates. This valuable collection will benefit researchers and students, including primatologists, anthropologists, molecular biologists, evolutionary biologists, and animal behaviorists.

In 2001, first reports of the human draft genome were published. Since then, genomes of many other organisms have been sequenced, including several primate species: the chimpanzee, rhesus macaque, gorilla, orangutan, gibbon, baboon, marmoset, tarsier, galago, lemur, and more recently Neanderthals. In a new era of "post-genome biology", scientists now have the vast amount of information revealed by genome research to confront one of the most challenging, fundamental questions in primatology and anthropology: What makes us human? This volume comprises a collection of articles on a variety of topics relevant to primate genomes, including evolution, human origins, genome structure, chromosome genomics, and bioinformatics. The book covers the cutting-edge research in molecular primatology and provides great insights into the functional diversity of primates. This valuable collection will benefit researchers and students, including primatologists, anthropologists, molecular biologists, evolutionary biologists, and animal behaviorists.

Despite rapid increases in knowledge, malaria continues to kill more than a million people each year and causes symptomatic disease in a further 300 million individuals. This volume brings some of the world's best investigators to describe recent advances in both the scientific and clinical aspects of malaria, and bridges between the two.

This book introduces to the reader unfamiliar with primatology in Japan three research projects representative of the unique multidisciplinary approach carried out by scientists at Kyoto University, the country’s premier institution for primate studies. The projects are all aimed at understanding the age-old questions, where did we come from, and what makes us unique or similar to our primate ancestors? The first chapter, by Naofumi Nakagawa, focuses on the cultural diversity of social behavior in the Japanese macaque. This chapter reviews research on primate culture, in particular the work on Japanese macaques, then presents what is arguably the first example of a culturally transmitted social convention in the species, called “hug-hug”. The second chapter, by Michael A. Huffman, introduces our current knowledge of self-medication in primates, based largely on a long-term study of wild chimpanzees at Kyoto University’s longest ongoing chimpanzee field in Africa, Mahale, in Tanzania. The suite of behavioral adaptations to parasite infections in chimpanzees is compared with our current knowledge of self-medication in other primates and other animal species. The third chapter, by Yasuhiro Go, Hiroo Imai, and Masaki Tomonaga, describes the ambitious efforts to combine cognitive science and genomics into a new discipline called “comparative cognitive genomics”. This chapter provides an overview of recent advancements in chimpanzee comparative cognition, the construction of a chimpanzee genomic database, and comparative genomic studies at the individual level, looking into factors affecting personality and individuality.

Geneticist Eugene Harris presents us with the complete and up-to-date account of the evolution of the human genome.

This book presents 19 selected contributions to the 20th Evolutionary Biology Meeting in Marseille, which took place in September 2016. They are grouped under the following major themes: · Self/Nonself Evolution · Species Evolution and Evolution of Complex Traits · Methods and Concepts The aims of the annual meetings in Marseille – which bring together leading evolutionary biologists and other scientists using evolutionary biology concepts, e.g. for medical research – are to promote the exchange of ideas and to encourage interdisciplinary collaborations. Offering a revealing overview of the latest findings in the field of evolutionary biology, this book represents an invaluable source of information for scientists, teachers and advanced students alike.

Presents a comprehensive review of nonhuman primate audition and vocal communication. These are obviously intimately related topics, but are often addressed separately. The hearing abilities of primates have been tested experimentally in a large number of species across the primate order, and these studies have revealed both consistent patterns as well as interesting variation within and between taxonomic groups. Recent studies have shed light on how variation in anatomical structures along the auditory pathway relates to variation in auditory sensitivity. At the same time, ongoing studies of vocal communication in wild primate populations continue to reveal new insights into the social and environmental contexts of many primate calls, and the range of known primate vocalizations has increased dramatically with the development of more sophisticated and accessible auditory equipment and software that enables the recording and analysis of higher-fidelity and broader-band recordings, including documenting very high frequency (i.e. ultrasound) vocalizations. Historically the relative importance of primate calls has been evaluated qualitatively by the perception of the researcher, but new methods and approaches now enable a greater appreciation for how signals are used and perceived by the primates in question. The integration of anatomical and behavioral data on acoustic communication and the environmental correlates thereof has significant potential for reconstructing behavior in the fossil record. This confluence of factors and accumulating evidence for the sophistication and complexity in both the signal and its interpretation indicate that a book synthesizing this information across primates is warranted and represents an important contribution to the literature.

Genomic science indicates that humans descend not from an individual pair but from a large population. What does this mean for the basic claim of many Christians: that humans descend from Adam and Eve? Leading evangelical geneticist Dennis Venema and popular New Testament scholar Scot McKnight combine their expertise to offer informed guidance and answers to questions pertaining to evolution, genomic science, and the historical Adam. Some of the questions they explore include: - Is there credible evidence for evolution? - Do we descend from a population or are we the offspring of Adam and Eve? - Does taking the Bible seriously mean rejecting recent genomic science? - How do Genesis's creation stories reflect their ancient Near Eastern context, and how did Judaism understand the Adam and Eve of Genesis? - Doesn't Paul's use of Adam in the New Testament prove that Adam was a historical individual? The authors address up-to-date genomics data with expert commentary from both genetic and theological perspectives, showing that genome research and Scripture are not irreconcilable. Foreword by Tremper Longman III and afterword by Daniel Harrell.

Exploring everything from nutrients to food acquisition and research methods, a comprehensive synthesis of the study of diet and feeding in nonhuman primates. What do we mean when we say that a diet is nutritious? Why can some animals get all the energy they need from eating leaves while others would perish on such a diet? Why don’t mountain gorillas eat fruit all day as chimpanzees do? Answers to these questions about food and feeding are among the many tasty morsels that emerge from this authoritative book. Informed by the latest scientific tools and millions of hours of field and laboratory work on species across the primate order and around the globe, this volume is an exhaustive synthesis of our understanding of what, why, and how primates eat. State-of-the-art information presented at physiological, behavioral, ecological, and evolutionary scales will serve as a road map for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners as they work toward a holistic understanding of life as a primate and the urgent conservation consequences of diet and food availability in a changing world.

Primate molecular genetics, cytogenetics and genomics currently form a highly dynamic field of research. This has not occurred simply because of advances in technology. It is largely a consequence of the key insight that many aspects of human genome functioning can be better understood when knowledge about the conservation of, and changes in, genome organization during the course of evolution is integrated. Studies of our closest phylogenomic relatives, the nonhuman primates, can provide detailed information on the molecular mechanisms that shape the human genome. Consequently the chimpanzee genome project put forth the first chimpanzee draft sequence and its alignment with the human reference sequence in December 2003. Including review articles and original investigations, this Cytogenetic and Genome Research single topic issue bundles various different perspectives and provides a broad overview of the present knowledge about molecular cytogenetics, genome organization and evolution of primates. It will be of great interest to researchers and geneticists in the fields of primatology, anthropology, molecular phylogeny, evolution, human genetics and genome research.