The scientific meeting Evolutionary Biology in Marseilles (EBM) is the largest gathering in France on evolutionary biology and has been happening for 14 years organized by French researcher Pierre Pontarotti . In 2008, while doing my post-doctorate in Strasbourg - in collaboration with the group Pierre in Marseilles - send an abstract for oral presentation at this conference and, like all that well wished I was approved and talked about the ontology CDAO for an audience of hundreds of scientists around the world. Pierre, without even knowing me, kindly offered me to stay with his family staying in your own home and so I spent about three weeks in this beautiful, chaotic and interesting town in southern France, where he worked with and helped his students one thing and another when the organization of the congress.
EBM (Evolutionary Biology in Marseilles) seems to be the main French congress of evolutionary biology. Every year in September, researchers around the world gather. The idea is to allow Congress that all interested parties present seminars of up to 20 minutes (among leading researchers, students and neophytes in the field) and the open discussions that happen and thought provoking. The conference is very interesting and certainly worth checking out.
The congress was very interesting, open and simple that I never stopped taking notes at every lecture that happened. At the end of it, had a notepad on the conference decided to transform it into text and display Pontarotti. He was pleased with the outcome and, after some modifications, agreed to publish it as a "Report of the meeting" (meeting report ) in opening the book's publisher Springer - where certain papers presented at the conference came out officially as scientific publications. This blog has even published the translation of a small part of the text published by my research group in that book (click here to read).
cover of the book to be published by Springer, which were published the best papers presented at this conference, 2008. This post is a loose translation of the pages saw x of it, written by me and Pontarotti, originally in English. The book can be purchased at amazon site the bitter price of U.S. $ 159.00. In this book, get published in the name of this blogger "Meeting report" below and also Chapter 12, written in collaboration with researchers from Britain, Italy and America .*
===
On the twelfth meeting of evolutionary biology at Marseilles
- Meeting Report: 12th Evolutionary Biology
By Francisco Prosdócimo and Pierre Pontarotti
The twelfth meeting of Evolutionary Biology in Marseilles (EBM) was due to start on 24 September 2008 while it actually started at a dinner table the night before its official opening. People around the world who arrived a day before the official beginning of the conference met this informal social activity. And of course we could not have been different: one group of scientists - passionate about their subjects - sitting around a dinner table could only result in one thing: a scientific debate . It was Daniel John Lawson, a postdoc at Imperial College London, who put the question: "Does it still exist basic controversies in evolutionary biology that would not have been resolved? " The general response across the table while bottles of various reds and whites that circulated among glasses were emptied quickly perhaps it was a clear and effusive " not." All those twenty to thirty scientists who were delighted with a traditional repas français seemed reasonably satisfied with the modern view of the Darwinian paradigm. All agreed that Darwin had made the key point of convergence and the largest research program in biological sciences. Someone reminded Dobzhansky: "Nothing makes sense in biology except in light of developments . At that moment it seemed that evolutionary biologists around the big table in a restaurant "Vieux Port (old port) Marseilles underestimating the depth and richness of the debates - many of them involving long-standing controversies in evolutionary biology - that would be involved in the days that followed ...
On the first morning of the congress, a computational model for evolutionary change was presented and opened a debate between the forces of natural selection as opposed to quasi-neutral based on the ideas of Kimura: selectionism neutralism and were put into discussion. In the afternoon, Guy Hoelzer at the University of Nevada in the United States brought on the agenda a discussion of the relevance of allopatry for speciation , discussing how the genomes of populations start to become incompatible after mutations specifically going here or there. The confirmation of this scenario was given through computer simulations, where a group of London showed the presence of polymorphisms in hepatitis B who were geographically restricted to certain strains of the virus found in particular regions of the planet.
The next day, the relationship between kinship and fertility was also modeled computationally pointing out that most fertility in humans should be observed in couples related kinship second third or fourth grades. Stanislaw Cebrat and colleagues produced a model who argued to explain and prove the occurrence of sympatric speciation based on the death of zygotes when associated with some form of outbreeding depression within populations. Moreover, the controversial issue about the origin of life was discussed by researchers working in Italy, Russia and Japan Di Mauro used information on physical organic molecules most commonly found in systems to discuss a possible interstellar origin of living systems based on molecules of formamide (CH3NO). Victor Ostrovskii agreed with Di Mauro in the sense that he thought life should not have arisen from events too unlikely, arising from conditions thermodynamically favorable. The key point in their arguments seemed to be summarized by quoting from Victor Stenger in "The Comprehensive Cosmos," saying "something comes out of nowhere because it is more stable than anything" ("cam something from nothing because it is more stable than nothing "). Tadashi Sugawara raised the question about the origin of the cells showing that giant lipid vesicles could possibly divide into play without needing teleonomic information (such as information encoded by DNA) to guide their duplication.
The book "The comprehensive cosmos" by Victor Stenger (whose subtitle is "to see where the laws of physics") was cited by researchers in origin of life, arguing that life probably did not arise from conditions absurdly improbable, "something comes from because nothing is more stable than anything. "
Also the evolution of sex was addressed simplistically, explained and theorized by computer models describing the behavior of prey escaping predators. Robert French at the University of Burgundy presented an interesting model to describe what he called "Red Tooth Hypothesis " in which theorized that combined strategies should be used by prisoners to escape from predators during a flight. Therefore using a computer model to describe the behavior of hunting / trail in populations with sexual and asexual reproduction, he addressed the question of how sexual reproduction could have advantages in the escape behavior of prey and allow it to survive the onslaught of hungry predators.
Finally, in the first day the evolution of gene functions through neofuncionalização subfuncionalização and were discussed by Ashley Byun McKay of Fairfield University in Canada. The researcher showed examples of duplicated genes in which a single mutation in the signal peptide sequence would be responsible for modifying the cellular compartment in which a gene should be expressed and subsequently modify gene function itself. Discussions were then diverted to the relevance of theories saltationists happening during evolution. How often point mutations such as these could produce drastic changes in gene function and behavior of organisms?
not these long-standing history of evolutionary biology, new technologies for the evolutionary analysis were presented during the conference in France. Represented by a lecture and three poster presentations, a group led by the Croatian Tomislav Domazet -Lozo was probably the greatest team in the conference this research, except for groups from Marseilles. His research had been named filoestratigrafia and consisted of (i) the identification of species-specific genes and (ii) to verify expression of these genes in different tissues in organisms. Thus, the group was able to identify the relevance of novel genes expressed in tissues and address issues relating to the modification of tissues and organs over time in different model species.
Another new technology presented during the conference was brought by a consortium of French and American researchers. They brought the description of a conceptual model (ontology) that they would argue, will allow researchers to represent evolutionary information in a way that encompasses morphological and molecular differences between organisms and genes. They argued that the description of experiments according to the basic concepts in evolutionary biology - related through semantic entities such as verbs and concepts - will facilitate functional inference based on phylogenetic data, help in interpreting the massive amounts of data available in biology in the era of petabyte *.
In a paper presented orally (in English) by this blogger, our research group describes the ontology CDAO. The idea inherited from the Vienna Circle is to define key concepts from which one can represent any study of biological evolution. Based on a linguistic model, since raw data have been represented there, reasoners programs (reasoners) may be able to search for new knowledge is fully automated. Given the huge amount of data from new sequencing techniques, semantic approaches should have more space in modern biology .*
Regarding the evolution of gene families , an Irish group showed that genes related to immune response loci are located nearby and are likely to be expressed together in genomes of vertebrates. The molecular natural selection was studied by the substitutions at sites of non-sinonímios sinonímios (dS / dN) by several groups around the world: in Japan occurred in the selection of fish galectin, in Ireland, these values \u200b\u200bcorrelated with the three-dimensional structure protein, and molecular screening in Germany was studied in Asr gene family in tomato as a group of French and American checked biased substitution rates related to virulence factors in nematodes.
Regarding the study of fossils , new research in the U.S. showed that the development of techniques for carbon-14 dating occurred over the last decade has helped to reveal much of the molecular changes observed in the human genome occurred during Holocene period (ie the last 10,000 years of history of our planet). In addition, paleobotanical Chinese showed the existence of a new group of fossil Angiosperms. Meanwhile, other botanical research in Belgium and Germany using both morphological and molecular data to study the evolution of basal angiosperm groups Piperales family. Taking now the way toward botany, French and Italian researchers also showed that dense populations of plants produce more viable seeds, this research is in line with the work described above which human geneticists prove that the higher fertility in our species is between groups whose ancestors are not too distant past. A group Israel showed evidence of events happening during alotetraploidia molecular evolution of carp (Cyprinidae), perhaps the only evidence of this event - so common in plants - happening in vertebrate species. Brian Kennedy presented an interesting study on aging, where evidence showed that this process did not seem to be programmed molecularly, since the selective pressures decreased with age. Along with his collaborators, have shown that caloric restriction made late in the lives of flies, worms and yeasts can help these organizations to extend the duration of their lives. Perhaps, therefore, the best advice being given to seniors who want to live longer, is: eat less !
In addition, a considerable amount of free discussion had focused on interdisciplinary research fields . The application of cladistic methods to reconstruct the history of galaxies was approached by Didier Brunet-Fraix Astrophysics Laboratory in Grenoble. His approach astrocladística was used to identify and map many characters probably important for the evolution of galaxies, allowing their classification in phylogenetic trees. As expected, due to the conservative tradition the Academy of Sciences, the researcher complained of difficulties in publishing these new and interesting ideas in journals of repute. "Galaxies are not living organisms," argued the reviewers refuse to work for your group. Someone working with the origin of life made the caveat: "if galaxies change over time if they can be born and die, are derived from a putative ancestor originated in the Big Bang and can interact with each other ... why should not be considered alive? "We must remember here that the discussion on the characteristics of a living system was one of the most important points that led the physicist Erwin Schrodinger theorizing about " an aperiodic crystal " to store genetic information in 1944. Read with interest by Watson and Crick, Schrodinger also can be considered an architect of modern molecular biology.
Frenchman Didier Fraix Burne-Astrophysics Laboratory, Grenoble, Switzerland, showed that galaxies can be understood, studied and classified by a cladistic analysis. His pioneering work was criticized by reviewers of renowned scientific journal, but has been successfully published in journals less stringent.
Interdisciplinary approaches were also discussed from the viewpoint of economy. Michael Turk, representing the Fitchbrug State College (USA) told the audience about the main attempts to scientificizes the economy was initially based on inherited models of physics. However, the researcher noticed several features of the economic model closer to the models in biology, such as: (1) emphasis on complexity, (2) dynamic characteristics, (3) cumulative change in focus, (4) competitive nature, and so on. Following this same line of argument introduced some philosophers of the economy (Brian Arthur, Paul David and Paul Krugman) that would have been influenced by biologists as Jacques Monod and brought ideas originating in the biological sciences such which the idea of \u200b\u200b"chance and necessity" for research in economics.
Finally, interdisplinares other topics were discussed throughout the conference as the relationship between evolutionary biology and theory of knowledge (epistemology). Specific questions posed by the public generated such discussions, as some researchers have argued that a particular scientific theory had been "proven false " long ago, without suggesting any courtesy that the study presented should be considered totally fruitless and inconclusive. The discussion then turned to following question: Does science really can give some definitive answer as the study of nature? Newtonian physics was remembered as the most undoubtedly correct scientific theories were later proved - at least in part - as false or incomplete. Should scientists dogmatize their search for knowledge? The agreement was that they always open discussions based on facts observed in experimental research should guide and load the scientific development. The dogmatism when the acceptance of hypotheses should not be kept within the realms of science and, in particular, outside the field of evolutionary biology - Science that has suffered at the hands of religious dogma since Darwin living in conservative Victorian England to the American fanatics creationists.
Finally - but not least - is worth pointing out the wide variety of computational approaches, biological and philosophical presented during this meeting. Researchers from different areas, illuminated by the most fertile of all biological theories, Darwinism, teem far been able to investigate all kinds of natural phenomena in their view that now extends to the physics and economics (not to mention the language, absent in this Congress but whose study methodology has also Darwinian manner). The evolutionary controversies and the latest discussions within the area are rich and teem each allowed a more precise maturation of the general theory espoused by Darwin over 150 years, a theory which remains the more general research program and integration of all sciences biological, including the medical sciences, worldwide.
=== * More information on the ontology evolution can be found at:
- Prosdócimo F chish B, Pontelli E, Thompson JD, Stoltzfus A. Initial Implementation of the Comparative Data Analysis Ontology. Evolutionary Bioinformatics 2009:5 47-66. Download PDF
- Site EvolutionaryOntology.org
- Prosdócimo F chish B, Pontelli E, Stoltzfus A and JD Thompson. Standardization Knowledge in Evolutionary Biology: The Comparative Data Analysis Ontology. Evolutionary Biology: Concept, Modeling, and Application. doi: / / 10.1007/978-3-642-00952-5_12. Download PDF
0 comments:
Post a Comment