Eviatar Nevo

• University of Haifa

Climate change increases the frequency and severity of drought worldwide, threatening the environmental resilience of cultivated grasses. However, the genetic diversity in many wild grasses could contribute to the development of climate-adapted varieties. Here, we elucidated the impact of polyploidy on drought response using allotetraploid Brachypo...

Climate change increases the frequency and severity of drought worldwide, threatening the environmental resilience of cultivated grasses. However, the genetic diversity in many wild grasses could contribute to the development of climate-adapted varieties. Here, we elucidated the impact of polyploidy on drought response using allotetraploid Brachypo...

Understanding how microbiomes influence the life cycle and fitness of crops, and how global change drivers disrupt this network, is pivotal for an understanding of the crop as a holobiont, and of how to provide solutions for Nordic agricultural crop resilience under climate change. Despite decades of use of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGP...

Climate change increases the frequency and severity of drought worldwide, threatening the environmental resilience of cultivated grasses. However, the genetic diversity in many wild grasses could contribute to the development of climate-adapted varieties. Here, we elucidated the impact of polyploidy on drought response using allotetraploid Brachypo...

Tibetan sheep were introduced to the Qinghai Tibet plateau roughly 3,000 B.P., making this species a good model for investigating genetic mechanisms of high-altitude adaptation over a relatively short timescale. Here, we characterize genomic structural variants (SVs) that distinguish Tibetan sheep from closely related, low-altitude Hu sheep, and we...

Mounting theoretical and empirical studies prove that sympatric speciation is possible in nature, however, it’s commonality is still debated. Here we show genomic evidence for incipient sympatric speciation in Drosophila hydei from Evolution Canyon I in Mount Carmel Israel. First, we provide a reference genome with contig N50 of 4.72 Mb. Population...

Zokors, an Asiatic group of subterranean rodents, originated in lowlands and colonized high-elevational zones following the uplift of the Qinghai–Tibet plateau about 3.6 million years ago. Zokors live at high elevation in subterranean burrows and experience hypobaric hypoxia, including both hypoxia (low oxygen concentration) and hypercapnia (elevat...

Global climate change poses challenges to land use worldwide, and we need to reconsider agricultural practices. While it is generally accepted that biodiversity can be used as a biomarker for healthy agroecosystems, we must specify what specifically composes a healthy microbiome. Therefore, understanding how holobionts function in native, harsh, an...

The considerable drought tolerance of wild cereal crop progenitors has diminished during domestication in the pursuit of higher productivity. Regaining this trait in cereal crops is essential for global food security but requires novel genetic insight. Here, we assessed the molecular evidence for natural variation of drought tolerance in wild barle...

The gut microbiome is important for host nutrient metabolism and ecological adaptation. However, how the gut microbiome is affected by host phylogeny, ecology and diet during sympatric speciation remain unclear. Here, we compare and contrast the gut microbiome of two sympatric blind mole rat species and correlate them with their corresponding host...

Simple Summary The microevolutionary dynamics of soil bacteria under microclimatic differences are largely unexplored in contrast to our improving knowledge of their vast diversity. In this study, we performed a comparative metagenomic analysis of two sharply divergent rocks and soil types at the Evolution Plateau (EP) in eastern Upper Galilee, Isr...

The boletoid genera Butyriboletus and Exsudoporus have recently been suggested by some researchers to constitute a single genus, and Exsudoporus was merged into Butyriboletus as a later synonym. However, no convincing arguments have yet provided significant evidence for this congeneric placement. In this study, we analyze material from Exsudoporus...

Barley is an important founder crop as human food for thousands of years and is currently a key agricultural commodity for the beverage industry and animal feed. However, the stress tolerance of barley has been significantly reduced during the domestication and breeding processes. At the microsite “Evolution Slope”, Tabigha, Israel, wild barley (Ho...

Ferns appear in the fossil record some 200 Myr before angiosperms. However, as angiosperm‐dominated forest canopies emerged in the Cretaceous period there was an explosive diversification of modern (leptosporangiate) ferns, which thrived in low, blue‐enhanced light beneath angiosperm canopies. A mechanistic explanation for this transformative event...

Fusarium head blight (FHB) caused by Fusarium pathogens is one of the most devastating fungal diseases of small grain cereals worldwide, substantially reducing yield quality and food safety. Its severity is increasing due to the climate change caused by weather fluctuations. Intensive research on FHB control methods has been initiated more than a d...

This book is devoted to the diversity of the rust fungi of Israel. In total, 181 species belonging to 18 genera of Pucciniales are described, from which 4 genera such as Caeoma, Cumminsiella, Ochropsora, and Pucciniastrum, together with 23 species are new for Israel, including 3 novel species Caeoma origani, Puccinia biteliana, and Puccinia rayssia...

Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) caused by Fusarium graminearum pathogens constitutes a major threat to agricultural production because it frequently reduces the yield and quality of the crop. The disease severity is predicted to increase in various regions owing to climate change. Integrated management where biocontrol plays an important role has been s...

Chloroplast retrograde signaling networks are vital for chloroplast biogenesis, operation, and signaling, including excess light and drought stress signaling. To date, retrograde signaling has been considered in the context of land plant adaptation, but not regarding the origin and evolution of signaling cascades linking chloroplast function to sto...

Significance Microsite evolution involving ecological divergence due to geological, edaphic, or climatic conditions requires adaptive complexes to environmental stresses. The higher drought tolerance of wild barley populations inhabiting Terra Rossa soil at the Tabigha Evolution Slope has been described, but the underlying genetic mechanisms remain...

Significance The naked mole rat (NMR) is the longest-lived rodent with a maximum life span of over 30 years. Furthermore, NMRs are resistant to a variety of age-related diseases and remain fit and active until very advanced ages. The process of cellular senescence has evolved as an anticancer mechanism; however, it also contributes to aging and age...

Determining the mechanisms by which a species adapts to its environment is a key endeavor in the study of evolution. In particular, relatively little is known about how transcriptional processes are fine-tuned to adjust to different environmental conditions. Here we study Drosophila melanogaster from ‘Evolution Canyon’ in Israel, which consists of...

The naturally occurring wild barley mutant eibi1/hvabcg31 suffers from severe water loss due to the permeable leaf cuticle. Eibi1/HvABCG31 encodes a full ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter, HvABCG31, playing a role in cutin deposition in the elongation zone of growing barley leaves. The eibi1 allele has pleiotropic effects on the appearance of...

Key message In this study we systematically identified and classified PKs in Triticum aestivum, Triticum urartu and Aegilops tauschii. Domain distribution and exon–intron structure analyses of PKs were performed, and we found conserved exon–intron structures within the exon phases in the kinase domain. Collinearity events were determined, and we id...

Fig. S1 Translation fidelity does not correlate with species body mass.

Whether errors in protein synthesis play a role in aging has been a subject of intense debate. It has been suggested that rare mistakes in protein synthesis in young organisms may result in errors in the protein synthesis machinery, eventually leading to an increasing cascade of errors as organisms age. Studies that followed generally failed to ide...

The subterranean blind mole rat (Spalax) is adapted to underground life stresses genomically, proteomically, and phenomically. It has been studied multidisciplinarily as an evolutionary model, and a potential medical therapy resource. The four parapatric species in Israel, are climatically adapted. Here, we examine coagulation, and blood properties...

Grasses began to diversify in the late Cretaceous Period and now dominate more than one third of global land area, including three-quarters of agricultural land. We hypothesize that their success is likely attributed to the evolution of highly responsive stomata capable of maximizing productivity in rapidly changing environments. Grass stomata harn...

The analysis of stress-responsiveness in cereal plants is an important route to the discovery of genes conferring stress tolerance and their use in breeding programs. High temperature is one of the environmental stress factors that can affect the growth and quality characteristics of barley (Hordeum vulgare). Almost all stresses induce the producti...

This paper presents information about Boletus poikilochromus, B. pulchrotinctus, and B. pulverulentus in Israel. These species are reported for the first time in Israel, and also B. pulchrotinctus and B. poikilochromus are reported for the first time in Asia. Furthermore, these three species are reported for the first time in association with Querc...

Significance Sympatric speciation (SS) has always been controversial since it was proposed by Darwin. Recently, we showed SS empirically in Spalax by amplified fragment-length polymorphism (AFLP), mitochondrial, and nuclear genomes. Similarly, SS in spiny mice, Acomys , from Evolution Canyon I (EC I), was earlier proposed by mtDNA and AFLP. Here, w...

Significance Speciation is the basis of the origin of biodiversity in nature. Sympatric speciation (SS) is still a controversial model of the origin of new species, since first proposed by Darwin in 1859. Here, we complement earlier genomic evidence with new analyses of transcriptome profiling, DNA editing, and microRNA, examined in the blind subte...

Data on species composition and morphology of Dinoflagellata (Dinophyta) of the Mediterranean Sea coastal waters of Israel (Haifa) are presented. To date, Dinoflagellata of the Mediterranean Sea have been studied mostly in its western and central regions. The eastern part of the sea is less explored; data on the dinoflagellates of the coastal water...

Differences in the way human and mouse fibroblasts experience senescence in culture had long puzzled researchers. While senescence of human cells is mediated by telomere shortening, Parrinello et al. demonstrated that senescence of mouse cells is caused by extreme oxygen sensitivity. It was hypothesized that the striking difference in oxygen sensit...

Increase of nitric oxide production resulted in the development of oxidative-nitrosative stress that is considered to be an etiological cause of many diseases, including diabetes mellitus (DM). Recently, it was found that red blood cells (RBCs) are able to produce nitric oxide (NO), and due to the ability of hemoglobin to bind to nitric oxide, are...

Genome-wide analysis demonstrates extensive genomic adaptive complexes involved in sympatric speciation between blind mole rats (Spalax galili) in abutting populations living in basalt and chalk soils. Among the gene ontology (GO) enrichment, musculature and metabolism stood out in basalt dwellers while nutrition and neurogenetics were highlighted...

Data S1. Original sequence alignments of 56 zokors respectively for the 26 Tas2r genes.

Table S1. GenBank accession numbers for human and mouse Tas2r sequences that were used for blast researching the zokor Tas2r genes. Table S2. Primers (5′ to 3′) for amplifying and sequencing the Tas2r genes of zokors. Table S3. Plants found in zokor over‐winter caches or vicinity quadrats and their tastes as well as overall appearance frequencies...

The ability to detect bitter tastes is important for animals; it can help them to avoid ingesting harmful substances. Bitter taste perception is mainly mediated by bitter taste receptor proteins, which are encoded by members of the Tas2r gene family and vary with the dietary preference of a specific species. Although individuals with different geno...

Proteostasis is an integral component of healthy aging, ensuring maintenance of protein structural and functional integrity with concomitant impact upon health span and longevity. In most metazoans, increasing age is accompanied by a decline in protein quality control resulting in the accrual of damaged, self-aggregating cytotoxic proteins. A notab...

Significance p53 has been shown to play important roles in environmental adaptive evolution. Here we show that p53 and its target genes express differentially between two abutting populations of the blind mole rat Spalax galili during its sympatric speciation caused by sharply divergent abutting ecologies of chalk and basalt. Remarkably, the differ...

With diabetes mellitus and increased glucose concentrations, the mitochondria electron transport chain is disrupted, superoxide anions are overproduced, and oxidative stress develops in cells. Thus, preventing oxidative stress can produce a decrease in the antioxidant system activity and an increase in apoptosis in immune cells. The application of...

The morphology and phylogeny of a species of Entyloma on Scandix verna (Apiaceae, Apioideae, Scandiceae) collected in the Mount Carmel and Lower Galilee regions of Israel were studied using light microscopy and ITS rDNA sequence analyses. The fungus differs morphologically from other species on hosts of subfamily Apioideae: E. bupleuri, E. heloscia...

Significance Heparanase is the predominant enzyme that cleaves heparan sulfate (HS) in mammals, a linear polysaccharide that is normally attached to a core protein, forming HS proteoglycans (HSPGs) that are abundant in the cell surface and extracellular matrix (ECM). Cleavage of HS by heparanase results in structural alterations of the ECM and rele...

Data on species composition and morphology of Dinoflagellata (Dinophyta) of the Mediterranean Sea coastal waters of Israel (Haifa) are presented. To date, Dinoflagellata of the Mediterranean Sea have been studied mostly in its western and central regions. The eastern part of the sea is less explored; data on the dinoflagellates of the coastal water...

Both of the uplift of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) and the development of East Asian monsoon system (EAMS) could have comprehensively impacted the formation and evolution of Arid Central Asia (ACA). To understand how desert plants endemic to ACA responded to these two factors, we profiled the historical population dynamics and distribution range shi...

Background The current analysis of transposon elements (TE) in Drosophila melanogaster at Evolution Canyon, (EC), Israel, is based on data and analysis done by our collaborators (Drs. J. Gonzalez, J. Martinez and W. Makalowski, this issue). They estimated the frequencies of 28 TEs (transposon elements) in fruit flies (D. melanogaster) from the ecol...

Background: Cold stress is regarded as a key factor limiting widespread use for bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon). Therefore, to improve cold tolerance for bermudagrass, it is urgent to understand molecular mechanisms of bermudagrass response to cold stress. However, our knowledge about the molecular responses of this species to cold stress is large...

Significance Sympatric speciation is still highly controversial. Here we demonstrate, based on genome-wide divergence analysis, that sympatric speciation in the blind subterranean rodent Spalax galili encompasses multiple and widespread genomic adaptive complexes associated with the sharply divergent and abutting basalt and chalk soil populations....

In Fig. 2 of this Article, the CLOCK protein sequence of the blind mole rat (Spalax) was inadvertently used to represent that of the naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber) in both the sequence alignment (Fig. 2a) and the resulting phylogenetic tree (Fig. 2b). On the basis of this analysis, it was proposed that the expanded glutamine-rich region of...

The tool-assisted extractive foraging capabilities of captive (zoo) and semi-captive (sanctuary) bonobo (Pan paniscus) groups were compared to each other and to those known in wild chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) cultures. The bonobos were provided with natural raw materials and challenged with tasks not previously encountered, in experimental setting...

Association mapping is a powerful approach to detect associations between traits of interest and genetic markers based on linkage disequilibrium (LD) in molecular plant breeding. In this study, 150 accessions of worldwide originated durum wheat germplasm (Triticum turgidum spp. durum) were genotyped using 1,366 SNP markers. The extent of LD on each...

Abstract: Comparative analysis of algal communities in the rivers of Israel was completed to highlight the infuence of environmental variables on biodiversity. The study revealed that 671 species of algae and cyanobacteria belonging to nine taxonomic divisions were present during 2002-2009 in the Yarqon, Alexander, Hadera, Qishon, Oren, Lower and...

Paenibacillus polymyxa is a common soil bacterium with broad range of practical applications. An important group of secondary metabolites in P. polymyxa are non-ribosomal peptide and polyketide derived metabolites (NRPs/PKs). Modular non-ribosomal peptide synthetases catalyze main steps in the biosynthesis of the complex secondary metabolites. Here...

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is accompanied by the development of hypoxia, which disturbs the physicochemical properties of the erythrocyte membrane and further leads to the occurrence of anemia and a reduction of the lifespan. In response, the body activates compensatory reactions directed at a renewal of the red blood cell pool and an increase in tissu...

Oxidative-nitrative stress develops as a result of hyperglycemia under diabetes mellitus. Formation of excessive reactive oxygen species and reactive nitrogen species leads to different cytotoxic effects and ultimately to increased cell death by apoptosis of immune-competent blood cells. This study showed the influence of medicinal mushroom (MM) ad...

"Evolution Canyon" (ECI) at Lower Nahal Oren, Mount Carmel, Israel, is an optimal natural microscale model for unraveling evolution in action highlighting the basic evolutionary processes of adaptation and speciation. A major model organism in ECI is wild emmer, Triticum dicoccoides, the progenitor of cultivated wheat, which displays dramatic inter...

The present paper reviews the state of cultivated barley, Hordeum vulgare, in Old World agriculture and its domestication through its progenitor, wild barley, Hordeum spontaneum. It focuses on the adaptation, incipient sympatric speciation, and domestication of H. spontaneum in the “Evolution Canyon” model. The “Evolution Canyon,” at lower Nahal Or...

The diagnosis and pictures of the new variety Peridinium gatunense var. kinnereta Krachmalny var. nov. from Lake Kinneret (Israel) are given. This variety differs from the type in morphology and position of the apical plates and sutures (1’ – asymmetrical, large, upper part is shifted to the left side of the body; 3’ – wedge, elongated; 4’ – almost...

Unlike landmark methods for estimating object asymmetry, continuous symmetry measures (CSM) can be used to measure the symmetry distance (ds) of inconsistent objects, such as plant leaves. Inconsistent objects have no homologous landmarks, no consistent topology, no quantitative consistency, and sometimes no matching points. When CSM is used in con...

Significance Both genetically altered and naturally long-lived mammals are more resistant to toxic compounds that may cause cancer and age-associated diseases than their shorter-lived counterparts. The mechanisms by which this stress resistance occurs remain elusive. We found that longer-lived rodent species had markedly higher levels of signaling...

Molybdenum cofactor sulfurases (MCSUs) are important enzymes for plant development and response to environmental queues, including processes such as nitrogen metabolism and regulation of the abscisic acid levels in plant tissues. We cloned and sequenced MCSU gene from barley and performed in silico comparison with rice, tomato, and Arabidopsis. Phy...

Objective:: To investigat the mechanism of antitumor efficacy of Origanum dayi (O. dayi) and Ochradenus baccatus (O. baccatus) extracts by exploring apoptosis-inducing potential. Methods:: The aqueous extracts of aerial parts of aforementioned plants were prepared and used for this study. HepG2 cells were treated with varying concentrations (0, 2 a...

The calcineurin B-like proteins (CBLs), a unique family of calcium sensors in plants, have been shown to be involved in abiotic stresses, such as salt, drought and cold. Although extensive studies and remarkable progress have been made in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) CBLs, very little is known about the role of CBL genes in wheat. In this stu...

Significance The draft genome of Tibetan hulless barley provides a robust framework to better understand Poaceae evolution and a substantial basis for functional genomics of crop species with a large genome. The expansion of stress-related gene families in Tibetan hulless barley implies that it could be considered as an invaluable gene resource aid...

Covers smut fungi (Ustilaginomycetes P.P., Exobasidiomycetes P.P., and Microbotryales) of Israel. A total of 73 species in 15 genera are described. Three genera ( Macalpinomyces, Melanustilospora, and Schizonella) are new records for Israel. The book is divided into two main parts: General Part providing data regarding environmental conditions of I...

Under conditions of chronic hyperglycemia there is dysregulation of ion homeostasis, violation of redox metabolism and functioning of membrane enzymes, as well as changes in the structural and functional states of erythrocyte membranes. As a result, the aggregation ability of erythrocytes increased and their deformability decreased. These changes l...

Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) is major cool-season forage and turf grass species worldwide, but high-temperature is a major environmental stress that dramatically threaten forage production and turf management of tall fescue. However, very little is known about the whole-genome molecular mechanisms contributing to thermotolerance. The o...

Sclerogaster compactus, Wakefieldia macrospora, and Setchelliogaster tenuipes are reported from Israel for the first time. All of them are new for the Middle East. Detailed macro- and micromorphological descriptions, ecology, geography, and critical notes along with pictures of light and scanning electron microscopy are given.

Stripe smut of grasses, Ustilago striiformis s.l., is a complex of smut fungi widely distributed over temperate and subtropical regions. The disease results in the shredding and death of leaf tissue following the rupture of elongated sori. Nearly 100 different grass species in more than 30 genera are infected by stripe smut. During the last two cen...

Various major evolutionary problems are still open, controversial or unsettled. These include even the basic evolutionary processes of adaptation and speciation. The “Evolution Canyon” model is a microscale natural laboratory that can highlight some of the basic problems requiring clarification (Nevo list of “Evolution Canyon” publications at http:...