James Stuart F Barker

University of New England (Australia) | UNE · School of Environmental and Rural Science

i) Formaldehyde, added to the food medium of Drosophila melanogaster larvae, was investigated as a mutagenic agent. (ii) The recessive lethal mutation frequency on chromosome II was found to be approximately twice that on chromosome X. (iii) Formaldehyde was much more mutagenic in a food medium fortified with dead yeast than in unfortified medium....

Visible pigmentation phenotypes can be used to explore the regulation of gene expression and the evolution of coat color patterns in animals. Here, we performed whole-genome and RNA sequencing and applied GWAS, comparative population genomics and biological experiments to show that the 2,809 bp long LINE-1 insertion in the ASIP (agouti signaling pr...

The domestic Asian water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is found on all five continents, with a global population of some 202 million. The livelihoods of more people depend on this species than on any other domestic animal. The two distinct types (river and swamp) descended from different wild Asian water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) populations that diverge...

Genetic variation for resistance to heat stress has been found for a number of life-history components in Drosophila species. For male and female fertility (or sterility), stress resistance of the parents is confounded with stress resistance of the haploid gametes. Many genes are known to influence male fertility in Drosophila melanogaster. Some ma...

Sperm sensitivity to heat stress. (XLS)

The swamp type of the Asian water buffalo is assumed to have been domesticated by about 4000 years BP, following the introduction of rice cultivation. Previous localizations of the domestication site were based on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation within China, accounting only for the maternal lineage. We carried out a comprehensive sampling of C...

Compilation of articles and data published in Drosophila Information Service 1977-2001

A compilation of 9 articles and data from Drosophila Information Service 1977-2001

Abstract Evolutionary ecologists commonly use reaction norms, which show the range of phenotypes produced by a set of genotypes exposed to different environments, to quantify the degree of phenotypic variance and the magnitude of plasticity of morphometric and life-history traits. Significant differences among the values of the slopes of the reacti...

Apparent selection affecting starch gel electrophoretic alleles at the Esterase-2 locus of Drosophila buzzatii has been detected in laboratory and natural populations. Perturbation-reperturbation of allele frequencies in replicated laboratory populations attempts to test direct selective effects at the locus versus effects of linked loci. Sequentia...

Drosophila buzzatii Patterson & Wheeler, a cactophilic species that feeds and breeds in the rotting tissues of various Opuntia cactus species, was inadvertently introduced to Australia from Argentina sometime during the period 1931–1936. After a bottleneck at introduction, its spread through the cactus distribution was probably very rapid as a resu...

Water buffalo is an important livestock species in Asia as well as in the world. The swamp type buffalo, found throughout southeast Asia, from Assam and Nepal in the west to the Yangtse valley of China, is traditionally reared to produce draft power and meat. In this study, microsatellite markers were analyzed to determine genetic origin and popula...

Allozyme and microsatellite data from numerous populations of Drosophila buzzatii have been used (i) to determine to what degree N e varies among generations within populations, and among populations, and (ii) to evaluate the congruence of four temporal and five single‐sample estimators of N e . Effective size of different populations varied over t...

Data from three published studies of genetic variation at 18 microsatellite loci in water buffalo populations in China (18 swamp type, two river type), Nepal (one wild, one domestic river, one hybrid) and south-east Asia (eight swamp, three river) were combined so as to gain a broader understanding of genetic relationships among the populations and...

Variation in climate, particularly temperature, is known to affect the genetic composition of populations. Although there have been many studies of latitudinal variation, comparisons of populations across altitudes or seasons, particularly for animal species, are less common. Here, we study genetic variation (microsatellite markers) in populations...