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Fox Sparrow
The fox sparrow (''Passerella iliaca'') is a large New World sparrow. It is the only member of the genus ''Passerella'', although some authors split the species into four (see below). Taxonomy More specific information regarding plumage is available in the accounts for the various Taxon, taxa. *Red fox sparrow, ''P. i. iliaca'' (Merrem, 1786) – this taxon breeds in the taiga of Canada and Alaska and winters in central and eastern North America. This is the brightest colored group. *Sooty fox sparrow, ''P. i. unalaschcensis'' (Gmelin, JF, 1789) – this taxon breeds along the Pacific coast of North America from the Aleutian Islands south to northwestern Washington, and winters from southeastern Alaska south to northern Baja California. It is browner and darker than the red fox sparrow. *Slate-colored fox sparrow, ''P. i. schistacea'' Baird, SF, 1858 – this taxon breeds in interior western North America and winters to the south and west. It has a gray head and mantle, brown win ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Fox Sparrow
The red fox sparrow is the collective name for the most brightly colored taxa in the New World sparrow genus ''Passerella'', the ''Passerella iliaca iliaca'' group. Taxonomy Pending wider-spread acceptance of species status, the red fox sparrow is currently classified as a "subspecies group"Not defined by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, ICZN within fox sparrows. It has long been suspected to be a separate evolutionary lineage due to Morphology (biology), morphological distinctness, and this is confirmed by analysis of mtDNA DNA sequence, sequence and haplotype data. This group appears to be most closely related to the slate-colored fox sparrows, but it is altogether likely to represent the Basal (phylogenetics), basalmost divergence of the fox sparrow clade. Description The red fox sparrow is a large sparrow with a length of 15–19 cm (6–7.5 inches), wingspan of 27 cm (10.5 inches) and an average weight of 32 grams (1.1 oz). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MtDNA
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is only a small portion of the DNA in a eukaryotic cell; most of the DNA can be found in the cell nucleus and, in plants and algae, also in plastids such as chloroplasts. Human mitochondrial DNA was the first significant part of the human genome to be sequenced. This sequencing revealed that the human mtDNA includes 16,569 base pairs and encodes 13 proteins. Since animal mtDNA evolves faster than nuclear genetic markers, it represents a mainstay of phylogenetics and evolutionary biology. It also permits an examination of the relatedness of populations, and so has become important in anthropology and biogeography. Origin Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA are thought to be of separate evolutionary origin, with the mtDNA being derived from t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HBW And BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist Of The Birds Of The World
The ''HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World'' is a checklist of the birds of the world published by Lynx Edicions Lynx Edicions is a Spanish publishing company specializing in ornithology and natural history. History Lynx Edicions was founded in Barcelona by , a lawyer and collector; , a naturalist; and , a medical doctor and writer. Since 2002, the company ... in association with BirdLife International in two volumes in 2014 and 2016. This list follows the 16-volume '' Handbook of the Birds of the World'' and is used as a base for the birds in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and many other organizations. References Ornithological checklists {{Bird-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in the southwestern United States. Depending on differing definitions between Canada and the U.S., its northern terminus is located either in northern British Columbia's Terminal Range south of the Liard River and east of the Trench, or in the northeastern foothills of the Brooks Range/ British Mountains that face the Beaufort Sea coasts between the Canning River and the Firth River across the Alaska-Yukon border. Its southernmost point is near the Albuquerque area adjacent to the Rio Grande rift and north of the Sandia–Manzano Mountain Range. Being the easternmost portion of the North American Cordillera, the Rockies are distinct from the tectonically younger Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada, which both lie farther to its west. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glaciation
A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate between glacial periods. The Last Glacial Period ended about 15,000 years ago. The Holocene is the current interglacial. A time with no glaciers on Earth is considered a greenhouse climate state. Quaternary Period Within the Quaternary, which started about 2.6 million years before present, there have been a number of glacials and interglacials. At least eight glacial cycles have occurred in the last 740,000 years alone. Penultimate Glacial Period The Penultimate Glacial Period (PGP) is the glacial period that occurred before the Last Glacial Period. It began about 194,000 years ago and ended 135,000 years ago, with the beginning of the Eemian interglacial. Last Glacial Period The last glacial period was the most recent glacial period ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biogeography
Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation and habitat area.Brown University, "Biogeography." Accessed February 24, 2014. . Phytogeography is the branch of biogeography that studies the distribution of plants. Zoogeography is the branch that studies distribution of animals. Mycogeography is the branch that studies distribution of fungi, such as mushrooms. Knowledge of spatial variation in the numbers and types of organisms is as vital to us today as it was to our early human ancestors, as we adapt to heterogeneous but geographically predictable environments. Biogeography is an integrative field of inquiry that unites concepts and information from ecology, evolutionary biology, taxonomy, geology, physical geography, palaeontology, and climatology.Dansereau, Pierre. 1957 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morphology (biology)
Morphology is a branch of biology dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features. This includes aspects of the outward appearance (shape, structure, colour, pattern, size), i.e. external morphology (or eidonomy), as well as the form and structure of the internal parts like bones and organs, i.e. internal morphology (or anatomy). This is in contrast to physiology, which deals primarily with function. Morphology is a branch of life science dealing with the study of gross structure of an organism or taxon and its component parts. History The etymology of the word "morphology" is from the Ancient Greek (), meaning "form", and (), meaning "word, study, research". While the concept of form in biology, opposed to function, dates back to Aristotle (see Aristotle's biology), the field of morphology was developed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1790) and independently by the German anatomist and physiologist Karl Friedrich Burdach ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haplotype
A haplotype ( haploid genotype) is a group of alleles in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent. Many organisms contain genetic material ( DNA) which is inherited from two parents. Normally these organisms have their DNA organized in two sets of pairwise similar chromosomes. The offspring gets one chromosome in each pair from each parent. A set of pairs of chromosomes is called diploid and a set of only one half of each pair is called haploid. The haploid genotype (haplotype) is a genotype that considers the singular chromosomes rather than the pairs of chromosomes. It can be all the chromosomes from one of the parents or a minor part of a chromosome, for example a sequence of 9000 base pairs. However, there are other uses of this term. First, it is used to mean a collection of specific alleles (that is, specific DNA sequences) in a cluster of tightly linked genes on a chromosome that are likely to be inherited together—that is, they are likely to be con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Code Of Zoological Nomenclature
The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is a widely accepted convention in zoology that rules the formal scientific naming of organisms treated as animals. It is also informally known as the ICZN Code, for its publisher, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (which shares the acronym "ICZN"). The rules principally regulate: * How names are correctly established in the frame of binominal nomenclature * Which name must be used in case of name conflicts * How scientific literature must cite names Zoological nomenclature is independent of other systems of nomenclature, for example botanical nomenclature. This implies that animals can have the same generic names as plants (e.g. there is a genus ''Abronia'' in both animals and plants). The rules and recommendations have one fundamental aim: to provide the maximum universality and continuity in the naming of all animals, except where taxonomic judgment dictates otherwise. The code is meant to guid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DNA Sequence
DNA sequencing is the process of determining the nucleic acid sequence – the order of nucleotides in DNA. It includes any method or technology that is used to determine the order of the four bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. The advent of rapid DNA sequencing methods has greatly accelerated biological and medical research and discovery. Knowledge of DNA sequences has become indispensable for basic biological research, DNA Genographic Projects and in numerous applied fields such as medical diagnosis, biotechnology, forensic biology, virology and biological systematics. Comparing healthy and mutated DNA sequences can diagnose different diseases including various cancers, characterize antibody repertoire, and can be used to guide patient treatment. Having a quick way to sequence DNA allows for faster and more individualized medical care to be administered, and for more organisms to be identified and cataloged. The rapid speed of sequencing attained with modern D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
D-loop
In molecular biology, a displacement loop or D-loop is a DNA structure where the two strands of a double-stranded DNA molecule are separated for a stretch and held apart by a third strand of DNA. An R-loop is similar to a D-loop, but in this case the third strand is RNA rather than DNA. The third strand has a base sequence which is complementary to one of the main strands and pairs with it, thus displacing the other complementary main strand in the region. Within that region the structure is thus a form of triple-stranded DNA. A diagram in the paper introducing the term illustrated the D-loop with a shape resembling a capital "D", where the displaced strand formed the loop of the "D". D-loops occur in a number of particular situations, including in DNA repair, in telomeres, and as a semi-stable structure in mitochondrial circular DNA molecules. In mitochondria Researchers at Caltech discovered in 1971 that the circular mitochondrial DNA from growing cells included a short ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
