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Sperm strategies in rodents
Šandera, Martin ; Stopka, Pavel (advisor) ; Macholán, Miloš (referee) ; Sedláček, František (referee)
Rodents exhibit diverse biology, mating systems and diverse sperm morphology. Different levels of sperm competition have therefore been found in this group. Generally, it is accepted that sperm competition in animals causes the prolongation of sperm tails. However, what other sperm morphological adaptations in rodents are affected by sperm competition? Species-specific sexual selection likely optimizes sperm morphology. Sperm physiology, morphology and competition may be influenced, ultimately, by environmental factors. This Ph.D. thesis focuses on sperm competition in murine rodents. The thesis contains three research articles (including one as a submitted manuscript). In addition, another published article, partialy related to the topic of this thesis, is represented in the Appendix. The sperm morphology in rodents plays an important role in sperm competition. Longer tails and apical hooks are usually found in the species with relatively larger testes and with higher percentage of multiple paternity (i.e. rate of promiscuity), that is in species with the higher risk of sperm competition. The goal of the first study was to investigate the relationships between relative testis weight and sperm traits (apical hook and tail lengths and variance in this traits). The apical hook length was positively...
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Parental conflicts and speciation in the house mouse
Kropáčková, Lucie ; Reifová, Radka (advisor) ; Macholán, Miloš (referee)
Hybridization between closely related species of mammals is often accompanied by abnormal growth of placentas and fetuses. From the perspective of evolutionary biology, our knowledge about the contribution of such interspecies incompatibilities in speciation is still insufficient. In my thesis, I was finding out if abnormal placental and fetal growth contributes to reproductive isolation of two subspecies of house mouse, Mus musculus musculus and M. m. domesticus, which are at an early phase of speciation and in nature they still hybridize. Using two inbred strains derived from M. m. musculus (PWD/Ph, STUS) and two inbred strains derived from M. m. domesticus (C57BL6/J, SCHEST) we performed four different intrasubspecies and four different intersubspecies crosses. We found out that the size of the placenta in hybrids is more influenced by father, while the size of the fetus is more influenced by mother. After elimination influence of weight of mother and father we have not recorded a significant difference in the size of placentas and fetuses in intrasubspecies and intersubspecies crosses. Our results show that hybridization between subspecies of house mouse does not produce abnormalities in prenatal development, as was observed in hybrids between distant species of mice. It is thus possible that...
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Sociality and ecology in ground squirrels (tribe Marmotini).
Matějů, Jan ; Vohralík, Vladimír (advisor) ; Macholán, Miloš (referee) ; Zima, Jan (referee)
of the Ph.D. thesis Autor: Jan Matějů Name: Sociality and ecology in ground squirrels (tribe Marmotini) Ground-dwelling squirrels are parafyletic group of rodents from the family Sciuridae (tribes Marmotini and Xerini). Ground-dwelling squirrels are semi-fossorial inhabitants of treeless biotopes. They share most aspects of general biology. They usually breed once a year, have exclusively diurnal activity and are omnivorous. On the contrary, ground-dwelling squirrels display different levels of sociality, which makes them an ideal model to study different ecological aspects connected with evolution of sociality. The first part of the Ph.D. thesis is focused on the relationship between sociality and sexual size dimorphism and relative and absolute size of brain. At first, supposing that different levels of sociality are connected with differences in intensity of sexual selection acting on males, we tested association between sociality and sexual size dimorphism as well as association between sexual size dimorphism and body size - so called Rensch rule. Next, we tested correlation between sociality and relative brain size. In agreement with the Social brain hypothesis, we assumed that e.g. solitarily living species should have smaller relative brain size than species living in stable pairs. We found...
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Molecular phylogeography of the tench Tinca tinca (Linnaeus, 1758)
Lajbner, Zdeněk ; Kotlík, Petr (advisor) ; Flajšhans, Martin (referee) ; Macholán, Miloš (referee)
The tench Tinca tinca (Linnaeus, 1758) is a valued table fish native to Europe and Asia, but which is now widely distributed in many temperate freshwater regions of the world as the result of human-mediated translocations. Spatial genetic analysis applied to sequence data from four unlinked loci (introns of three nuclear genes and mitochondrial DNA) defined two groups of populations that were little structured geographically but were significantly differentiated from each other, and it identified locations of major genetic breaks, which were concordant across genes and were driven by distributions of two major phylogroups. This pattern most reasonably reflects isolation in two principal glacial refugia and subsequent range expansions, with the Eastern and Western phylogroups remaining largely allopatric throughout the tench range. However, this phylogeographic variation was also present in European cultured breeds and some populations at the western edge of the native range contained the Eastern phylogroup. Thus, natural processes have played an important role in structuring tench populations, but human-aided dispersal have also contributed significantly, with the admixed genetic composition of cultured breeds most likely contributing to the introgression. I have then designed novel PCR-RFLP assays...
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B2 insertions in mouse population genetics
Kubešová, Lenka ; Macholán, Miloš (referee) ; Munclinger, Pavel (advisor)
1. Prolog Nejvíce zkoumaným savcem (s výjimkou člověka) je drobný živočich, všemi velice dobře známý a provázející člověka odnepaměti. Je to domácí myš. Narozdíl od obrovského množství poznatků o inbredních kmenech myší kupodivu doposud stále víme poměrně málo o jejich blízkých příbuzných - volně žijících domácích myších. Zvláště chybí data o genetické struktuře populací na vyšší škále (na úrovni celých kontinentů). Na této škále se v současné době pro studium populační genetiky využívá převážně mitochondriální DNA (mtDNA) díky svým unikátním vlastnostem (jednoduše izolovatelná, nerekombinující, až na vzácné vyjímky uniparetálně děděná a u obratlovců rychle se vyvíjející). Pro zjevné limitace mtDNA jako markeru (jedná se jen o maličký kus genomu navíc vypovídající jen o mateřském původu) a nejednoznačným výsledkům vyvstává potřeba nalézt pro studium populační genetiky myší vhodné markery z jiných částí genomu. Nejvhodnější možností se jeví být markery založené na SINE elementech. SINE (short interspersed elements) jsou úseky DNA, které se nacházejí v genomech obratlovců (běžně se vyskytující u savců, zejména primátů, hlodavců a kopytníků) ve vysokém počtu navzájem si podobných kopií rozmístěných na různých místech genomu. SINE elementy mají jako markery pro populační genetiku několik výhod. Jejich hlavními...
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Co-evolutionary aspects of genetic diversity: milk production and lactase persistence
Priehodová, Edita ; Černý, Viktor (advisor) ; Brůžek, Jaroslav (referee) ; Macholán, Miloš (referee)
Lactase persistence (LP) is genetically determined ability to digest lactose (milk sugar) in adulthood. Lactose is digested by the intestinal enzyme - lactase. In mammals, production of lactase declines after the weaning period. In case of the LP, the lactase is produced during whole life and thus it is possible to drink larger amounts of fresh milk without digestive problems. However, LP is documented only in some human populations. Its worldwide distribution is unequal, the highest rates are found in northern Europe and in pastoralists living in arid regions of Africa and Arabia. The origin of this trait is related to the emergence of agriculture 10,000 years ago, and the beginnings of milk production. In some populations, there is a strong signal of positive selection for the LP caused by various factors depending on various living conditions. The LP is associated with single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located approximately 14 kb upstream from lactase gene. Nowadays we know five different SNPs which cause the LP and they have probably different origin and have expanded independently. One of the possible centres of the LP origin is the Arabian Peninsula, where the LP variant -13,915*G probably first appeared and spread. In this thesis, occurrences of different LP mutations were investigated...
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