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Linguistic capacities of non-human animals
Čadková, Lucie ; Markoš, Anton (advisor) ; Nekovářová, Tereza (referee) ; Faltýnek, Dan (referee)
Lucie Čadková: Lingvistické schopnosti nonhumánních živočichů 1 ABSTRACT The 20th century has witnessed significant advance in our knowledge of animal communication. Thanks to modern technology, ethologists have made great strides in decoding natural communication systems of non-human animals, while psychologist's attempts to teach a member of another species analogues of human language have met with first success. The unexpected findings called into question the unique status of human language capacities and gave rise to pressure to redefine human language in order to defend human uniqueness. One of the most influential definitions by which the communication systems of non-human animals are guaranteed a priori exclusion from the notion of language was developed by Charles F. Hockett in the 1950s and 1960s. Since then, his design-feature approach has been used, despite a series of paradigm changes in linguistics and key discoveries in cognitive ethology, in support of the claim that humans are the only living creatures endowed with language. The prevailing uncritical acceptance and usage of his theory in the field of animal communication was the impulse to write this thesis. The dissertation aims to shed light on the historical development of the question of animal linguistic abilities and presents the...
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Evolution of life - the RNA world
Čvirik, Rastislav ; Markoš, Anton (advisor) ; Kalous, Martin (referee)
Origin and evolution of life represents complex and not yet resolved question in a field of natural sciences. One of the possible explanation is held by "The RNA world theory". In its general notion, RNA molecule can function both as genetic carrier and catalyst. Further it assumes, that in early development of life, genetic continuity was assured by the replication of RNA whereas proteins and DNA only appeared later. In a light of recent reasearch there is now a strong evidence supporting existence of this world. However, there are still several problems associated with prebiotic chemistry reactions and number of unresolved paradoxes. Although this teory does not directly explain life's origins, it offers us an alternative how such event may occured on primitive Earth. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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Anthropomorphization in Communication with Nonhuman Entities
Uhlíř, Vilém ; Stella, Marco (advisor) ; Markoš, Anton (referee)
In this thesis I pursue a critical summary of the so-called "talking animals" projects, wherein the researchers tried to train their animal subjects to perform "linguistic" feats. Considering both the fundamental dissilimarity of the projects and the uniformity of their results, I am lead to conclude that the shortcoming was that of the students - the animals, and not that of the teachers. Failure of the animal projects points mainly to the fact, that a core feature of language is missing in the pseudolinguistic feats of the animals that which is missing is the hierarchical recursive syntax. I conclude that no animal has had likely adopted the open, unbounded, hierarchically recursive system that allows us, quite literally, to express anything. Linguistic data that I considered indicates that language is most likely an inborn neural specialization of H. spaiens. All the available facts considered manage to show that the pseudolinguistic feats of the "talking" animals are most likely caused by a great plasticity of general cognition. General cognition has the capacity to virtually simulate (although imperfectly) certain aspects of human neural linguistic specialization. Neural linguistic specialization in H. sapiens is an evolutionary discontinuity, whereas the general cognition plasticity is...
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Nietzsche, Conscience, Evolution
Šturmová, Magdalena ; Hladký, Vojtěch (advisor) ; Markoš, Anton (referee)
The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche was significantly influenced by the theory of evolution, though his interest was almost solely in relation to the human psyche. However, while many topics of his philosophy are similar to current topics of discussion in science, reflection on these thoughts is rare. The aim of this dissertation is to present Nietzsche's pivotal thoughts about the nature, function and evolution of human consciousness, with subsequent reflection on these thoughts and on their embedding in the broader context of current scientific discussion. From the standpoint of Nietzsche's philosophy, the main themes of this work are the conception of consciousness as "social instinct"; the critique of conception of consciousness as human essence and related topics; and, from the standpoint of current science, the question of the mechanism of the evolution of the human consciousness. The conclusion deals with cognitive archaeology and its attempt to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the human mind. The appendix is about Nietzsche's relation to Darwinism.
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Evolution of hydrogenosomes: adaptation of free living protists Mastagamoeba balamuthi and Naegleria gruberi to oxygen-poor environment
Nývltová, Eva ; Tachezy, Jan (advisor) ; TIELENS, Aloysius Gerard Marie (referee) ; Markoš, Anton (referee)
Various protists from different eukaryotic groups are able to live in the oxygen-poor niches. Their metabolic adaptation to anaerobiosis is usually associated with loss of the typical mitochondrial functions, including the tricarboxylic acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation. Anaerobic forms of mitochondria generate ATP exclusively by the substrate level phosphorylation in the hydrogen-producing hydrogenosomes, or the ATP synthesis is completely lost as observed in mitosomes. Consequently, the proteomes of such organelles are considerably reduced. It is a question of debate whether the anaerobic forms of mitochondria evolved directly from premitochondrial organelles that might be present in ancient anaerobic eukaryotes or during the secondary adaptation of aerobic eukaryotes to anaerobic niches. The protist from super group Amoebozoa, Mastigamoeba balamuthi, is very attractive for study of mitochondria evolution, because it is closely related with two very different organisms: (i) the aerobic, free-living slime molds such as Dictyostelium that possesses classical aerobic mitochondria, as well as (ii) the anaerobic parasite Entamoeba histolytica that contains mitosomes, the most reduced form of mitochondria. The mitochondria derived organelles in anaerobic, free-living M. balamuthi could represent...
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Bmp signaling in the evolution of chordate axial patterning
Kozmikova, Iryna ; Kozmík, Zbyněk (advisor) ; Bryja, Vítězslav (referee) ; Markoš, Anton (referee)
Formation of a dorsoventral axis is a key event in the early development of most animal embryos. In vertebrates, early separation of cell fate domains precedes specification of ectoderm to neural and non-neural as well as mesoderm to dorsal and ventral during development. Maintaining such division with the establishment of an exact border between the domains is required for the formation of highly differentiated structures such as neural tube and chorda. In the cephalochordate amphioxus, genes encoding Chordin, Bmps and transcription factors downstream of Bmp signaling such as Vent are expressed in patterns reminiscent of those of their vertebrate orthologues. However, the key question is whether the conservation of expression patterns of network constituents implies conservation of functional network interactions, and if so, how an increased functional complexity can evolve. Here, we therefore investigated the role of Bmp signaling in axial patterning and cell fate determination in amphioxus, the basal chordate possessing a centralized nervous system and dorsal mesoderm. Using heterologous systems, namely by reporter gene assays in mammalian cell lines and by transgenesis in medaka fish, we have compared the gene regulatory network implicated in dorsoventral patterning of the basal chordate...
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Morphogenesis of bacterial colonies
Čepl, Jaroslav ; Markoš, Anton (advisor) ; Konopásek, Ivo (referee) ; Nemec, Alexandr (referee)
The topic of this thesis has been built on previous work of our group, especially Rieger et al. 2008 and Čepl et al. 2010. We examined and described the regularity of morphogenesis of S. marcescens, morphotype F colonies (from "the fountain", because of a shape it resembles). Typical colony consists of elevated red navel, low non-pigmented ring and again elevated red rim. Structured profile of the colony together with changes in pigmentation of structures during development without need of artificial dying, provides considerable advantage in observation of the morphogenesis. Aims of this thesis were (i) to find other factors that affect the morphogenesis, (ii) to characterize interactions of S. marcescens colonies with other bacterial strains (S. rubidaea and E .coli) and finally (iii) to study the phenomenon of induced resistance to the antibiotics described in (Heal and Parsons, 2002; Lu 2004; Bernier et al. 2011) in our model organisms. (i) Mutual interactions of colonies on the plate indicates that morphogenesis is affected by autocrine signals, which diffuse into the medium and the atmosphere and affect the development of surrounding colonies. We have detected changes of pH of the medium during the development of colonies in their vicinity. At ...
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Organic memory in embryonic development
Švorcová, Jana ; Markoš, Anton (advisor) ; Černý, Robert (referee) ; Kull, Kalevi (referee)
The submitted thesis deals with the topic of organic memory, its definition and function, as well as its conceptions from various historical points of view. I use the term "organic memory" in respect to some authors who have previously dealt with this subject (Elsasser 1987, Otis 1994, Barbieri 2003) and also as a term by which to represent a kind of memory distinct from neuronal/cerebral memory. The general memory metaphors (in the case of neuronal memory) are essentially connected with terms such as storage, matrix, or place. For rather materialistic conception of memory, it is also symptomatic that different states such as emotions or mental faculties can be concretely localized in the brain tissue. On the contrary, some philosophers described memory as a primarily temporal entity without connection to place or matter. The question of organic memory was already vivid in 19th century biology, linked to Lamarckian philosophy (Hering 1870, Haeckel 1876, Butler 1910). The organic memory ideas floundered between vitalistic and rather materialistic conceptions: the first attributed some psychological features to cells or memory particles; the second was based on physics or in Cartesian doctrine, and described memory as essentially localized as a kind of storage of traces or patterns of physical waves....
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Ecological aspects of sexual reproduction
Toman, Jan ; Flegr, Jaroslav (advisor) ; Markoš, Anton (referee)
Sexual reproduction is one of the most interesting biological phenomena. No theory has ever entirely explained its wide occurrence among Eukaryotic clades despite its clear disadvantages (e.g. twofold price of sex). Theories can be divided into three groups according to the approach to solve this problem - molecular, genetic and ecological (environmental). Environmental theories are slightly preferred in the last decades and the opinion that the key to the sex enigma lies among them is widely accepted. Most of the environmental theories do not counter each other and there is possibility either to integrate them in several ways or presume that several of these theories might act simultaneously. According to theories, abiotically stable environments without biotic interactions (homogenous) should be suitable for and select for asexual species, whereas environments abiotically variable and rich in biotic interactions (heterogenous) should be suitable for and select for sexual species. The anagenetic phenomenon of punctuated equilibria and some of its explanations, e.g. P. R. Sheldon's Plus ça change hypothesis or J. Flegr's Frozen plasticity theory, also supports this division. There is a vast amount of empirical data supporting this division in ecological studies. Clearly homogenous environments...
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Role of genetic variance in speciation
Payne, Pavel ; Markoš, Anton (advisor) ; Rueffler, Claus (referee)
Sympatric speciation has received much attention both empirically and theoretically. However, the contribution of sympatric speciation to biodiversity remains unclear. One piece missing from the speciation puzzle is the plausibility of sympatric ecological divergence of species through adaptation in polygenic traits. I consider an environment consisting of two niches, where one value of the trait is advantageous in only one niche, and vice versa. The selection regime is described by a trade-off in viabilities between the niches. These polygenic traits can, and often do, involve epistatic interactions among and between loci, so that the contribution of the alleles to viability deviates from additivity. Epistasis then also affects the curvature of the trade-offs: predominant less-than-additive epistasis turns the curve towards concavity and predominant more-than-additive towards convexity. The curvature of the trade-off plays a crucial role in the evolution of populations. With a convex trade- off, extreme values of the trait are favored and the population tends to diverge, but relatively stringent symmetry in strength of selection within the niches and the niche proportions is necessary to maintain polymorphism. In this study I use two and three- locus haploid versions of Levene's model to...
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