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Can avian malaria affect the reproductive success of the host?
Krausová, Simona ; Munclinger, Pavel (advisor) ; Vinkler, Michal (referee)
Malarial deseases caused by intracellular parasites of birds is very common. Even if infection doesn't lead to the death of infected individuals, they may suffer alternations of different levels of fitness, which may also consequently harm their reproductive success rates. Infected individuals, due to their poor physical condition, may lay lower quality eggs, breed less viable offspring, have reduced frequency of feeding their chicks, etc. While it may seem that malarial parasites undoubtedly negatively affect their hosts's reproduction, there are numerous studies which do no support such prediction. These differences in individual studies may be due to various testing methods used in the indicated studies. Because of various testing methods, there also may appear other possible problems which can more or less affect the detection rate of malaria parasites.
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Y chromosome in the mouse hybrid zone
Rubík, Pavel ; Munclinger, Pavel (advisor) ; Zemanová, Barbora (referee)
The contact zone between subspecies of house mouse Mus musculus musculus and Mus musculus domesticus is one of the most intensively studied hybrid zones. It is also due to extensive introgression of the Y chromosome of M. m. musculus subspecies to the genetic background of M. m. domesticus. One theory of the origin of the introgression explains it by intragenomic conflict between the sexes. With a set of variable microsatellite markers on the Y chromosome, I have examined the validity of this theory by simple approaches revealing the history of the introgression area. It turned out that overly big variability of our markers makes the revelation of this theory impossible. Our markers have been found suitable for use in the analysis of population structure of house mouse. Thanks to them, we can identify migrants between localities and estimate the level of closeness of the population structure in relation to migrants from the neighborhood. Populations in our analysis proved to be relatively closed and resistant to the influx of migrants. Despite the conclusions of previous research where the dispersion of males ran up to one kilometer, I have discovered a relatively large number of migrations to a distance of thirty kilometers. Keywords Mus musculus musculus, Mus musculus domesticus, Y chromosome,...
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Development of Grey Partridge (Perdix perdix) microsatellite markers
Vaněčková, Dominika ; Munclinger, Pavel (advisor) ; Burri, Marta (referee)
The aim of this work was the construction of set of microsatellites for the Grey Partridge (Perdix perdix). I succeeded in isolation of seven new specific microsatellites. Another microsatellite markers were passed from close relative galliform species (Galliformes). On the whole I gained 18 microsatellite loci which were used for study of population charakteristics of three partridge populations from Stodůlky, Písecko and Milešín. The analysis showed conspicuous structuredness of these populations and surprisingly low values (less then 100) of their effective population sizes. Seven of the microsatellites were chosen for analysis of paternity. Indeed I found the evidence of extrapair paternity in this putatively monogamous bird. Finally I conclude, on the basis of sequenation of mitochondrial control region that our populations belong to the western linage of mitochondrial DNA.
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Host specificity, diversity and distribution of avian malaria parasites in a contact zone of two nightingale species
Šíma, Michal ; Munclinger, Pavel (advisor) ; Sádlová, Jovana (referee)
Avian contact zones were suggested to act as barriers to parasite expansions. I studied haemosporidian parasites (genera Plasmodium, Haemoproteus, and Leucocytozoon) of two Nightingale species which meet in a contact zone in Europe. In total 20 lineages of parasites were detected. Surprisingly, all common lineages were shared by the two host species. The parasite prevalence vary between species (Trush Nightingales were more often parasitized than Common Nightingales.) but did not vary to a large extent within zones inside species Parasitemia of the most frequent Haemoproteus LULU1 lineage assessed by Real-Time PCR method did not differ significantly between the two host species. Six out of nine hybrids of the nightingale species were parasitized. Haemosporidian lineages found in hybrids were also frequent in the parental species. In conclusion, the nightingale contact zone seems to have only little (if any) effect on the distribution of haemosporidian parasites.
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Hybrid origin of beavers in Central Europe
Albrechtová, Alena ; Munclinger, Pavel (advisor) ; Bryja, Josef (referee)
The aim of the master diploma work is to investigate origin of Czech populations and genetic variability of almost all Eurasian populations of the European beaver (Castor fiber). For our purposes we collected specimens from Czech populations, reintroduced population in Kirov district in Russia and all European and Asian refugia. At the end of the 19th century the species was on the verge of extinction due to overhunting, surviving only in eight isolated refugial areas. The population size at the end of the 19th century was estimated as 1 200 animals. The number of individuals has increased thanks to the legal protection and reintroductions. The current population size is estimated at 640 000. It is obvious that the populations of beaver have recently undergone severe bottleneck. Beaver was completely extirpated in the Czech Republic in the 18th century. Since the 80th of the 20th century beavers re-established in the Czech Republic due to migration from neighbouring countries and reintroduction programmes, however we knew only little about the origin of beavers in the Czech Republic. I showed that our beavers are derived from individuals in France, Germany, Norway and east Europe. Mitochondrial DNA of Castor canadensis has not been found in Czech beavers. I studied microsatellite loci (first use for...
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Genomic imprinting and evolution of sexually dimorphic traits
Farkačová, Klára ; Kratochvíl, Lukáš (advisor) ; Munclinger, Pavel (referee)
Genomic imprinting is a process whereby expression of an allele differs depending upon its parent of origin. It can be found on autosomes and also on sex chromosomes. Basic hypothesis for the evolution of genomic imprinting is the hypothesis based on the existence of sexual conflict. It can be classified into interlocus sexual conflict and intralocus sexual conflict hypotheses. Under interlocus sexual conflict hypothesis we can diffferentiate parental conflict hypothesis and parent-offspring conflict hypothesis. These theories were historically proposed for the first two taxonomical groups, where genomic imprinting was discovered, namely for angiosperms and placental mammals. Theory of parental conflict proposes that genomic imprinting evolved because the paternally inherited alleles are more selfish to mothers than are the maternally inherited alleles. Parent-offspring conflict hypothesis proposes that genomic imprinting evolved because maternal genes try to regulate demands of paternally inherited alleles in embryos. More recently, genomic imprinting has been found also in other taxons and in alleles, which do not bring any advantage during embryonic development. The intralocus sexual conflict hypothesis is applicable for every trait under sexually-specific selection. It provides potential...
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Biting midges as vectors of infectious diseases and their distribution in CR
Galková, Zdeňka ; Votýpka, Jan (advisor) ; Munclinger, Pavel (referee)
Tiplíci (rod Culicoides) jsou drobný krevsající hmyz (Diptera) patřící do čeledi Ceratopogonidae. Vyskytují se po celém světě a jsou známí zejména pro svůj medicínský a veterinární význam. Působí jako trapiči a přenašeči onemocnění člověka i hospodářských zvířat. V současné době představují tito dvoukřídlí aktuální problém v souvislosti s šířením onemocnění zvaném katarální horečka ovcí, působeného Bluetongue virem a přenášeného tiplíky. Toto onemocnění se od roku 2006 rozšířilo v podstatě po celé Evropě včetně ČR, kde byl první případ zaznamenán na podzim roku 2007. Na území ČR probíhá od roku 2008 monitoring přenašečů a tato práce shrnuje výsledky tohoto projektu za první dva roky. Během let 2008 a 2009 bylo odchyceno cca 200 tisíc jedinců rodu Culicoides náležící ke 31 druhům, z nichž 3 druhy nebyly doposud na území ČR zaznamenány. Dále proběhla detekce patogenů tiplíků, která u nich potvrdila výskyt jednohostitelských trypanosomatid z rodů Herpetomonas, Crithidia a Wallaceina a několika druhů vícehostitelských trypanosomatid (rod Trypanosoma). Zároveň byli v tiplících zaznamenáni zástupci parazitických červů (Mermithidae). Okrajově jsme se zaměřili i na parazity koutulí (podčeleď Psychodinae), u nichž jsme detekovali zástupce jednohostitelských trypanosomatid a parazitických nálevníků. KLÍČOVÁ...
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Human biological variation in the light of certain morphological and molecular biological traits.
Kujanová, Martina ; Černý, Viktor (advisor) ; Sládek, Vladimír (referee) ; Munclinger, Pavel (referee)
This doctoral thesis is submitted in the form of science publications with impact factor and presents human biological variation in two different ways. The first part is the study of phenotype variation focused on the degree of limb bones bilateral asymmetry. Besides genetic and hormonal factors asymmetry may develop as a response to biomechanical and to environmental factors influencing the individual/population. Therefore this trait can be considered as a measure of person's living conditions, health or environmental stress of different origin or exa- mine the effects of behavioral distinctions as sexual division of labor and diffe- rences in subsistence strategy. The submitted publication (Kujanová et al., 2008) is based on samples of two diachronic populations (medieval and recent) from Bohe- mia with different expected levels of health/environmental stress. The study is fo- cused especially on these aspects that may be indicative of various stresses, such as malnutrition or other nonspecific factors influencing health of persons living in the studied populations. According to the results we propose that bilateral asymmetry observed in the diachronic populations showed some differences supporting the theory that the medieval population was not subjected to as highly stressful condi- tions as the...
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Recently active L1 and B1 retrotransposons in the mouse genome
Janoušek, Václav ; Munclinger, Pavel (advisor) ; Bryja, Josef (referee)
The work focuses on two recently active retrotransposon families in the house mouse genome. They are L1 and B1 retrotransposons. The aim of the work was to find polymorphic retrotransposon insertions caused by their recent activity. Two genomes of mouse inbred strains derived from the different house mouse subspecies were compared. The BACends from MSM/Ms derived from M. m. molossinus were compared with the reference genome of C57BL/6J derived mostly from M. m. domesticus. The set of output insertions was classified into several subfamilies of B1 a L1 families. The presence/absence of these insertions was tested using PCR in all three house mouse subspecies and also in two sister species (M. spretus and M. macedonicus). The particular subfamilies differed with regard to presence in latter species. Despite the supposed lack of activity of older L1 families (F2 and F3) they persist in house mouse population as an ancestral polymorphism. Unlike L1 subfamilies, B1 subfamilies appear to be active in house mouse genome for longer period of time. Also the difference between the whole families L1 and B1was observed. Thus, according to my data L1 family seems to be recently more active than B1 family.
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