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Credit: Public Domain CC0 Almost all marine life—fish, turtles, sharks, whales, and more—depends on marine food webs for survival. However, the foundation of this enormous flow of energy lies on the shoulders of the microscopic but mighty phytoplankton. Without essential nutrients such as phosphorus, the growth of these tiny floating marine plants is limited, and the effects of such restrictions flow through the ecosystem, impacting the abundance and diversity of marine creatures. A team of Florida State University and New Hampshire University researchers have published a new study looking at how one important source of the nutrient, dissolved organic phosphorus, is distributed across the global ocean surface where it is consumed by phytoplankton. The work was published today in Natural Geoscience . All living organisms, including phytoplankton, need phosphorus to synthesize DNA, RNA and other important organic compounds. In addition

The human genome is littered with “selfish genetic elements”, which do not appear to benefit the host, but only seek to reproduce. Selfish genetic elements can wreak havoc by, for example, distorting sex ratios, impairing fertility, causing dangerous mutations, and potentially even causing population extinction. Biologists at the University of Rochester, including Amanda Larracuente, professor of biology, and Daven Presgraves, University Dean’s Professor of Biology, are using population genomics for the first time to explain the evolution and consequences of known selfish genetic elements. as Segregation Distortion ( SD ). In a paper published in the journal eLife the researchers reported that SD has led to dramatic changes in chromosomal organization and genetic diversity. Sequencing the genome first Researchers use fruit flies as model organisms to study SD , a selfish genetic element that deviates from the rules of just genetic transmission. Fruit flies share about 70 percent of