![](http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://trecnews4u.blogspot.com/2014/07/studi-ular-sri-lanka-mengungkapkan.html&media=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ5jjFfjti70yZn5-RZq_jGGP4qGq1gmuFfFPJJa-85s10iK7GZPx4RsgvF2crfrzTwWG1FN6etncCjNd7n2lezsNl8y1YMtIo8f5YFa8CHDeyEW6jZRnHKeykltNIURzaHFhCGmPQeU56/s72-c/130312134910.jpg&description= SILAHKAN MENGGUNAKAN " MESIN TRANSLATE "..GOOGLE TRANSLATE DISAMPING KANAN INI............. PLEASE USE .....){kind=link}
SILAHKAN MENGGUNAKAN " MESIN TRANSLATE "..GOOGLE TRANSLATE
DISAMPING KANAN INI.............
PLEASE USE ........ "TRANSLATE MACHINE" .. GOOGLE TRANSLATE BESIDE RIGHT THIS
....................................
DISAMPING KANAN INI.............
PLEASE USE ........ "TRANSLATE MACHINE" .. GOOGLE TRANSLATE BESIDE RIGHT THIS
....................................
Studi ular Sri Lanka mengungkapkan
spesies baru, keanekaragaman hayati di negara pulau
Sri Lankan snake study reveals new species, rich biodiversity in island
country
Date:
March 12,
2013
Source:
George Washington University
Summary:
Alex Pyron's expertise is in family trees. Who is
related to whom, who begat whom, how did they get where they are now. But not
for humans: reptiles.
....................
Alex Pyron's expertise is in family trees. Who is related to
whom, who begat whom, how did they get where they are now. But not for humans:
reptiles.
In 2011, his
fieldwork in Sri Lanka studying snake diversity on the island led him to
confirm the identity of 60 known species of snakes. With Sri Lankan
collaborators, Ruchira Somaweera, an author on snakes and expert on amphibians
and reptiles, and Dushantha Kandambi, a local naturalist and snake expert, the
team collected the snakes and of those, Dr. Pyron used DNA sequencing
technology on 40 of them. The study led to a greater understanding of how all
the snakes are related to each other and their evolutionary relationship other
species globally.
"We
found that Sri Lanka has been colonized by snakes at least five times by
totally different snake groups, which have each diversified heavily within the
island," said Dr. Pyron, the Robert Griggs Assistant Professor of Biology
at George Washington University in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Pyron's
findings were recently featured in the March edition of the journal Molecular
Phylogenetics and Evolution.
One finding
was a blindsnake, which on its own would be noteworthy but in this case, the
blindsnake had a history on the island.
"Molecular
data, or DNA, has revolutionized all fields, whether finding genes for cancer
or detecting new species. In my field, uses of DNA are twofold: to discover if
populations are really new species and two, to determine how species are
related. We were able to do both of these things in Sri Lanka. We discovered
the blindsnake and we suspected it was a new species, but when we sequenced it,
we discovered that it was an entirely new lineage of blindsnake. It's still a
blindsnake, but a new genus, a group of blindsnakes that had never been
discovered or described.
Using
datasets that included equal number of genes from endemic, or native snakes,
and those that have colonized their fellow snake community, he and his team
were able to determine how the 40 sequenced snakes were related to each other,
a discovery that also revealed the deep biodiversity present on in Sri Lanka.
"We use
complex chemical reactions to fragment the cell and the genome, and collect the
purified DNA. It then gets passed through an even more complex series of
reactions that allow us to determine the sequence of a large fraction of the
genome," he said.
His research
reveals that for all that is known, there is still so much that is unknown
about reptiles.
"Sri
Lanka has one of the oldest recorded civilizations on the planet, and the
blindsnake was discovered in the yard of an environmental agency office.
Species are still being discovered there, and even the ones that were known
were not really 'known,' as the DNA data are telling us new stories about how
they are related, completely contradicting what we thought we knew. It tells us
that Sri Lanka is a much bigger hotspot for biodiversity than previously known,
and harbors massive richness."
Story
Source:
The above
story is based on materials provided by George Washington University. Note: Materials may be edited
for content and length.
Journal
Reference:
- R. Alexander Pyron, H.K. Dushantha Kandambi, Catriona R. Hendry, Vishan Pushpamal, Frank T. Burbrink, Ruchira Somaweera. Genus-level phylogeny of snakes reveals the origins of species richness in Sri Lanka. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 2013; 66 (3): 969 DOI: 10.1016/j.ympev.2012.12.004
