What we're reading: Coevolving diversity, gut microbiota and gas, and killing the phrase "next-generation sequencing"

about reading, books, ...
In the journals
Boots M., A. White, A. Best, and R. Bowers. 2014. How specificity and epidemiology drive the coevolution of static trait diversity in hosts and parasites. Evolution. doi: 10.1111/evo.12393

We examine theoretically how epidemiological feedbacks and the characteristics of the interaction between host types and parasites strains determine the coevolution of host–parasite diversity.

Manichanh C., A. Eck, E. Varela, J. Roca, J.C. Clemente, A. González, et al. 2014. Anal gas evacuation and colonic microbiota in patients with flatulence: effect of diet. Gut. 63(3):401-8. doi: 10.1136/gutjnl-2012-303013.

When challenged with flatulogenic diet, patients’ microbiota developed instability in composition, exhibiting variations in the main phyla and reduction of microbial diversity, whereas healthy subjects’ microbiota were stable. Taxa from Bacteroides fragilis or Bilophila wadsworthia correlated with number of gas evacuations or volume of gas evacuated, respectively.

In the news
“I’ve developed a data scraper that gathers information on student dissertations, such as page length, year and month of graduation, major, and primary advisor.”
“I hate the phrase next-generation sequencing (NGS) with a passion. Here’s why …” [Plus addendum.]

About Jeremy Yoder

Jeremy B. Yoder is an Associate Professor of Biology at California State University Northridge, studying the evolution and coevolution of interacting species, especially mutualists. He is a collaborator with the Joshua Tree Genome Project and the Queer in STEM study of LGBTQ experiences in scientific careers. He has written for the website of Scientific American, the LA Review of Books, the Chronicle of Higher Education, The Awl, and Slate.
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