Conservation genetics of a freshwater turtle (Trachemys hartwegi) in a threatened riverine ecosystem.

Background: Freshwater ecosystems face unprecedented degradation due to habitat destruction, pollution, and climate change, necessitating urgent conservation actions to protect vulnerable freshwater species. Freshwater turtles are among the most threatened vertebrates globally, with their survival constrained by thermal sensitivity and aquatic habitat requirements. The Mexican Plateau Slider (Trachemys hartwegi) is a vulnerable freshwater turtle restricted to riverine areas in the arid regions of northern Mexico, which faces critical threats from habitat loss, fragmentation, and illegal pet trade collection, compromising population viability across its limited range.

Island biogeography and competition drive rapid venom complexity evolution across rattlesnakes.

Understanding how human-mediated environmental change affects biodiversity is key for conserving evolvability. Because the most severe impacts are ongoing, such an understanding is proving exceptionally difficult to attain. Islands are natural, replicated experiments that serve as proxies for habitat fragmentation and, therefore, allow us to use historical changes in biodiversity under Island Biogeography Theory (IBT) to predict the consequences of immediate anthropogenic impacts on functional trait evolution.

Integrative transcriptomic, proteomic, biochemical and neutralization studies on the venom of Micrurus ephippifer.

Species of the genus Micrurus belong to the family Elapidae and possess venoms of significant clinical importance. This study presents an analysis of the venom composition of Micrurus ephippifer, employing transcriptomic and proteomic methodologies. A total of 2885 venom gland transcripts were assembled, of which 42 were identified as toxins.

Venom variation and ontogenetic changes in the Crotalus molossus complex: Insights into composition, activities, and antivenom neutralization.

The Crotalus molossus complex consists of five to seven phylogenetically related lineages of black-tailed rattlesnakes widely distributed in Mexico. While previous studies have noted venom variation within specific lineages of the Crotalus molossus complex, a comprehensive characterization of interspecific and ontogenetic venom variations, their functional implications, and the neutralizing ability of the Mexican antivenom against these variants remains largely unexamined. Herein, using two proteomic approaches for five lineages (C.

Where the "ruber" Meets the Road: Using the Genome of the Red Diamond Rattlesnake to Unravel the Evolutionary Processes Driving Venom Evolution.

Understanding the proximate and ultimate causes of phenotypic variation is fundamental in evolutionary research, as such variation provides the substrate for selection to act upon. Although trait variation can arise due to selection, the importance of neutral processes is sometimes understudied. We presented the first reference-quality genome of the Red Diamond Rattlesnake (Crotalus ruber) and used range-wide 'omic data to estimate the degree to which neutral and adaptive evolutionary processes shaped venom evolution.