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Recent studies of microbial biogeography have revealed the global distribution of cosmopolitans and dispersal of regional endemics, but little is known about how these processes are affected by microbial evolution. Here, we compared DNA sequences from snow/glacier algae found in an 8000-year-old ice from a glacier in central Asia with those from modern snow samples collected at 34 snow samples from globally distributed sites at the poles and mid-latitudes, to determine the evolutionary relationship between cosmopolitan and endemic phylotypes of snow algae. We further applied a coalescent theory–based demographic model to the DNA sequences. We found that the genus Raphidonema (Trebouxiophyceae) was distributed over both poles and mid-latitude regions and was detected in different ice core layers, corresponding to distinct time periods. Our results indicate that the modern cosmopolitan phylotypes belonging to Raphidonema were persistently present long before the last glacial period. Furthermore, endemic phylotypes originated from ancestral cosmopolitan phylotypes, suggesting that modern regional diversity of snow algae in the cryosphere is a product of microevolution. These findings suggest that the cosmopolitans dispersed across the world and then derived new localized endemics, which thus improves our understanding of microbial community formation by microevolution in natural environments.

We examined the weight distribution of skeletal muscles of the red jungle fowl, then compared these values with those of domesticated populations to determine how muscle distribution has changed by selecting breeding. Sonia, Fayoumi, and Rhode Island Red were selected for comparison from livestock breeds, while Japanese Shamo and Thai fighting cocks were selected from cockfighting groups. Principal component analysis was applied using body size-free data. The mass distribution of muscles clearly differed between the wild, livestock, and cockfighting groups, demonstrating that muscle distribution has changed after selecting breeding, coupled with functional demands of each group. The red jungle fowl, which has the ability to fly, could be clearly distinguished from the flightless domesticated populations due to differences in flight pectoral muscle size. The cervical muscles in the wild population were smaller than in the domesticated groups; these do not contribute to flight. The gluteal muscles were larger in the fighting cock group, functionally coupled to their traditionally preferred upright posture. Wild bird populations typically exhibit reduced weight of their hind limbs, associated with flight, but as the red jungle fowl displays largely terrestrial behavior, these muscles are similar in arrangement and relative size to those of the livestock groups. We showed that the mass distribution pattern of skeletal muscles expresses selecting breeding strategy and clearly reflects the specific traits for each group.

It is unknown what determines genetic diversity and how genetic diversity is associated with various biological traits. In this work, we provide insight into these issues. By comparing genetic variation of 14,671 mammalian gene trees with thousands of individual human, chimpanzee, gorilla, mouse, and dog/wolf genomes, we found that intraspecific genetic diversity can be predicted by long-term molecular evolutionary rates rather than de novo mutation rates. This relationship was established during the early stage of mammalian evolution. Moreover, we developed a method to detect fluctuations of species-specific selection on genes based on the deviations of intraspecific genetic diversity predicted from long-term rates. We showed that the evolution of epithelial cells, rather than connective tissue, mainly contributed to morphological evolution of different species. For humans, evolution of the immune system and selective sweeps caused by infectious diseases are the most representative examples of adaptive evolution.

There are four unique cattle breeds in Japan: Japanese Black, Japanese Brown, Japanese Polled, and Japanese Shorthorn. The objective of this study was to comprehensively assess the genetic diversity, structure, relationship, and the degree of influence from foreign breeds (Angus, Simmental, Hanwoo, Shorthorn, Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, and Devon) in the Japanese cattle breeds using Illumina 50 K SNP array. In principal component analysis, each Japanese breed was separately clustered except for Japanese Shorthorn and Shorthorn. Japanese cattle breeds also showed different genetic components from each other at K ≥ 5 in population structure analysis. Japanese Shorthorn, on the other hand, had a very similar structure to Shorthorn at K ≤ 9, and Japanese Polled had a partially similar component with Angus at K = 3-7. Such close relationships were also observed in the phylogenetic tree. These findings imply that Japanese cattle breeds share genetic components with European cattle breeds to some extent while they have been almost differentiated. In population structure analysis, Japanese Black cattle shared little genetic component (3.5%) with European breeds. This is the first study to determine the extent to which European breeds impact Japanese breeds.

Little is known about the spatiotemporal dynamics of gray wolves in the Pleistocene across low-latitude regions of Eurasia. In Japan, a small-bodied endemic subspecies of Japanese wolves existed and went extinct in the early 1900s. The fossil record indicates that a giant wolf, which reached 70 cm in body height, inhabited Japan during the Pleistocene, but its evolutionary relationship, if any, with the Japanese wolf remains uncertain. Here, to reveal the genetic origin of the Japanese wolf, we analyzed ancient DNA from remains (recovered in Japan) of one Pleistocene wolf that lived 35,000 years ago and one Holocene wolf from 5,000 years ago. The analysis of the mitochondrial DNA revealed that the Pleistocene wolf was not part of the Japanese wolf clade but rather an earlier-diverging lineage. The analysis of the nuclear DNA of the Holocene Japanese wolf revealed that it was an admixture of the Japanese Pleistocene wolf and continental wolf lineages. These findings suggest that the Japanese wolf originated via waves of colonization of multiple Pleistocene wolf populations at 57-35 and 37-14 ka, respectively, followed by interpopulation hybridization.

Arabidopsis thaliana, one of the most important model plants, has played an essential role in every biological field including evolutionary biology. Recent population genomic studies have gradually clarified the origin and evolution of this species. Nevertheless, incongruent patterns among gene trees based on cytogenetic data have highlighted the importance of understanding the life history evolution and landscape biogeography of extant A. thaliana populations. Here, we focus on the maternally inherited chloroplast genome in A. thaliana and carry out phylogeographic analyses and coalescent time estimations. The maternal lineage of A. thaliana originated in the European to West and Central Asian regions in the Early Pleistocene. Relicts, the ancient lineages suggested by population genomic data, are not ancestral maternal lineages, but are derived from the European population. Part of the European population then dispersed eastward and spread to the Indian region, and finally extended to the Yangtze River region. The branching patterns and evolutionary time scales of the maternal genealogy are significantly different from those estimated from analyses of autosomal genes, and these cannot be explained by incomplete lineage sorting of the ancestral polymorphisms during the coalescent process due to large differences in the evolutionary time scale involved.

In the present study, we estimated the genetic diversity and relationships, as well as the propagation routes, of Madagascan goats using mtDNA control region and SRY gene sequences. The mtDNA sequences of 40 Madagascan goats revealed 10 haplotypes and a quite low nucleotide diversity (0.0014), suggesting a founder and/or bottleneck effect resulting from goat migration to Madagascar island. The analysis of sequences identical to Madagascan haplotypes indicated close genetic relationships between goats from Madagascar and Africa. Sequence analysis of the SRY gene in 40 male Madagascan goats revealed two haplotypes: Y1A (45%) and Y2A (55%). The paternal result indicated genetic influences from Africa, South Asia, and the Near East proximal to Madagascar. The analyses of the mtDNA control region and SRY gene sequences suggested a genetic relationship between Africa and Madagascar. Moreover, SRY sequences indicated influences from South Asia and the Near East. These phylogenetic results provide important genetic information for elucidating the propagation routes of Madagascan goats.

Phylogenetic trees based on multiple genomic loci enable us to estimate the evolution of functional constraints that operate on genes based on lineage-specific fluctuation of the evolutionary rate at particular gene loci, “gene–branch interactions”. Using this information as predictors, our previous work inferred that the common ancestor of placental mammals was nocturnal, insectivorous, solitary, and bred seasonally. Here, we added seven new continuous traits including lifespan, bodyweight, and five reproduction-related traits and inferred the coevolution network of 14 core life history traits for 89 mammals. In this network, bodyweight and lifespan are not directly connected to each other, instead, their correlation is due to both of them coevolving with gestation period. Diurnal mammals are more likely to be monogamous than nocturnal mammals, while arboreal mammals tend to have a smaller litter size than terrestrial mammals. Coevolution between diet and the seasonal breeding behavior test shows that year-round breeding preceded the dietary change to omnivory, while seasonal breeding preceded the dietary change to carnivory. We also discuss the evolution of reproductive strategy of mammals. Genes selected as predictors were identified as well, for example, genes function as tumor suppressor were selected as predictors of weaning age.

In this Letter, we demonstrate that it is possible to form a two-dimensional (2D) silicenelike ${\mathrm{Si}}_{5}\mathrm{Ge}$ compound by replacing the Si atoms occupying on-top sites in the planarlike structure of epitaxial silicene on ${\mathrm{ZrB}}_{2}$(0001) by deposited Ge atoms. For coverages below 1/6 monolayer, the Ge deposition gives rise to a ${\mathrm{Si}}_{6\ensuremath{-}x}{\mathrm{Ge}}_{x}$ alloy (with $x$ between 0 and 1) in which the on-top sites are randomly occupied by Si or Ge atoms. The progressive increase of the valence band maximum with $x$ observed experimentally originates from a selective charge transfer from Ge atoms to Si atoms. These achievements provide evidence for the possibility of engineering the band structure in 2D SiGe alloys in a way that is similar for their bulk counterpart.

The structural stability and electronic states of GaSe monolayer with trigonal-antiprismatic (AP) structure, which is a recently discovered new polymorph, were studied by first-principles calculations. The AP phase GaSe monolayer was found stable, and the differences in energy and lattice constant were small when compared to those calculated for a GaSe monolayer with conventional trigonal-prismatic (P) structure which was found to be the ground state. Moreover, it was revealed that the relative stability of P phase and AP phase GaSe monolayers reverses under tensile strain. These calculation results provide insight into the formation mechanism of AP phase GaSe monolayers in epitaxially-grown GaSe thin films., 17 pages, 3 figures

Objective: In Japan, approximately 50 breeds of indigenous domestic chicken, called Japanese native chickens (JNCs), have been developed. JNCs gradually became established based on three major original groups, “Jidori”, “Shoukoku”, and “Shamo”. Tosa-Jidori is a breed of Jidori, and archival records as well as its morphologically primitive characters suggest an ancient origin. Although Jidori is thought to have been introduced from East Asia, a previous study based on mitochondrial D-loop sequences demonstrated that Tosa-Jidori belongs to haplogroup D, which is abundant in Southeast Asia but rare in other regions, and a Southeast Asian origin for Tosa-Jidori was therefore suggested. The relatively small size of the D-loop region offers limited resolution in comparison with mitogenome phylogeny. This study was conducted to determine the phylogenetic position of the Tosa-Jidori breed based on complete mitochondrial D-loop and mitogenome sequences, and to clarify its evolutionary relationships, possible maternal origin and routes of introduction into Japan.Methods: Maximum likelihood and parsimony trees were based on 133 chickens and consisted of 86 mitogenome sequences as well as 47 D-loop sequences. Results: This is the first report of the complete mitogenome not only for the Tosa-Jidori breed, but also for a member of one of the three major original groups of JNCs. Our phylogenetic analysis based on D-loop and mitogenome sequences suggests that TosaJidori individuals characterized in this study belong to the haplogroup D as well as the sub-haplogroup E1.Conclusion: The sub-haplogroup E1 is relatively common in East Asia, and so although the Southeast Asian origin hypothesis cannot be rejected, East Asia is another possible origin of Tosa-Jidori. This study highlights the complicated origin and breeding history of Tosa-Jidori and other JNC breeds.

The Tenth Symposium on Polar Science/Ordinary sessions: [OB] Polar Biology, Wed. 4 Dec. / 3F Multipurpose conference room, National Institute of Polar Research

The ribosomal DNA (rDNA) repeats of more and more species have been found to be polymorphic in the genome, and the understanding of this polymorphism is conducive not only to eliminating potential chaos in the metagenomic analysis (MGA), but also to providing rich information on rDNA evolution. In this study, the MGA previously used for the study of environmental microbial diversity was improved and extended to detect the intragenomic polymorphism (IGP) of rDNA in three species of Camellia L. The 3′‐end region of 26S rDNA of three individuals was amplified using degenerate primer pairs. Three annealing temperatures were applied to obtain as many ribotypes as possible, and equimolar amplicons from the three species were then pooled and sequenced using the Illumina MiSeq platform. An incredibly high level of IGP of rDNA was found in all three species. Nearly all of the ribotypes detected from this study were rDNA pseudogenes, and most of them have existed for a long time in the genome, with some generated from several rapid expansions. Our procedure provided an effective technique for detection of IGP of rDNA, and the particular evolutionary information of rDNAs in Camellia was also exploited.

Despite the crucial role of cyanobacteria in various ecosystems, little is known about their evolutionary histories, especially microevolutionary dynamics, because of the lack of knowledge regarding their mutation rates. Here we directly estimated cyanobacterial mutation rates based on ancient DNA analyses of ice core samples collected from Kyrgyz Republic that dates back to ~12,500 cal years before present. We successfully sequenced the 16S rRNA and 16S–23S internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region. Two cyanobacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were detected from the ancient ice core samples, and these OTUs are shared with those from the modern glacier surface. The mutation rate of ITS region was estimated by comparing ancient and modern populations, and were at the magnitude of 10(−7)substitutions/sites/year. By using a model selection framework, we also demonstrated that the ancient sequences from the ice sample were not contaminated from modern samples. Bayesian demographic analysis based on coalescent theory revealed that cyanobacterial population sizes increased over Asia regions during the Holocene. Thus, our results enhance our understanding of the enigmatic timescale of cyanobacterial microevolution, which has the potential to elucidate the environmental responses of cyanobacteria to the drastic climatic change events of the Quaternary.

Little is known about how mammalian biogeography on islands was affected by sea-level fluctuations. In the Japanese Archipelago, brown bears ( Ursus arctos ) currently inhabit only Hokkaido, the northern island, but Pleistocene fossils indicate a past distribution throughout Honshu, Japan's largest island. However, the difficulty of recovering ancient DNA from fossils in temperate East Asia has limited our understanding of their evolutionary history. Here, we analysed mitochondrial DNA from a 32 500-year-old brown bear fossil from Honshu. Our results show that this individual belonged to a previously unknown lineage that split approximately 160 Ka from its sister lineage, the southern Hokkaido clade. This divergence time and fossil record suggest that brown bears migrated from the Eurasian continent to Honshu at least twice; the first population was an early-diverging lineage (greater than 340 Ka), and the second migrated via Hokkaido after approximately 160 Ka, during the ice age. Thus, glacial-age sea-level falls might have facilitated migrations of large mammals more frequently than previously thought, which may have had a substantial impact on ecosystem dynamics in these isolated islands.

The house shrew (Suncus murinus-S. montanus species complex) is considered to have been unintentionally introduced by humans from their original range to other regions around the Indian Ocean and neighboring seas, but this has yet not fully been investigated. A phylogenetic tree and haplotype network were reconstructed based on the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene nucleotide sequences (1140 bp) of 179 individuals of house shrews from 46 localities in southern East Asia, Southeast Asia, West Asia, and islands in the western Indian Ocean. There was small genetic variation among shrews in Japan (Okinawa), southern China, Vietnam, and insular Southeast Asia. However, the shrew populations in Myanmar and Sri Lanka showed of a variety of different haplotypes. In the region of the western Indian Ocean, three interesting findings were obtained. First, the shrews on Zanzibar Island (Tanzania) shared same haplotype as those in southwestern Iran, and the haplotype was close to a group in Pakistan, despite these three regions being distantly located. Second, inferring from the haplotype network, it was suggests that the shrews in Yemen might have derived from Madagascar/Comoros populations. Third, the shrews on Réunion Island were genetically different from other populations around the western Indian Ocean but closer to Malaysia and Myanmar populations. Thus, the present study demonstrates that there have been dynamic immigration/emigration processes in the house shrews, especially for those around the western Indian Ocean. In addition, the house shrews in Myanmar may include several different species.

Wu hypothesized that the Tibetan flora originated mostly from the paleotropical Tertiary flora in the Hengduan Mountains by adapting to the cold and arid environments associated with the strong uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP). Here, we combine the phylogeographic history of Sophora moorcroftiana with that of Sophora davidii to explore the speciation of S. moorcroftiana to test this hypothesis. We collected 151 individuals from 17 populations and sequenced 2 chloroplast fragments and the internal transcribed spacer of rDNA. Five chlorotypes and 9 ribotypes were detected but no significant phylogeographic structure was revealed. The integrated results of phylogeographic studies of these 2 species clearly support the progenitor-derivative relationship between them. We infer that the western peripheral population of S. davidii migrated westwards from the Hengduan Mountains to the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River and differentiated from its ancestor in the process of adaptation to increasingly cold and arid environments with the uplift of the QTP and finally evolved into S. moorcroftiana during the Late Pliocene. In addition, our findings shed light on the idea that natural selection, as imposed by climate differentiation (especially mean diurnal range and precipitation seasonality), directly drove this peripatric speciation event after geographic isolation. The speciation of S. moorcroftiana is a strong case supporting Wu's hypothesis about the origin of Tibet's flora.

Summary The Palaeognathae comprise the flightless ratites and the volant tinamous, and together with the Neognathae constitute the extant members of class Aves. It is commonly believed that Palaeognathae originated in Gondwana since most of the living species are found in the Southern Hemisphere [1–3]. However, this hypothesis has been questioned because the fossil paleognaths are mostly from the Northern Hemisphere in their earliest time (Paleocene) and possessed many putative ancestral characters [4]. Uncertainties regarding the origin and evolution of Palaeognathae stem from the difficulty in estimating their divergence times [1, 2] and their remarkable morphological convergence. Here, we recovered nuclear genome fragments from extinct elephant birds, which enabled us to reconstruct a reliable phylogenomic time tree for the Palaeognathae. Based on the tree, we identified homoplasies in morphological traits of paleognaths and reconstructed their morphology-based phylogeny including fossil species without molecular data. In contrast to the prevailing theories, the fossil paleognaths from the Northern Hemisphere were placed as the basal lineages. Combined with our stable divergence time estimates that enabled a valid argument regarding the correlation with geological events, we propose a new evolutionary scenario that contradicts the traditional view. The ancestral Palaeognathae were volant, as estimated from their molecular evolutionary rates, and originated during the Late Cretaceous in the Northern Hemisphere. They migrated to the Southern Hemisphere and speciated explosively around the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. They then extended their distribution to the Gondwana-derived landmasses, such as New Zealand and Madagascar, by overseas dispersal. Gigantism subsequently occurred independently on each landmass.

The rock ptarmigan Lagopus muta is a grouse widely distributed in the arctic and subarctic regions of Eurasia and North America. The range of Japanese endemic subspecies (Japanese rock ptarmigans: ...

What determines genetic diversity and how it connects to the various biological traits is unknown. In this work, we offer answers to these questions. By comparing genetic variation of 14,671 mammalian gene trees with thousands of individual genomes of human, chimpanzee, gorilla, mouse and dog/wolf, we found that intraspecific genetic diversity is determined by long-term molecular evolutionary rates, rather thande novomutation rates. This relationship was established during the early stage of mammalian evolution. Expanding this new finding, we developed a method to detect fluctuations of species-specific selection on genes as the deviations of intra-species genetic diversity predicted from long-term rates. We show that the evolution of epithelial cells, rather than of connective tissue, mainly contributes to morphological evolution of different species. For humans, evolution of the immune system and selective sweeps subjected by infectious diseases are most representative of adaptive evolution.

Arabidopsis thaliana, one of the most important model plants, has played an essential role in every biological field including evolutionary biology. Recent population genomic studies have gradually clarified the origin and evolution of this species. Nevertheless, incongruent patterns among gene trees based on cytogenetic data have highlighted the importance of understanding the life history evolution and landscape biogeography of extant A. thaliana populations. Here, we focus on the maternally inherited chloroplast genome in A. thaliana and carry out phylogeographic analyses and coalescent time estimations. The maternal lineage of A. thaliana originated in the European to West and Central Asian regions in the Early Pleistocene. Relicts, the ancient lineages suggested by population genomic data, are not ancestral maternal lineages, but are derived from the European population. Part of the European population then dispersed eastward and spread to the Indian region, and finally extended to the Yangtze River region. The branching patterns and evolutionary time scales of the maternal genealogy are significantly different from those estimated from analyses of autosomal genes, and these cannot be explained by incomplete lineage sorting of the ancestral polymorphisms during the coalescent process due to large differences in the evolutionary time scale involved.

Liu et al. reported the cultivation and DNA sequencing of 69 fungal isolates (Ascomycota and Basidiomycota) from ancient subseafloor sediments, suggesting that they represent living fungal populations that have persisted for over 20 million years. Because these findings could bring about a paradigm shift in our understanding of the spatial breadth of the deep subsurface biosphere as well as the longevity of ancient DNA, it is extremely important to verify that their samples represent pure ancient fungi from 20 million years ago without contamination by modern species. For this purpose, we estimated the divergence times of Dikarya (Ascomycota + Basidiomycota) and Mucoromycota fungi assuming that the fungal isolates were actually sampled from 20 Ma (mega-annum) sediments and evaluated the validity of the sample ages. Using this approach, we estimate that the age of the last common ancestor of Dikarya and Mucoromycota fungi greatly exceeds the age of the Earth. Our finding emphasizes the importance of using reliable approaches to confirm the dating of ancient samples.

Silicene, the silicon analogue of graphene, consists of an atomically buckled honeycomb lattice of silicon atoms. Theory predicts exceptional electronic properties, including Dirac fermions and a topological spin Hall insulator phase. An important obstacle impeding exploration of such properties in electronic devices is the chemical sensitivity of silicene, hampering its incorporation in layer stacks. Here we show experimentally that epitaxial silicene and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) can be stacked without perturbing the electronic properties of silicene. Intercalated silicene underneath epitaxial h-BN on ZrB2(0001) substrate films is obtained by depositing Si atoms at room temperature. Using (angle resolved) photoelectron spectroscopy (ARPES, PES) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) we find that the intercalated silicene exhibits the same electronic properties as epitaxial silicene on ZrB2, while it resists oxidation in air up to several hours. This is an essential step towards the development of layer stacks that allow for fabrication of devices.

Chika Nishiyama, Tetsuhisa Kitamura, Tomohiko Sakai, Yukiko Murakami, Tomonari Shimamoto, Takashi Kawamura, Takahiro Yonezawa, Shohei Nakai, Seishiro Marukawa, Tetsuya Sakamoto, and Taku Iwami. Community‐Wide Dissemination of Bystander Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Automated External Defibrillator Use Using a 45‐Minute Chest Compression?Only Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Training. Journal of the American Heart Association. 2019; 8., Background: Little is known about whether cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training can increase bystander CPR in the community or the appropriate target number of CPR trainings. Herein, we aimed to demonstrate community-wide aggressive dissemination of CPR training and evaluate temporal trends in bystander CPR. Methods and Results-?We provided CPR training (45-minute chest compression ―only CPR plus automated external defibrillator use training or the conventional CPR training), targeting 16% of residents. All emergency medical service― treated out-of-hospital cardiac arrests of medical origin were included. Data on patients experiencing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and bystander CPR quality were prospectively collected from September 2010 to December 2015. The primary outcome was the proportion of high-quality bystander CPR. During the study period, 57 173 residents (14.7%) completed the chest compression?only CPR training and 32 423 (8.3%) completed conventional CPR training. The proportion of bystander CPR performed did not change (from 43.3% in 2010 to 42.0% in 2015; P for trend=0.915), but the proportion of high-quality bystander CPR delivery increased from 11.7% in 2010 to 20.7% in 2015 (P for trend=0.015). The 1-year increment was associated with high-quality bystander CPR (adjusted odds ratio, 1.461; 95% CI, 1.055?2.024). Bystanders who previously experienced CPR training were 3.432 times (95% CI, 1.170?10.071) more likely to perform high-quality CPR than those who did not. Conclusions-?We trained 23.0% of the residents in the medium-sized city of Osaka, Japan, and demonstrated that the proportion of high-quality CPR performed on the scene increased gradually, whereas that of bystander CPR delivered overall remained stable.

I'm sorry, we can't use the final publisher's pdf for this journal (http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/2095-9273/), but we can use the post-print (ie final draft post-refereeing) if you have it? RVO 16/1/18

The objective of this study was to determine mtDNA sequences of the 481 bp HV1 region from two Indonesian native goat breeds, Kacang and Marica, to confirm the phylogeographic distribution of caprine haplogroup B in Southeast Asia. Based on these sequences, 12 haplotypes were observed and categorized into the predominant haplogroup B and minority haplogroup A, indicating that Indonesian native goats present the highest frequency (0.950) of the haplogroup B in the world. These results strongly emphasize previous observations of the haplogroup B frequencies tending to increase southeastward in Southeast Asia. Additionally, this suggests that goats primary bred into Southeast Asia might predominantly carry haplogroup B. This could essentially contribute to the understanding of the origin, propagation route and/or introgression history of Southeast Asian goats.

Background Little is known about the effectiveness of systematic cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training for elementary school children. Methods We introduced systematic training of chest compression-only CPR and automated external defibrillator (AED) use to elementary school students aged 10–12 years at 17 schools. The questionnaire compared student attitudes towards CPR and their knowledge about it before and after CPR training. We also evaluated parent and teacher views about CPR training in school education. The primary outcome was positive attitude, defined as “yes” and “maybe yes” on a 5 point Likert-type scale of student attitudes towards CPR.1 Results A total of 2047 elementary school students received CPR training. Of them, 1899 (92.8%) responded to the questionnaire regarding their attitude towards CPR before and after the training. Before training, 50.2% answered “yes” and 30.3% answered “maybe yes”, to the question: “If someone suddenly collapses in front of you, can you do something such as check response or call emergency?” After training, their answers changed to 75.6% and 18.3% for “yes” and “maybe yes”, respectively. Many of the students (72.3%, 271/370) who did not have a positive attitude before CPR training had a positive attitude after the training (P

The giant rhinoceros beetles (Dynastini, Scarabaeidae, Coleoptera) are distributed in tropical and temperate regions in Asia, America and Africa. Recent molecular phylogenetic studies have revealed that the giant rhinoceros beetles can be divided into three clades representing Asia, America and Africa. Although a correlation between their evolution and the continental drift during the Pangean breakup was suggested, there is no accurate divergence time estimation among the three clades based on molecular data. Moreover, there is a long chronological gap between the timing of the Pangean breakup (Cretaceous: 110-148 Ma) and the emergence of the oldest fossil record (Oligocene: 33 Ma). In this study, we estimated their divergence times based on molecular data, using several combinations of fossil calibration sets, and obtained robust estimates. The inter-continental divergence events among the clades were estimated to have occurred about 99 Ma (Asian clade and others) and 78 Ma (American clade and African clade), both of which are after the Pangean breakup. These estimates suggest their inter-continental divergences occurred by overseas sweepstakes dispersal, rather than by vicariances of the population caused by the Pangean breakup.