Heat stress may adversely affect physiochemical and immune responses of livestock and
alter biological functions. The comfort or thermoneutral zone for livestock, which has long …

Animals that occupy temperate and polar regions have specialized traits that help them
survive in harsh, highly seasonal environments. One particularly important adaptation is …

Background While our understanding of the genetic basis of convergent evolution has
improved there are still many uncertainties. Here we investigate the repeated evolution of …

This paper summarises all the currently available phylogeographic data of Callosciurus
squirrels in continental Indochina. For the first time, all the available data on the genetic …

Heritable color polymorphisms have a long history of study in evolutionary biology, though
they are less frequently examined today than in the past. These systems, where multiple …

Finlayson's squirrel (Callosciurus finlaysonii) is distributed in lowland forests in Southeast
Asia. The pelage colour is conspicuously polymorphic, and 16 subspecies have been …

The diversity of mammalian coat colors, and their potential adaptive significance, have long
fascinated scientists as well as the general public. The recent decades have seen …

Melanistic fox squirrels (Sciurus niger) have expanded westward and increased in
frequency in the Omaha, Nebraska, and Council Bluffs, Iowa, metropolitan areas. The …

Simple Summary Melanism, or the overexpression of melanin resulting in dark pigmentation,
is fairly common among tree squirrels. The mutation that causes melanism has been …

Abstract Background Melanocortin-1-receptor gene (MC1R) plays a significant role in
signaling cascade of melanin production. In cattle, the coat colors, such as red and black …