Thus, to shed light on why different mechanisms for PGC specification may have evolved in mammals, we first consider a precedent wherein the problem of divergent PGC specification has been integrated into a model for amphibian evolution.
Our study provides the first habitat suitability models for desert amphibians and provides important information for conservation biologists and land managers concerned with preserving amphibian diversity in xeric landscapes.
These data were mainly obtained in models of amphibian metamorphosis.
Salamanders of the genus Ambystoma are important amphibian models for studying development, ecology, and evolution, and with the recent development of a complete genetic map for Ambystoma the prospects of understanding the genetic basis of biologically important trait variation has become a reality (Voss and Smith, 2005).
Due to their short life-cycles and the traits that can be generalized to other organisms, fish and amphibians are attractive models for the evaluation of toxicity caused by endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and adverse drug reactions.
A comparison of amphibian and mammalian models for detecting thyroid disruption found good concordance in that both detected the majority of 32 environmental chemicals (Pickford 2010).
Amphibians are attractive experimental models for elucidating the mechanisms underlying animal development.
Given their well-described developmental stages (Gosner 1960), amphibians are also good models for investigating how exposure across ontogeny might affect the inducibility of tolerance.
We compiled 7154 unique records of existing specimen localities to create distribution models for all 115 birds, 55 mammals, 177 amphibians, and 435 plants included in our endemic species analysis (Table 1; see Additional File 1).
In contrast to the emphasis on amphibians as model organisms for investigations of hair cell electrophysiology and mechanotransduction, amphibians have been underutilized as models for analysis of global gene expression in the inner ear.
