Marwa Zafarullah is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Integrative Genetics and Genomics (IGG) graduate program. She earned her bachelor’s in agricultural sciences at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan and her master’s in IGG at UC Davis. She is currently working toward the development of a biomarker for the early diagnosis and progression of the nNeurological disorder called Fragile X -Associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS).
Human activities alter and reduce phenotypic variation in many species, but the long-term consequences (e.g., ability of previous variation to reemerge), and thus the need for conservation action, are unclear.
Imagine you want to write a superhero comic. Obviously you need the superhero, the star of the show. But what else do you need? How about a sidekick, someone who helps the hero out? What about people to save? Maybe an evil villain to fight?
In biology, the relationships between the superheroes and each of these characters (a sidekick, people to save, and a villain) are called “symbioses.”
