Paul Alan Cox is an American ethnobotanist whose scientific research focuses on discovering new medicines by studying patterns of wellness and illness among indigenous peoples. Cox was born in Salt Lake City in 1953.
31-510: Paul Cox may refer to: Paul Alan Cox , American ethnobotanist Paul Cox (director) (1940–2016), Australian film director Paul Cox (footballer) (born 1972), English footballer and football manager Paul Cox (musician) , conductor of the Reading Youth Orchestra [REDACTED] Topics referred to by the same term This disambiguation page lists articles about people with
62-763: A zygote . The definition avoids reference to male and female reproductive structures, which are rare in fungi. An individual of a dioecious fungal species not only requires a partner for mating, but performs only one of the roles in nuclear transfer, as either the donor or the recipient. A monoecious fungal species can perform both roles, but may not be self-compatible. Dioecy has the demographic disadvantage compared with hermaphroditism that only about half of reproductive adults are able to produce offspring. Dioecious species must therefore have fitness advantages to compensate for this cost through increased survival, growth, or reproduction. Dioecy excludes self-fertilization and promotes allogamy (outcrossing), and thus tends to reduce
93-583: A covenant with chiefs to protect their lowland rainforest from logging. In 1988, he was bestowed the Nafanua matai chief title by Falealupo, one of the highest legendary titles in Samoa, in honor of his conservation efforts. Dr. Cox founded the environmental nonprofit organization, Seacology , located in Berkeley, California , which has preserved over 1.5 million acres of island forests and coral reefs, and
124-410: A female gamete then fuse to produce a new diploid sporophyte. In bryophytes ( mosses , liverworts and hornworts ), the gametophytes are fully independent plants. Seed plant gametophytes are dependent on the sporophyte and develop within the spores, a condition known as endospory . In flowering plants, the male gametophytes develop within pollen grains produced by the sporophyte's stamens , and
155-436: A frequency about half of that for the forward transition. In Silene , since there is no monoecy, it is suggested that dioecy evolved through gynodioecy. Very few dioecious fungi have been discovered. Monoecy and dioecy in fungi refer to the donor and recipient roles in mating, where a nucleus is transferred from one haploid hypha to another, and the two nuclei then present in the same cell merge by karyogamy to form
186-539: A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , Cox emerged as a prominent voice for biological conservation . He served a mission in Samoa and is active in his church. Dioecy Dioecy ( / d aɪ ˈ iː s i / dy- EE -see ; from Ancient Greek διοικία dioikía 'two households'; adj. dioecious , / d aɪ ˈ iː ʃ ( i ) ə s / dy- EE -sh(ee-)əs )
217-667: A new approach to the evolution of different size sperm and eggs, known as anisogamy , a topic he continued to pursue with Japanese biologist Tatsuya Togashi. He discovered with colleagues Sandra Banack and James Metcalf in cyanobacteria AEG, a hypothesized backbone of peptide nucleic acids in the pre- RNA world early in the earth's history. They are studying possible health consequences of exposure to isomers of AEG and other cyanobacterial toxins, including beta-Methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA). Although trained in evolutionary ecology , because of his fluency in Polynesian languages , Cox
248-467: A species, such as the colonies of Siphonophorae (Portuguese man-of-war), which may be either dioecious or monoecious . Land plants ( embryophytes ) differ from animals in that their life cycle involves alternation of generations . In animals, typically an individual produces gametes of one kind, either sperm or egg cells . The gametes have half the number of chromosomes of the individual producing them, so are haploid . Without further dividing,
279-431: A sperm and an egg cell fuse to form a zygote that develops into a new individual. In land plants, by contrast, one generation – the sporophyte generation – consists of individuals that produce haploid spores rather than haploid gametes . Spores do not fuse, but germinate by dividing repeatedly by mitosis to give rise to haploid multicellular individuals, the gametophytes , which produce gametes. A male gamete and
310-457: Is a characteristic of certain species that have distinct unisexual individuals, each producing either male or female gametes , either directly (in animals ) or indirectly (in seed plants ). Dioecious reproduction is biparental reproduction. Dioecy has costs, since only the female part of the population directly produces offspring. It is one method for excluding self-fertilization and promoting allogamy (outcrossing), and thus tends to reduce
341-843: Is a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry , a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London , and appointed adjunct professor at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and at the College of Pharmacy by the University of Illinois, Chicago . Currently, he is searching for a cure for ALS , Alzheimer's , and other tangle diseases. In 1997 he received
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#1732797299075372-788: Is called " dioecious " when each sporophyte plant has only one kind of spore-producing organ, all of whose spores give rise either to male gametophytes, which produce only male gametes (sperm), or to female gametophytes, which produce only female gametes (egg cells). For example, a single flowering plant sporophyte of a fully dioecious species like holly has either flowers with functional stamens producing pollen containing male gametes (staminate or 'male' flowers), or flowers with functional carpels producing female gametes (carpellate or 'female' flowers), but not both. (See Plant reproductive morphology for further details, including more complex cases, such as gynodioecy and androdioecy .) Slightly different terms, dioicous and monoicous , may be used for
403-459: Is more common in woody plants , and heterotrophic species. In most dioecious plants, whether male or female gametophytes are produced is determined genetically, but in some cases it can be determined by the environment, as in Arisaema species. Certain algae , such as some species of Polysiphonia , are dioecious. Dioecy is prevalent in the brown algae ( Phaeophyceae ) and may have been
434-872: Is the author of over 220 scientific papers, reviews, and books and was chosen by Time magazine as one of eleven "Heroes of Medicine" in 1997 for his search for new medicines from plants . Cox began his research in evolutionary ecology as a student of John L. Harper at the University of Wales in Bangor by studying dioecy in plants. At Harvard University where he served for four years as Teaching Fellow for E. O. Wilson , he studied how vertebrate pollination influenced breeding system evolution in tropical lianas. Collaborating at Harvard with tropical botanist P. B. Tomlinson , at Berkeley with Herbert G. Baker , and Melbourne with Bruce Knox, he used mathematical search theory to analyze seagrass pollination and later, with mathematician James Sethian used search theory to develop
465-406: Is unlikely that mutations for male and female sterility occurred at the same time. In angiosperms unisexual flowers evolve from bisexual ones. Dioecy occurs in almost half of plant families, but only in a minority of genera, suggesting recent evolution. For 160 families that have dioecious species, dioecy is thought to have evolved more than 100 times. In the family Caricaceae , dioecy is likely
496-589: The Goldman Environmental Prize for the conservation efforts described in his book, Nafanua: Saving the Samoan Rainforest (New York: W.H. Freeman), which has been translated into German , Japanese , and Samoan . He speaks a variety of island languages and is internationally-renowned for his advocacy of indigenous peoples. Cox lived with his family in the village of Falealupo on Savai'i island in Samoa where he helped create
527-635: The Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science at the University of California, Berkeley and as a University of Melbourne Research Fellow in Australia . Early in his academic career he was named a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator by Ronald Reagan , and used the research funds to pursue his interests in mathematical biology and ethnobotany. After serving as professor and dean at Brigham Young University he became
558-435: The gametophyte generation of non-vascular plants, although dioecious and monoecious are also used. A dioicous gametophyte either produces only male gametes (sperm) or produces only female gametes (egg cells). About 60% of liverworts are dioicous. Dioecy occurs in a wide variety of plant groups. Examples of dioecious plant species include ginkgos , willows , cannabis and African teak . As its specific name implies,
589-458: The ancestral sexual system. Dioecious flowering plants can evolve from monoecious ancestors that have flowers containing both functional stamens and functional carpels. Some authors argue monoecy and dioecy are related. In the genus Sagittaria , since there is a distribution of sexual systems, it has been postulated that dioecy evolved from monoecy through gynodioecy mainly from mutations that resulted in male sterility. However, since
620-568: The ancestral state in that group. In plants, dioecy has evolved independently multiple times either from hermaphroditic species or from monoecious species. A previously untested hypothesis is that this reduces inbreeding; dioecy has been shown to be associated with increased genetic diversity and greater protection against deleterious mutations. Regardless of the evolutionary pathway the intermediate states need to have fitness advantages compared to cosexual flowers in order to survive. Dioecy evolves due to male or female sterility, although it
651-609: The ancestral state is unclear, more work is needed to clarify the evolution of dioecy via monoecy. Dioecy usually evolves from hermaphroditism through gynodioecy but may also evolve through androdioecy , through distyly or through heterostyly . In the Asteraceae , dioecy may have evolved independently from hermaphroditism at least 5 or 9 times. The reverse transition, from dioecy back to hermaphroditism has also been observed, both in Asteraceae and in bryophytes, with
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#1732797299075682-585: The expression of recessive deleterious mutations present in a population. In trees, compensation is realized mainly through increased seed production by females. This in turn is facilitated by a lower contribution of reproduction to population growth, which results in no demonstrable net costs of having males in the population compared to being hermaphroditic. Dioecy may also accelerate or retard lineage diversification in angiosperms . Dioecious lineages are more diversified in certain genera, but less in others. An analysis suggested that dioecy neither consistently places
713-536: The expression of recessive deleterious mutations present in a population. Plants have several other methods of preventing self-fertilization including, for example, dichogamy , herkogamy , and self-incompatibility . In zoology, dioecy means that an animal is either male or female, in which case the synonym gonochory is more often used. For example, most animal species are gonochoric, almost all vertebrate species are gonochoric, and all bird and mammal species are gonochoric. Dioecy may also describe colonies within
744-428: The female gametophytes develop within ovules produced by the sporophyte's carpels . The sporophyte generation of a seed plant is called " monoecious " when each sporophyte plant has both kinds of spore-producing organ but in separate flowers or cones. For example, a single flowering plant of a monoecious species has both functional stamens and carpels, in separate flowers. The sporophyte generation of seed plants
775-991: The first King Carl XVI Gustaf Professor of Environmental Science at the Swedish Agricultural University and the Uppsala University , a visiting professorship established by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences . For seven years he was director of the Congressionally-chartered National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) in Hawaii and Florida . Currently, he is executive director of the Brain Chemistry Labs, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming . He
806-657: The perennial stinging nettle Urtica dioica is dioecious, while the annual nettle Urtica urens is monoecious. Dioecious flora are predominant in tropical environments. About 65% of gymnosperm species are dioecious, but almost all conifers are monoecious. In gymnosperms, the sexual systems dioecy and monoecy are strongly correlated with the mode of pollen dispersal, monoecious species are predominantly wind dispersed ( anemophily ) and dioecious species animal-dispersed ( zoophily ). About 6 percent of flowering plant species are entirely dioecious and about 7% of angiosperm genera contain some dioecious species. Dioecy
837-589: The same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Cox&oldid=925002638 " Category : Human name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Paul Alan Cox After receiving his B.S. in Botany and Philosophy from Brigham Young University, he
868-573: Was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to read for his M.Sc. in Ecology at the University of Wales at Bangor . He received a Danforth Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship for his Ph.D. studies at Harvard University in Biology where, twice, he was awarded the Bowdoin Prize , a distinction he shares with Ralph Waldo Emerson . He was appointed as a Miller Fellow at
899-665: Was elected as president of the Society for Economic Botany and has been president of the International Society for Ethnopharmacology . Together with Michael Balick, he wrote, Plants, People, and Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany ., and for his ethnobotanical studies was awarded the E. K. Janaki Ammal Medal from India, and the Eloise Payne Luquer Medal by the Garden Club of America . He
930-490: Was encouraged by Harvard Professor Richard Evans Schultes to pursue ethnobotanical studies. He became increasingly focused on ethnomedicine after his mother died from breast cancer . Subsequently, with his colleagues Gordon Cragg, Michael Boyd, and others at the National Cancer Institute , they discovered the anti-HIV/AIDS properties of prostratin found in the bark of the mamala tree of Samoa. He
961-859: Was named a Laureate for the Prince's Prize for Innovative Philanthropy in 2015 by Albert II, Prince of Monaco . At the request of Governor Scott M. Mattheson , Cox helped defeat the MX missile project proposed for Utah and Nevada, led the successful effort to establish the 50th U.S. National Park, The National Park of American Samoa , and was a delegate to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species ( CITES ) in Lausanne, Switzerland to protect flying fox species in Pacific islands. As