Lake Urmia (or Ormiyeh) is one of the largest hypersaline lakes in the world and the habitat of a unique bisexual Artemia species (A. urmiana). Despite this, and several other values of the lake, little literature on it has been published. The present paper is an attempt to provide a brief review on various aspects of the lake. Urmia Lake, located in northwestern Iran, is an oligotrophic lake of thalassohaline origin with a total surface area between 4750 and 6100 km 2 and a maximum depth of 16 m at an altitude of 1250 m. The lake is divided into north and south parts separated by a causeway in which a 1500-m gap provides little exchange of water between the two parts. Due to drought and increased demands for agricultural water in the lake's basin, the salinity of the lake has risen to more than 300 g/L during recent years, and large areas of the lake bed have been desiccated. Therefore, management and conservation of this incomparable ecosystem should be considered to improve the current condition by fisheries research institutes.

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Selectable marker genes (SMGs) have been extraordinarily useful in enabling plant transformation because of the low efficiency of transgene integration. The most used SMGs encode proteins resistant to antibiotics or herbicides and use negative selection, i.e., by killing nontransgenic tissue. However, there are perceived risks in wide-scale deployment of SMG-transgenic plants, and therefore research has recently been performed to develop marker-free systems. In this review, transformation using markers not based on antibiotic or herbicide resistance genes, as well as different systems of marker gene deletion, are discussed.

and evolutionary origins of parthenogenetic Artemia (Crustacea: Anostraca) with different ploidies. -Zoologica Scripta, 45, 421-436. Using two nuclear (ITS1 and Na + /K + ATPase) and three mitochondrial (COI, 16S and 12S) markers, we determined the genetic variation and evolutionary relationship of parthenogenetic and bisexual Artemia. Our analyses revealed that mitochondrial genes had higher genetic variation than nuclear genes and that the 16S showed more variety than the other mitochondrial genes in parthenogenetic populations. Triploid parthenogens showed lower genetic variation than diploid ones, whereas the tetra-and pentaploids had greater genetic distance than diploid parthenogens. No shared haplotype was found between individuals of parthenogenetic populations and Asian bisexual species with the exception of Na + /K + ATPase (Artemia tibetiana). Only mitochondrial markers can demonstrate phylogenetic relationships, and showed that the parthenogenetic Artemia is a polyphyletic group in which the diploid lineages share a common ancestor with Artemia urmiana while tetraploids are closely related to Artemia sinica. The triploid and pentaploid linages are likely to be directly derived from diploid and tetraploid parthenogens, respectively. Subsequently, west Asia is origin for di-/ triploids, and tetra-/pentaploids rose from East Asia.

The brine shrimp Artemia represents a widespread genus of microcrustaceans adapted to hypersaline environments. The species of this genus have been the subject of numerous phylogenetic studies, but many open questions remain, especially for Eurasian Artemia lineages. Artemia sinica Cai, 1989 and Artemia tibetiana have a restricted geographical distribution, whereas the Eurasian haplotype complex (EHC) and especially Artemia urmiana Günther, 1899 show wider ranges. We examined the geographic distribution, evolutionary age, and historical demography of the Asian Artemia lineages (A. urmiana, A. sinica, A. tibetiana, and the Eurasian haplotype complex) using samples from 39 geographical localities and based on the nucleotide sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene. Asian Artemia taxa clusters into four distinctive clades with high nodal support, consisting of 69 unique haplotypes. A star‐like haplotype pattern was visible in EHC lineages (comprising pathenogenetic populations), which were genetically close to two sexual species, A. urmiana and A. tibetiana. The Bayesian approach of molecular clock estimation indicated that A. sinica had already diverged in the late Miocene (19.99 Mya), whereas A. urmiana, A. tibetiana, and EHC shared a common ancestor in the late Pliocene (5.41 Mya). Neutrality tests indicated a recent population expansion in A. urmiana and EHC lineages. The diversification within A. urmiana and EHC lineages occurred in the Pleistocene (1.72 Mya) and Holocene (0.84 Mya), respectively. Overall, these results suggest a much longer evolutionary history of A. sinica and the possible evolutionary origin of EHC lineages from Asian sexual ancestors. Our findings point to the importance of species structure and divergence time variations of Asian Artemia, highlighting interspecific diversification and range expansion of local species in Asia. © 2015 The Linnean Society of London