Rarity does not limit genetic variation or preclude subpopulation structure in the geographically restricted desert forb Astragalus lentiginosus var. piscinensis

Somaclonal variation does not preclude the use of rice transformants for genetic screening.

Rice (Oryza sativa) is one of the world's most important crops. Rice researchers make extensive use of insertional mutants for the study of gene function. Approximately half a million flanking sequence tags from rice insertional mutant libraries are publicly available. However, the relationship between genotype and phenotype is very weak. Transgenic plant assays have been used frequently for co...

Fetotoxicity of Astragalus lentiginosus (Locoweed) in Spanish Goats

Locoweed species—Astragalus and Oxytropis spp. that contain the indolizidine alkaloid swainsonine— are widely distributed on rangelands in North and South America, Mexico, China, and other rangelands throughout the world. Other range plant species including Sida spp. (Seitz et al. 2005), Ipomoea spp. (Damir et al. 1987), and Swainsona spp. (Laws and Anson 1968) from Brazil, Africa, and Australi...

Rarity in Astragalus: a California Perspective

Astragalus (Fabaceae), the largest genus of plants in the world with an estimated 3270 species, is known for large numbers of rare endemic species. An inventory of patterns of climatic, topographic, and edaphic diversity of Astragalus taxa in California (98 native species and 144 named taxa) provides a means to understand the occurrence of rarity in relation to climatic equitability and regiona...

Loco intoxication: indolizidine alkaloids of spotted locoweed (Astragalus lentiginosus).

Physical Stress, Not Biotic Interactions, Preclude an Invasive Grass from Establishing in Forb-Dominated Salt Marshes

BACKGROUND Biological invasions have become the focus of considerable concern and ecological research, yet the relative importance of abiotic and biotic factors in controlling the invasibility of habitats to exotic species is not well understood. Spartina species are highly invasive plants in coastal wetlands; however, studies on the factors that control the success or failure of Spartina invas...