In addition to having constitutive defence traits, many organisms also respond to predation by phenotypic plasticity. In order for plasticity to be adaptive, induced defences should incur a benefit to the organism in, for example, decreased risk of predation. However, the production of defence traits may include costs in fitness components such as growth, time to reproduction, or fecundity. To ...

Non-random female mating preferences may contribute to the maintenance of phenotypic variation in color polymorphic species. However, the effect of female preference depends on the types of male traits used as signals by receptive females. If preference signals derive from discrete male traits (i.e., morph-specific), female preferences may rapidly fix to a morph. However, female preference sign...

The influence of VAM fungi and bacterial biofertilizer (BBF) with 50% reduction in the recommended dose of (N and P) chemical fertilizers on leaf quality traits of mulberry variety (S-13) and its impact on silkworm (PM ? NB4D2) growth and cocoon characters were studied under semi-arid conditions. Four different treatments were imposed i.e., T1: Control (only 100% NPK); T2: VAM (50% cut in P); ...

Fertilizer management plays an important role in obtaining satisfactory yields from maize. In addition, fertilizer management is essential for achieving sustainable agriculture and protecting the environment. This research was conducted by split plot experiment based on randomized complete block design with four replications. Main factor was integrated with chemical and biological fertilizers i...

Astragalus mongholicus Bunge (Fabaceae) is an important plant source of the herbal drug known as Radix Astragali, which is used worldwide as a medicinal ingredient and a component of food supplement. Russian Federation, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and China are the main natural distribution areas of A. mongholicus in the world. However, the quality of medicinal plant varies among different locations....

intercropping is considered as a method for increasing yield per unit and stability. in order to evaluate the effects of phosphorous biofertilizer and chemical phosphorous on fodder quality of corn (zea mays l.) and grass pea (lathyrus sativa l.) intercropping, two field experiments were conducted as factorial based on randomized complete block design with four replications at two places simult...

in order to study individual and integrated effects of biological, organic and chemical fertilizers on milk thistle (silybum marianum l.) quantitative and qualitative traits, a field experiment was conducted at research station, faculty of agriculture, ferdowsi university of mashhad, iran during growing season of 2010-2011. a complete randomized block design with twelve treatments and three rep...

in recent years, surplus usage of chemical fertilizers and inattention the importance organic matter to improve soil fertility, leading to increasing use of chemical fertilizer, environmental pollution and etc. in order to study the different fertilizer levels (organic, chemical and combined) on yield of grain corn (s.c.704) experiment was conducted at the research farm faculty of agriculture t...

BACKGROUND: Super absorbent polymers (SAP) by increasing the capacity of water storage and nutrition materials, reduction of wasting water and evaporation from the surface of soil improve crop production under water stress condition. Bio-fertilizers have the significant advantages to chemical fertilizers; for instance, they do not produce toxic and bacterial substances in the f...

Behavioural ecologists increasingly recognise spatial memory as one the most influential cognitive traits involved in evolutionary processes. In particular, spatial working memory (SWM), i.e. the ability of animals to store temporarily useful information for current foraging tasks, determines the foraging efficiency of individuals. As a consequence, SWM also has the potential to influence compe...