. in order to study the variation for seed yield and its components, 200 accessions of alfalfa (medicago sativa l.) were sown as drilled plots, using alpha designs/unreplicated with two repeated entries with in all of 10 blocks under dry land farming system in kabodarahang research station, hamadan, iran, during 2010 to 2011. data were analyzed for descriptive statistics, correlation, regressio...

Thyme is an important medicinal plant in cosmetic, pharmaceutical and food industries. The first step for breeding of thyme is evaluating of genetic variation and relationship between thyme’s accessions. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate morphology, chemical and molecular variation of 13 accessions of Thyme medicinal plant. ANOVA showed significant differences between acces...

Natural variation of secondary metabolism between different accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana (A. thaliana) has been studied extensively. In this study, we extended the natural variation approach by including biological variability (plant-to-plant variability) and analysed root metabolic patterns as well as their variability between plants and naturally occurring accessions. To screen 19 acces...

Intraspecific plant diversity can modify the properties of associated arthropod communities and plant fitness. However, it is not well understood which plant traits determine these ecological effects. We explored the effect of intraspecific chemical diversity among neighbouring plants on the associated invertebrate community and plant traits. In a common garden experiment, intraspecific diversi...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Stereochemical variation is widely known to influence the bioactivity of compounds in the context of pharmacology and pesticide science, but our understanding of its importance in mediating plant-herbivore interactions is limited, particularly in field settings. Similarly, sesquiterpene lactones are a broadly distributed class of putative defensive compounds, but little is k...

Insect herbivores contend with various plant traits that are presumed to function as feeding deterrents. Paradoxically, some specialist insect herbivores might beneWt from some of these plant traits, for example by sequestering plant chemical defenses that herbivores then use as their own defense against natural enemies. Larvae of the butterXy species Battus philenor (L.) (Papilionidae) sequest...

Biodiversity regulates ecosystem functions such as productivity, and experimental studies of species mixtures have revealed selection and complementarity effects driving these responses. However, the impacts of intraspecific genotypic diversity in these studies are unknown, despite it forming a substantial part of the biodiversity. In a glasshouse experiment we constructed plant communities wit...

The Basque Diaspora in Western USA and Argentina represents two populations which have maintained strong Basque cultural and social roots in a completely different geographic context. Hence, they provide an exceptional opportunity to study the maternal genetic legacy from the ancestral Basque population and assess the degree of genetic introgression from the host populations in two of the large...

A genecological approach was used to explore genetic variation for survival in Artemisia tridentata (big sagebrush). Artemisia tridentata is a widespread and foundational shrub species in western North America. This species has become extremely fragmented, to the detriment of dependent wildlife, and efforts to restore it are now a land management priority. Common-garden experiments were establi...

Domestication and breeding share a common feature of population bottlenecks followed by significant genetic gain. To date, no crop models for investigating the evolution of genetic variance, selection response, and population diversity following bottlenecks have been developed. We developed a model artificial selection system in the laboratory using rapid-cycling Brassica rapa. Responses to 10 ...