Oligolectic bees collect pollen from one or a few closely related species of plants, whereas polylectic bees visit a variety of flowers for pollen. Because of their more restricted range of host plants, it maybe expected that specialists exist in smaller, more isolated populations, with lower effective population sizes than generalists. Consequently, we hypothesized that oligolectic bees have r...

Although small populations are expected to lose genetic diversity through genetic drift and inbreeding, a number of mechanisms exist that could minimize this genetic decline. Examples include mate choice for unrelated mates and fertilization patterns biased toward genetically dissimilar gametes. Both processes have been widely documented, but the long-term implications have received little atte...

We derived analytical results for the reduction of the level of neutral polymorphism due to genetic hitchhiking using diffusion theory. In the case of a single strongly selected substitution, expected heterozygosity at a linked neutral locus is reduced by a factor (2c/s) aZciSr( 2c/s, l/m), where s is the selective advantage of the favored allele, c is the recombination fraction between the neu...

Low levels of heterozygosity can have detrimental effects on life history and growth characteristics of organisms but more subtle effects such as those on trade-offs of expensive tissues and morphological laterality, especially of the brain, have not been explicitly tested. The objective of the current study was to investigate how estimated differences in heterozygosity may potentially affect b...

the effectiveness of irap, remap, ssr, and issr markers were investigated to assess genetic diversity among and within eight medicago sativa l. populations. a total of 101, 119, 117 loci and 31 alleles were amplified using 10 irap, 14 remap, 16 issr and eight ssr primers, respectively. irap markers generated the maximum proportion of polymorphic loci per primer (pplp) while the maximum value of...

common kilka clupeonella cultriventris (nordmann, 1840) is a brackish water and small pelagic fish species and is one of the most abundant fishes that live gregariously in the caspian sea. a total of 60 specimens of adult common kilka were sampled from two seasons. fifteen pairs of microsatellites previously developed for a.sapidissima, c. pallasi, c.harengus, and s. pilchardus were tested for ...

Transfer of molecular markers is widely used in conservation genetic studies. We investigated the transferability of simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers developed for Enterolobium cyclocarpum to E. contortisiliquum, a tropical tree widely distributed in dry forests. A set of 9 evaluated SSR markers were amplified in E. contortisiliquum and the degree of polymorphism was assessed in 8 tre...

UNLABELLED PREMISE OF THE STUDY A set of expressed sequence tag (EST) microsatellite markers were developed and characterized using next-generation sequencing technology for the Chinese genus Ostryopsis (Betulaceae). • METHODS AND RESULTS A total of 38 high-quality simple sequence repeat (SSR) primers were identified, of which 15 could be successfully amplified. Subsequently, we selected 8...

Clivia is a genus of great horticultural importance and has been widely cultivated as ornamental plants in all over the world. In order to assess the phylogenetic relationships and genetic diversity of the wild Clivia species and cultivars, we isolated AC-enriched repeats using FIASCO from a single clone each of C. miniata Regel. and Clivia nobilis Lindl. Of the fourteen repeats, 10 were polymo...

Double strand breaks (DSBs) are often repaired via homologous recombination. Recombinational repair processes are expected to be influenced by nucleotide heterozygosity through mismatch detection systems. Unrepaired DSBs have severe biological consequences and are often lethal. We show that natural selection due to inhibition of recombinational repair associated with polymorphisms could influen...