Courtship song serves as a sexual signal and may contribute to reproductive isolation between closely related species. Using lines of Drosophila pseudoobscura experimentally selected under different sexual selection regimes, we tested whether increased promiscuity and enforced monogamy led to evolutionary changes in courtship song elements. In D. pseudoobscura, males produce both a low and high...

Reinforcement-the process whereby maladaptive hybridization leads to the strengthening of prezygotic isolation between species-has a long history in the study of speciation. Because reinforcement affects traits involved in mate choice and fertility, it can have indirect effects on reproductive isolation between populations within species. Here we review examples of these "cascading effects of r...

A long-standing goal in evolutionary biology is to identify the conditions that promote the evolution of reproductive isolation and speciation. The factors promoting sympatric speciation have been of particular interest, both because it is notoriously difficult to prove empirically and because theoretical models have generated conflicting results, depending on the assumptions made. Here, we ana...

Chickpea is the second most important legume crop largely grown under semi-arid tropics where terminal drought is one of the major constraints for its productivity. A trait-based selection had been considered more beneficial in drought tolerance breeding to overcome the environmental influence on drought yields. Large number of traits had been suggested in literature, with less indication on th...

Evolutionary life history theory seeks to explain how reproductive and survival traits are shaped by selection through allocations of an individual's resources to competing life functions. Although life-history traits evolve rapidly, little is known about the genetic and cellular mechanisms that control and couple these tradeoffs. Here, we find that two laboratory-adapted strains of C. elegans ...

The transition from vegetative to reproductive phase, flowering per se, floral organ development, panicle structure and morphology, meiosis, pollination and fertilization, cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) and fertility restoration, and grain development are the main reproductive traits. Unlocking their genetic insights will enable plant breeders to manipulate these traits in cereal germplasm en...

SUMMARY Breeding objectives are largely determined by market tropics, the overall breeding objective can be considered in reproductive rate, carcass quality, adaptation and temperament. a simple efficient se:ection trait. Reas~ns why potential increas .. size are not as d1sadvantageous as 1n temperate areas are Reproductive performance has been less important in harsh environments because of th...

The degree to which changes in lifespan are coupled to changes in senescence in different physiological systems and phenotypic traits is a central question in biogerontology. It is underpinned by deeper biological questions about whether or not senescence is a synchronised process, or whether levels of synchrony depend on species or environmental context. Understanding how natural selection sha...

In the future, breeders may apply reproductive, computational, and genomic methods to global populations nearly as easily as with national populations now. Dairy cattle breeders exchange traditional breeding values worldwide via Interbull, and new methods are outlined for exchanging either genomic evaluations or genotypes. Goals are to adapt multi-trait across country evaluation (MACE) in the s...

Speciation is the origin of reproductive isolation and divergence between populations, according to the "biological species concept" of Mayr. Studies of reproductive isolation have dominated research on speciation, leaving the origin of species differences relatively poorly understood. Here, I argue that the origin of species differences, and of novel phenotypes in general, involves the reorgan...