BACKGROUND Ability to resist temperature shock is an important component of fitness of insects and other ectotherms. Increased resistance to temperature shock is known to affect life-history traits. Temperature shock is also known to affect reproductive traits such as mating ability and viability of gametes. Therefore selection for increased temperature shock resistance can affect the evolution...

The display of the reproductive behavior in most noctuid Lepidoptera follows a diel periodicity and is limited to a precise period of either the day or the night. These behavioral traits and the sex pheromone chemistry can be species specific and thus might be linked to the phylogeny. The objective of this study was to test the relationship of these reproductive traits with phylogeny. The study...

Here we report on the first discovery of shelled eggs inside the body cavity of a fossil turtle and on an isolated egg clutch, both referable to the Cretaceous turtle Adocus. These discoveries provide a unique opportunity to gain insight into the reproductive traits of an extinct turtle and to understand the evolution of such traits among living turtles. The gravid adult and egg clutch indicate...

Postembryonic shoot development in maize (Zea mays L.) is divided into a juvenile vegetative phase, an adult vegetative phase, and a reproductive phase that differ in the expression of many morphological traits. A reduction in the endogenous levels of bioactive gibberellins (GAs) conditioned by any one of the dwarf1, dwarf3, dwarf5, or anther ear1 mutations in maize delays the transition from j...

Epidemiological models generally explore the evolution of parasite life-history traits, namely, virulence and transmission, against a background of constant host life-history traits. However, life-history models have predicted the evolution of host traits in response to parasitism. The coevolution of host and parasite life-history traits remains largely unexplored. We present an epidemiological...

In many organisms, large offspring have improved fitness over small offspring, and thus their size is under strong selection. However, due to a trade-off between offspring size and number, females producing larger offspring necessarily must produce fewer unless the total amount of reproductive effort is unlimited. Because differential gene expression among environments may affect genetic covari...

Genetic diversity among breeds of cattle allows producers to select animals for specific environments or market conditions. Reproductive efficiency is a multi-component trait that is largely influenced by environmental influences such as health and nutritional status; however, there are clearly genetic components to reproductive efficiency, and breed differences in a number of indicator traits ...

Understanding differences among peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) cultivars in growth and phenology and the interactions with environment (G X E interactions) for these traits allows predictions for yield potential or performance in variable environments. Despite the importance of this information, very little quantitative data exists on the differences in aboveground growth, canopy architecture, an...

The avianuncoupling protein (avUCP) is a member of the mitochondrial transporter superfamily that uncouples proton entry in the mitochondrial matrix from ATP synthesis. The polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method was used to estimate the allele and genotype frequencies of the UCP/HhaI polymorphisms and to determine associations between these polymorp...

Genetic parameters were obtained using REML procedures applied to a multiple trait animal model for number born alive (NBA), litter birth weight (LBW), average piglet weight at birth (ABW) recorded in the first, second and third parity (NBA , LBW , ABW ) and 21-day litter weight (LW21 ) for 6050 Large White and Landrace sows. Heritability 1,2,3 1,2,3 1,2,3 1 estimates ranged from 0.06 to 0.22 f...