Farmer management of plant germplasm pre-dates crop domestication, but humans' role in crop evolution and diversity remains largely undocumented and often contested. Seemingly inexplicable practices observed throughout agricultural history, such as exchanging or replacing seed, continue to structure crop populations across the developing world. Seed management practices can be construed as even...

Farming activity severely impacts the invertebrate food resources of farmland birds, with direct mortality to populations of above-ground arthropods thorough mechanical damage during crop harvests. In this study we assessed the effects of phenological periods, including the timing of harvest, on the composition and biomass of prey consumed by three species of aerial insectivorous birds. Common ...

Hybrid seed failure represents an important postzygotic barrier to interbreeding among species of wild tomatoes (Solanum section Lycopersicon) and other flowering plants. We studied genome-wide changes associated with hybrid seed abortion in the closely related Solanum peruvianum and S. chilense where hybrid crosses yield high proportions of inviable seeds due to endosperm failure and arrested ...

The article presents the characteristics of fruits and seeds medicinal plant Saposhnikovia divaricata (Turcz.) Schischk.), obtained from natural habitats under conditions introduction. Heterocarpy has been established, which is expressed in difference color, surface mericarp, size mericarp seed. embryo differs slightly. coefficient variation signs 9 to 22 %, regardless place origin fruits.

Parent-of-origin-effect loci have non-Mendelian inheritance in which phenotypes are determined by either the maternal or paternal allele alone. In angiosperms, parent-of-origin effects can be caused by loci required for gametophyte development or by imprinted genes needed for seed development. Few parent-of-origin-effect loci have been identified in maize (Zea mays) even though there are a larg...