Pioneer plants are adapted to grow in unpredictable environments. These plants have evolved several traits related to seed morphology and germination to cope with this unpredictability. The main aim of this study was to investigate the effect of plant identity and maternal environment on seed mass and germination of Sinapis arvensis. This study was undertaken with S. arvensis plants grown in fo...

AIMS Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) have been related to low birth weight, suggesting the foetal environment may program future risk. Alternatively, common genetic factors for both low birth weight and CVD could explain such associations. We investigated associations between offspring birth weight and paternal and maternal cardiovascular mortality and offspring birth weight and cardiovascular m...

BACKGROUND Maternal smoking during pregnancy (SDP) has been studied extensively as a risk factor for adverse offspring outcomes and is known to co-occur with other familial risk factors. Accounting for general familial risk factors has attenuated associations between SDP and adverse offspring outcomes, and identifying these confounds will be crucial to elucidating the relationship between SDP a...

BACKGROUND An emerging literature suggests that environmental chemicals may play a role in the development of childhood obesity and metabolic disorders, especially when exposure occurs early in life. OBJECTIVE Here we assess the association between these health outcomes and exposure to maternal smoking during pregnancy as part of a broader effort to develop a research agenda to better underst...

in this research, 6517 records, collected by khojir sheep breeding station (tehran, iran), during 1991 to 2011 were used to estimate genetic parameters of lamb survival in zandi sheep. genetic parameters were estimated using 16 different models of animal model, sire and threshold models using reml procedures. the aic criterion was used to evaluate the models. the effects in the most suitable an...

BACKGROUND Neonatal hypothyroidism has been associated in animal models with maternal exposure to several environmental contaminants; however, evidence for such an association in humans is inconsistent. We evaluated whether maternal exposure to 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), a persistent and widespread toxic environmental contaminant, is associated with modified neonatal thyroid fu...

1. The objective of the study was to explore the genetic architecture of blood oxygen saturation (SaO) (an indicator trait, negatively correlated with ascites susceptibility), body weight (Weight) and fleshing score (Flesh, a measure of breast conformation) for 4 meat-type chicken lines reared in commercial conditions. 2. Genetic components, including heritabilities and genetic correlations, we...

This paper reports genetic parameters for lamb survival and mortality traits on sheep farms in New Zealand. Lamb survival and mortality records were obtained from 38 flocks (103,357 lambs) from 5 yr of lambing data (2007 to 2011) and include many breeds and their crosses (predominantly Romney, Perendale, Coopworth, and Texel). A number of models were tested, all including environmental weather ...

(Co)variance components and genetic parameters of weight at birth (BWT), weaning (3WT), 6, 9 and 12 months of age (6WT, 9WT and 12WT, respectively) and first greasy fleece weight (GFW) of Bharat Merino sheep, maintained at Central Sheep and Wool Research Institute, Avikanagar, Rajasthan, India, were estimated by restricted maximum likelihood, fitting six animal models with various combinations ...