Almonds are one of the most popular nuts, cultivated in countries with Mediterranean climates. In an almond orchard self-incompatible cultivar ‘Ferragnes’ Greece, a tree different morphological characteristics and signs self-compatibility was observed. The aim this study to phenotype, investigate trait, elucidate phylogenetic background tree, named ‘Mars’. Morphological traits kernel nut were m...

Population differentiation often reflects a balance between divergent natural selection and the opportunity for homogenizing gene flow to erode the effects of selection. However, during ecological speciation, trait divergence results in reproductive isolation and becomes a cause, rather than a consequence, of reductions in gene flow. To assess both the causes and the reproductive consequences o...

Character independence is a major assumption in many morphologybased phylogenetic analyses (Felsenstein, 1973; Emerson and Hastings, 1998). However, the fact that most studies of modularity and morphological integration have found significant correlations among many phenotypic traits worryingly calls into question the validity of this assumption. Because gathering data on character correlations...

Antagonistic phenotypic plasticity may strongly influence trait evolution in tightly interacting predator-prey pairs as well as the role that trait plasticity plays in community dynamics. Most work on trait plasticity has focused on single predator-prey pairs, but prey must often contend with multiple predators in natural environments. Hence, a better understanding of the evolutionary and ecolo...

The scaling of body parts is a central feature of animal morphology. Within species, morphological traits need to be correctly proportioned to the body for the organism to function; larger individuals typically have larger body parts and smaller individuals generally have smaller body parts, such that overall body shape is maintained across a range of adult body sizes. The requirement for corre...

Morphological diversification does not proceed evenly across the organism. Some body parts tend to evolve at higher rates than others, and these rate biases are often attributed to sexual and natural selection or to genetic constraints. We hypothesized that variation in the rates of morphological evolution among body parts could also be related to the performance consequences of the functional ...