In lizards as in many other kinds of animals, strong maternal effects on the phenotypic traits of hatchlings are frequently reported. One plausible non-genetic mechanism that might produce such differences among clutches involves maternal allocation of steroid hormones. Lizard eggs often display considerable inter-clutch variation in the quantities of maternally allocated steroids, and exogenou...

Defensive traits exhibited by plants vary widely across populations. Heritable phenotypic differentiation is likely to be produced by genetic drift and spatially restricted gene flow between populations. However, spatially variable selection exerted by herbivores may also give rise to differences among populations. To explore to what extent these factors promote the among-population differentia...

Floral nectars become easily colonized by microbes, most often species of the ascomycetous yeast genus Metschnikowia. Although it is known that nectar composition can vary tremendously among plant species, most probably corresponding to the nutritional requirements of their main pollinators, far less is known about how variation in nectar chemistry affects intraspecific variation in nectarivoro...

thriteen thousand, seven hundred and fifty two (13752) records on growth tarits (birth weight, 1, 3, 6, 9 and 12 month weights) as well as pelt scores, collected during 1996-2002 as karakul sheep breeding station, sarakhs, iran were employed in this study. best liner unbiased prediction (blup) of breeding values, genetic and phenotypic trends of the traits were estimated as the regression of av...

Body size and development time are two critical phenotypic traits that can be highly adaptive in insects. Recent population genetic analyses and crossing experiments with the mountain pinebeetle (Dendroctonus ponderosaeHopkins) havedescribed substantial levels of neutralmolecular genetic differentiation, genetic differences in phenotypic traits, and reproductive isolation. To determine whether ...

Genetic and phenotypic parameters for production traits and somatic cell count (SCC) for Jersey dairy cattle in Zimbabwe were estimated. A total of 10986 lactation records were obtained from Zimbabwe Livestock Identification Trust, with cows calving in the period from 1996 to 2008. An ASReml program fitting an animal model was used for the analyses. Heritability estimates for milk yield, fat yi...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Functional traits are indicators of plant interactions with their environment and the resource-use strategies of species can be defined through some key functional traits. The importance of genetic variability and phenotypic plasticity in trait variations in response to a common environmental change was investigated in two subalpine species. METHODS Two species with contra...

Many agriculturally important traits are complex, affected by many genes and the environment. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping is a key tool for studying the genetic structure of complex traits in plants. In the present study QTLs associated with yield and agronomical traits such as leaf number, leaf length, leaf width, plant height, stem and head diameter were identified by using 70 recom...