The large number of threatened species, both insects and plants, in the European agricultural landscape, has often been attributed to the abandonment of semi-natural grasslands. Species may also be threatened in the remaining managed grasslands due to a changed and intensified management, compared to the historical use. In this study, effects of grazing management and population characteristics...

Androsace vitaliana (syn. Vitaliana primuliflora; Primulaceae) has been subject to several taxonomic treatments, whose conclusions ranged from a single species with numerous infraspecific taxa to several species usually without infraspecific taxa. Here, following molecular investigation, several taxonomic changes are made. A single species with the following infraspecific taxa is recognized: su...

Heterostyly is a wide-spread floral adaptation to promote outbreeding, yet its genetic basis and evolutionary origin remain poorly understood. In Primula (primroses), heterostyly is controlled by the S-locus supergene that determines the reciprocal arrangement of reproductive organs and incompatibility between the two morphs. However, the identities of the component genes remain unknown. Here, ...

Premise of the study Microsatellite primers were developed for Primula ovalifolia, a member of Primula section Petiolares (Primulaceae), to study the population genetics and species delimitation in this section. Methods and Results A total of 4753 markers were successfully designated from 5139 putative simple sequence repeat loci. We isolated 38 expressed sequence tag-simple sequence repeat m...