Ecological sociobiology is an emerging field that aims to frame social evolution in terms of ecological adaptation. Here we explore the ecological context for evolution of quorum sensing diversity in bacteria, where social communication is limited to members of the same quorum sensing type (pherotype). We sampled isolates of Bacillus subtilis from soil on a microgeographical scale and identifie...

in order to investigate the responses of sardari wheat ecotypes to drought stress, 12 spikes of sardari wheat were selected from different regions of kurdistan province and planted as head to row. in the second year, a split- plot factorial field experiment was conducted. in this experiment water stress and irrigation were considered as the levels of main factor and 12 sardari wheat ecotypes al...

in order to evaluate drought tolerance of some aegilops triuncialis ecotypes a factorial experiment based on a completely randomized design was conducted under non-stress and drought stress (irrigation until 50% of heading) condition in the greenhouse of mohaghegh ardabili university in 2012. drought tolerance and susceptibility indices for grain yield were calculated and principal component an...

There is ample empirical evidence that phenotypic diversification in an adaptive radiation is the outcome of divergent natural selection related to differential resource use. In contrast, the role of ecological forces in favoring and maintaining reproductive isolation in nature remains poorly understood. If the same forces driving phenotypic divergence are also responsible for speciation, one w...

In marine ecosystems, Thaumarchaeota are most likely the major ammonia oxidizers. While ammonia concentrations vary by about two orders of magnitude in the oceanic water column, archaeal ammonia oxidizers (AOA) vary by only one order of magnitude from surface to bathypelagic waters. Thus, the question arises whether the key enzyme responsible for ammonia oxidation, ammonia monooxygenase (amo), ...

The ancient soilborne plant vascular pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum has evolved and adapted to cause severe damage in an unusually wide range of plants. In order to better describe and understand these adaptations, strains with very similar lifestyles and host specializations are grouped into ecotypes. We used comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) to investigate three particular ecotypes in ...

Ecological speciation is the process by which reproductively isolated populations emerge as a consequence of divergent natural or ecologically-mediated sexual selection. Most genomic studies of ecological speciation have investigated allopatric populations, making it difficult to infer reproductive isolation. The few studies on sympatric ecotypes have focused on advanced stages of the speciatio...

The effect of seeding depth on emergence of red rice (Oryza sativa) ecotypes from Arkansas (AR), Louisiana (LA), and Mississippi (MS) was determined under dry-seeded rice production in clay and silt loam soils in Arkansas. By 21 d after planting (DAP), all red rice ecotypes had emerged from planting depths of 1.3, 2.5, 5.0, and 7.5 cm in both clay and silt loam soils. In silt loam soil, seedlin...

The repeated occurrence of habitat-specific polyphyletic evolved ecotypes throughout the ranges of widely distributed species implies that multiple, independent and parallel selection events have taken place. Ecological transitions across altitudinal gradients over short geographical distances are often associated with variation in habitat-related fitness, these patterns suggest the action of s...

In this study, we investigate the relative role of historical factors and evolutionary forces in promoting population differentiation in a new case of sympatric dwarf and normal ecotypes of the rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax Mitchill) in Lac Saint-Jean (Québec, Canada). Our first objective was to test the hypothesis that the evolution of sympatric smelt ecotypes in Lac Saint-Jean has been contin...