Pathogen genes involved in interactions with their plant hosts are expected to evolve under positive Darwinian selection or balancing selection. In this study a single copy avirulence gene, AvrP4, in the plant pathogen Melampsora lini, was used to investigate the evolution of such a gene across species. Partial translation elongation factor 1-alpha sequences were obtained to establish phylogene...

the main objective of this study was to understand of genetic association between quantitative and qualitative traits and also to quantify effects of selection for one trait on others in safflower. the study took place in the experimental field of the faculty of agriculture, isfahan university of technology, isfahan, iran, in the 2001 and 2002. to find the best variable for selection to improve...

Plantesoil feedbacks are important to productivity and plant community dynamics in both natural and managed ecosystems. Among soil bacteria, the Streptomyces possess particularly strong antagonistic activities and inhibit diverse plant pathogens, offering a clear pathway to involvement in plantesoil feedbacks. We hypothesized that feedback effects and the ability of individual host plant specie...

It is now recognized that speciation can proceed even when divergent natural selection is opposed by gene flow. Understanding the extent to which environmental gradients and geographical distance can limit gene flow within species can shed light on the relative roles of selection and dispersal limitation during the early stages of population divergence and speciation. On the remote Lord Howe Is...

Increasing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere are likely to affect the ecological dynamics of plant populations and communities worldwide, yet little is known about potential evolutionary consequences of high CO2. We employed a quantitative genetic framework to examine how the expression of genetic variation and covariation in fitnessrelated traits, and thus, the evolutionary potential of ...

Ecological impacts of invasive plant species are well documented, but the genetic response of native species to invasive dominance has been often overlooked. Invasive plants can drastically alter site conditions where they reach dominance, potentially exerting novel selective pressures on persistent native plant populations. Do native plant populations in old exotic invasions show evidence of s...

Charles Darwin began The Origin of Species with a chapter entitled variation under domestication, which encapsulated decades of his research on a diverse array of animal and plant domesticated species. Variation in these species compared with that in their wild relatives, their origins and their selection by humans, formed a paradigm for his theory of the evolutionary origin of species by means...

Sex chromosomes in dioecious and polygamous plants evolved as a mechanism for ensuring outcrossing to increase genetic variation in the offspring. Sex specificity has evolved in 75% of plant families by male sterile or female sterile mutations, but well-defined heteromorphic sex chromosomes are known in only four plant families. A pivotal event in sex chromosome evolution, suppression of recomb...