The social sciences have been reticent to integrate a biodemographic approach to the study of fertility choice and behaviour, resulting in theories and findings that are largely socially-deterministic. The aim of this paper is to first reflect on reasons for this lack of integration, provide a review of previous examinations, take stock of what we have learned until now and propose future resea...

Environmental filtering prevents species without certain attributes from occurring in local communities. Traits respond differently to different abiotic factors, assembling communities with varying composition along environmental gradients. Here, we measured proxies of soil fertility, disturbance by fire, response and physiological traits to assess how these variables interact to determine wood...

Genomic imprinting is an important epigenetic phenomenon, which on the phenotypic level can be detected by the difference between the two heterozygote classes of a gene. Imprinted genes are important in both the development of the placenta and the embryo, and we hypothesized that imprinted genes might be involved in female fertility traits. We therefore performed an association study for imprin...

Human life histories combine late age at first reproduction, long reproductive span, relatively high fertility, and substantial postreproductive survival. However, even among the most fecund populations, human fertility falls far below its theoretical maximum. The extent of parental care required for successful offspring recruitment and widespread fertility decline under proper economic conditi...

In the long-term absence of major disturbances ecosystems enter a state of retrogression, which involves declining soil fertility and consequently a reduction in decomposition rates. Recent studies have looked at how plant traits such as specific leaf mass and amounts of secondary compounds respond to declining soil fertility during retrogression, but there are no comparable studies for lichen ...

Hatchability is a complex age dependent trait. It comprises of several sub-traits which are susceptible to genetic and environmental factors arising from various sources. This review examines the genetic basis of egg production, fertility and egg quality traits and how these relate with hatchability. We suggest that both sire and dam genetic components are important in overall hatchability most...

Meta-Analysis of Various Environmental and Genetic Parameters Fertility-Related Traits in Dairy Cows

a genetic marker is a gene or dna sequence with known localization on a chromosome. it can be de-scribed as a variation that can be measured or detected by a suitable method, and can be used subsequently to detect the presence of a specific genotype. such variations occurring at chromosomal or dna level can serve as genetic markers. the progress in development of molecular markers suggests thei...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Specific leaf area (SLA), a key element of the 'worldwide leaf economics spectrum', is the preferred 'soft' plant trait for assessing soil fertility. SLA is a function of leaf dry matter content (LDMC) and leaf thickness (LT). The first, LDMC, defines leaf construction costs and can be used instead of SLA. However, LT identifies shade at its lowest extreme and succulence at ...

Effects of age at first calving (AFC) on functional longevity of Czech Holstein cows and their reproduction traits in the first lactation were analyzed using the first lactation data of 605 538 Holstein cows first calved from 1993 to 2008. Three classes were formed for AFC: low age class (16–24 months), average age class (25–30 months), and high age class (33–46 months). Effects of AFC on lengt...