A strategy for the North Carolina State University Industry Cooperative Tree Improvement Program’s third-cycle breeding for loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) was developed to provide genetic gain in the short-term as well as to maintain genetic diversity so that long-term genetic gains will also be possible. Our strategy will be to manage a hierarchy of three populations, each at a different level...

Knowledge of the dietary choices and trophic niches of organisms is the key to understanding their roles in ecosystems. In seabird diet studies, prey identification is a difficult challenge, often yielding results with technique-specific biases. Additionally, sampling efforts are often not extensive enough to reveal intrapopulational variation. Immature animals, which may constitute up to 50% o...

Mercury is a heavy metal that has contaminated countless ecosystems throughout the world. A large body of literature has documented reproductive, physiological, and behavioral impairments associated with mercury exposure in laboratory settings, but whether and how such effects are manifest in free-living populations remains poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether tr...

Conspecific cues have been shown to influence habitat selection in many different species. In anurans, conspecific chorus sounds may facilitate location of new breeding ponds, but direct experimental evidence supporting this notion is lacking. We conducted an experimental field study on American toads (Anaxyrus americanus) and Cope’s gray tree frogs (Hyla chrysoscelis) to determine whether toad...

The application of quantitative genetics in plant and animal breeding has largely focused on additive models, which may also capture dominance and epistatic effects. Partitioning genetic variance into its additive and nonadditive components using pedigree-based models (P-genomic best linear unbiased predictor) (P-BLUP) is difficult with most commonly available family structures. However, the av...

Background Cryptomeria japonica D. Don (sugi) is one of the most important Japanese conifer species. Rapid improvement of the wood trait (e.g., growth speed and wood quality) using a conventional breeding approach is not possible, because breeding of coniferous tree requires a very long time. Genetic modification might be a powerful tool to shorten the time needed to breed trees compared with t...

Hybrids as various resources have valuable importance in tree breeding. Today, improvement programs by using poplar and willows and their hybrids play basic role in supplying wood and decreasing pressure on natural forests. This research was carried out in order to study inter-generic hybridization possibility between Salix aegyptica and Populus caspica species from Salicaceae to achieve new hy...