Flowers, as repeated modules on a plant, may show population dynamics that correspond to ecological models for population growth. We hypothesized that rate of flower production (birth rate), number of open flowers per day (population size) and flower duration (longevity) should be related to plant resource status. With dioecious species, resource demands of male or female function would contrib...

Since the last glacial maximum (LGM), many plant and animal taxa have expanded their ranges by migration from glacial refugia. Weeds of cultivation may have followed this trend or spread globally following the expansion of agriculture or ruderal habitats associated with human-mediated disturbance. We tested whether the range expansion of the weed Silene vulgaris across Europe fit the classical ...

Cold-adapted organisms with current arctic-alpine distributions have persisted during the last glaciation in multiple ice-free refugia, leaving footprints in their population structure that contrast with temperate plants and animals. However, pathogens that live within hosts having arctic-alpine distributions have been little studied. Here, we therefore investigated the geographical range and p...

The level of parasite virulence, i.e., the decrease in host's fitness due to a pathogen, is expected to depend on several parameters, such as the type of the disease (e.g., castrating or host-killing) and the prevalence of multiple infections. Although these parameters have been extensively studied theoretically, few empirical data are available to validate theoretical predictions. Using the an...

Bioassay-guided fractionation of the methanolic extracts of Vismia baccifera, V. jefensis, and V. macrophylla against human breast, CNS, and lung cancer cell lines resulted in the isolation of a new compound, ferruginin C (1), and seven known compounds, ferruginins A (2) and B (3), vismin (4), harunganin (5), vismione B (6), deacetylvismione H (7), and deacetylvismione A (8), as active constitu...

Genetic correlations between the sexes can constrain the evolution of sexual dimorphism and be difficult to alter, because traits common to both sexes share the same genetic underpinnings. We tested whether artificial correlational selection favoring specific combinations of male and female traits within families could change the strength of a very high between-sex genetic correlation for flowe...