Intraspecific variation in size along spatial and environmental gradients has been documented many studies, different hypotheses have proposed to explain these patterns of geographic variation. We explored 4 island 35 mainland samples the Edible Dormouse ( Glis glis Linnaeus, 1758) from western Balkans Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia. Samples comprised 207 (mean ± SD=1...

Although floral and extrafloral nectar traits are important for plant reproduction and defense, we know little about their genetic basis. Only a handful of studies have quantified heritable variation for nectar traits, primarily in controlled environments that minimize environmental variation. Most such studies have reported strong genetic influences, with heritabilities often .0.35. However, b...

1. Understanding an animal’s ecology requires knowledge of how individual variation in behaviour and physiology interact with each other and with the environment that an animal experiences. 2. Environmental variation affects behaviour, but whether individual variation in physiological performance also affects behaviour is poorly known. 3. We studied a high-altitude population of Deer Mice ( Per...

Although functional trait variability is increasingly used in community ecology, the scale- and size-dependent aspects of trait variation are usually disregarded. Here we quantified the spatial structure of shoot height, branch length, root/shoot ratio and leaf number in a macrophyte species Potamogeton maackianus, and then disentangled the environmental and ontogenetic effects on these traits....

It is generally accepted that taxa exhibit genetic variation in phenotypic plasticity, but many questions remain unanswered about how divergent plastic responses evolve under dissimilar ecological conditions. Hormones are signaling molecules that act as proximate mediators of phenotype expression by regulating a variety of cellular, physiological, and behavioral responses. Hormones not only cha...

The genetic factors that give rise to variation in susceptibility to environmental toxins remain largely unexplored. Studies on genetic variation in susceptibility to environmental toxins are challenging in human populations, due to the variety of clinical symptoms and difficulty in determining which symptoms causally result from toxic exposure; uncontrolled environments, often with exposure to...