Understanding geographic variation in the species richness and lineage composition of regional biotas is a long-standing goal in ecology. Why do some evolutionary lineages proliferate while others do not, and how do new colonists fit into an established fauna? Here, we analyze the morphological structure of assemblages of passerine birds in four biogeographic regions to examine the relative inf...

The relationship between habitat complexity and species richness is well established but comparatively little is known about the evolution of morphological diversity in complex habitats. Reefs are structurally complex, highly productive shallow-water marine ecosystems found in tropical (coral reefs) and temperate zones (rocky reefs) that harbor exceptional levels of biodiversity. We investigate...

To improve the outcome of assisted reproductive technology (ART) for patients with ovulation problems, it is necessary to retrieve and select germinal vesicle (GV) stage oocytes with high developmental potential. Oocytes with high developmental potential are characterized by their ability to undergo proper maturation, fertilization, and embryo development. In this study, we analyzed morphologic...

Aims The clustering of plants with similar leaf traits along environmental gradients may arise from adaptation as well as acclimation to heterogeneous habitat conditions. Determining the forces that shape plant leaf traits requires both linking variation in trait morphology with abiotic gradients and linking that trait variation with plant performance under varying abiotic conditions. Across th...

Inducible morphological defences are crucial for understanding predator–prey interactions. Such have been mostly studied in a single-predator context, ignoring the fact that prey organisms often exposed to multiple predators. In deep peri-Alpine European lakes, keystone grazer Daphnia coexists with two cladoceran predators, Bythotrephes longimanus and Leptodora kindtii. Up now, life history res...

Morphological integration describes the degree to which sets of organismal traits covary with one another. Morphological covariation may be evaluated at various levels of biological organization, but when characterizing such patterns across species at the macroevolutionary level, phylogeny must be taken into account. We outline an analytical procedure based on the evolutionary covariance matrix...

Hypotheses on the existence of a universal "Root Economics Spectrum" (RES) have received arguably the least attention of all trait spectra, despite the key role root trait variation plays in resource acquisition potential. There is growing interest in quantifying intraspecific trait variation (ITV) in plants, but there are few studies evaluating (i) the existence of an intraspecific RES within ...

Olive (Olea europaea L.) consumption and production are socially and economically important in Iran. The aim of this experiment was to evaluate the vegetative characteristics, floral biology, fruit characteristics, oil percentage, and yield of eleven olive cvs. (‘Arbequina’, ‘Amygdalolia’, ‘Bledy’, ‘Roghani’, ‘Zard’, ‘Sevillana’, ‘Koroneiki’, ‘Conservalia’, ‘Gordal Sevillana’, ‘Manzanilla’, and...