Soil fertility and nutrient-related plant functional traits are in general only moderately related, hindering the progress in trait-based prediction models of vegetation patterns. Although the relationships may have been obscured by suboptimal choices in how soil fertility is expressed, there has never been a systematic investigation into the suitability of fertility measures. This study, there...

Root system architecture (RSA) plays an important role in the acquisition of both nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) from the environment. Currently RSA is rarely considered as criteria for selection to improve nutrient uptake efficiency in crop breeding. Under field conditions roots can be greatly influenced by uncontrolled environment factors. Therefore, it is necessary to develop fast selection...

BACKGROUND Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can be viewed as the extreme end of traits in the general population. Epidemiological and twin studies suggest that ADHD frequently co-occurs with and shares genetic susceptibility with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and ASD-related traits. The aims of this study were to determine whether a composite of common molecular genetic variants...

Heterozygosity-fitness correlations (HFCs) are a useful tool to investigate the effects of inbreeding in wild populations, but are not informative in distinguishing between direct and indirect effects of heterozygosity on fitness-related traits. We tested HFCs in male Alpine ibex (Capra ibex) in a free-ranging population (which suffered a severe bottleneck at the end of the eighteenth century) ...

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits in antisocial youth have been associated with deficits in the processing of emotionally distressing stimuli in a number of past studies. In the current study, we investigated moderators of this association in a sample of 88 ethnically diverse detained boys (mean age = 15.57, SD = 1.28). Overall, emotional processing of distressing stimuli using a dot-probe task w...

grapevine is one of the very important fruit crops in iran the fruit of which is used as table grape and/or raisins. in this study, some genetic parameters (phenotypic and genetic correlation, heritability and repeatability), of some important traits in table grape (date of ripening, weight, length and width of berry as well as attachment to cluster strength) were evaluated. results showed high...

Male genitalia are thought to be particularly rapidly evolving morphological structures, but there have been few quantitative interspecific comparisons between the evolutionary rates of genital and nongenital traits. We characterize the morphology of hemipenes in 25 Caribbean Anolis lizard species, and compare rates of hemipenial evolution to those of traits related to ecology or visual signali...

BACKGROUND Problems in understanding other people's mental states may relate to distinct personality traits that are associated with early externalizing behavior. A distinction between theory of mind (ToM) and empathy has proven important in shedding light on the problems in understanding other minds encountered by children high on callous-unemotional (CU) traits and exhibiting impulsivity. The...

Many genetic association studies on personality traits exist, and several meta-analyses have already been performed: On a serotonin transporter gene polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) and anxiety-related traits. But also other polymorphisms and traits have been examined in meta-analyses. 11, 12 These meta-analyses typically focus on a single personality trait and a single polymorphism. The wiki system pre...