Ranunculus glacialis ssp. glacialis is an arctic-alpine plant growing in central and southern European and Scandinavian mountain ranges and the European Arctic. In order to elucidate the taxon's migration history, we applied amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) to populations from the Pyrenees, Tatra mountains and Northern Europe and included data from a previous study on Alpine access...

PREMISE OF THE STUDY Microsatellite or simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were developed to investigate the influence of ecological factors on gene flow and spatial genetic structuring of the submerged plant Ranunculus bungei (Ranunculaceae), which is regarded as an important species for understanding how plants adapt to an aquatic environment. METHODS AND RESULTS Twenty-two microsatellite ...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Genetic connectivity between plant populations allows for exchange and dispersal of adaptive genes, which can facilitate plant population persistence particularly in rapidly changing environments. METHODS Patterns of historic gene flow, flowering phenology and contemporary pollen flow were investigated in two common herbs, Ranunculus bulbosus and Trifolium montanum, along ...

In clonal plants, evolution of plastic foraging by increased lengths of leaves and internodes under unfavourable conditions may be constrained by costs and limits of plasticity. We studied costs and limits of plasticity in foraging characteristics in 102 genotypes of the stoloniferous herb Ranunculus reptans. We grew three replicates of each genotype with and three without competition by the na...

1. Flood-sensitive plant species are restricted to highly elevated sites in floodplains, but why flood-tolerant plants do not grow at higher elevations is much less clear. We test the hypothesis that a trade-off exists between flood-tolerance and selective root placement in nutrient-rich patches, a putatively important trait in the more competitive highly elevated sites. 2. Achillea ptarmica , ...