The aim of the study was to determine the effects of various petroleum-derived substances, namely petrol, diesel fuel and spent engine oil, on life history traits and population dynamics of the black bean aphid Aphis fabae Scop. and on growth and chemical composition of its host plant Vicia faba L. Each substance was tested separately, using two concentrations (9 g kg-1 and 18 g kg-1). The expe...

Ecologists seek general explanations for the dramatic variation in species abundances in space and time. An increasingly popular solution is to predict species distributions, dynamics, and responses to environmental change based on easily measured anatomical and morphological traits. Trait-based approaches assume that simple functional traits influence fitness and life history evolution, but ri...

Germination responses to seasonal conditions determine the environment experienced by postgermination life stages, and this ability has potential consequences for the evolution of plant life histories. Using recombinant inbred lines of Arabidopsis thaliana, we tested whether life-history characters exhibited plasticity to germination timing, whether germination timing influenced the strength an...

for different agronomic traits in sunflower (helianthus annuus l.) inbred lines were estimated using “line × tester” analysis method. six new restorer lines were crossed with four cms lines as tester in 2006 growing season. the 24 f1 single cross combinations were planted in complete randomized block design with four replications in khoy field research station in 2007 growing season. there were...

Seed morph, abiotic conditions and time of germination can affect plant fitness, but few studies have tested their combined effects on plasticity of plant life history traits. Thus, we tested the hypothesis that seed morph, germination season and watering regime influence phenotypic expression of post-germination life history traits in the diaspore-heteromorphic cold desert winter annual/spring...