The objective of this study was to evaluate the stenting (grafted cutting) propagation of commercial pomegranate cultivars as scions on drought tolerant genotypes as rootstocks. The effect of drought stress on nine pomegranate rootstocks was analyzed. Cultivars including ‘Daneshgah 13’, ‘Daneshgah 32’ and ‘Daneshgah 8’ that were used as rootstocks showed the maximum drought tolerance among the ...

Scientists have described many physical and behavioral traits in avian and mammalian species that evolved to attract mates. But the brain mechanisms by which conspecifics become attracted to these traits is unknown. This paper maintains that two aspects of mate choice evolved in tandem: 1) traits that evolved in the "display producer" to attract mates and, 2) corresponding neural mechanisms in ...

Numerous studies have focused on the influence of the social environment and the interactions between individuals on the collective decision-making of groups. They showed, for example, that attraction between individuals is at the origin of an amplification of individual preferences. These preferences may concern various environmental cues such as biomolecules that convey information about the ...

Songbirds that follow a conspecific attraction strategy in the habitat selection process prefer to settle in habitat patches already occupied by other individuals. This largely affects the patterns of their spatio-temporal distribution and leads to clustered breeding. Although making informed settlement decisions is expected to be beneficial for individuals, such territory clusters may potentia...

The mechanisms by which group-living animals collectively exploit resources, and the role of individuals in group decisions, are central issues for understanding animal distribution patterns. We investigated the extent to which boldness and shyness affect the distribution of social herbivores across vegetation patches, using sheep as a model species. Using an experimental and a theoretical appr...

How is social information transmitted in a group? How do groups create new identities and judgments about other groups through communicating their beliefs and opinions among the members of their own group? Several studies in social cognition have documented that communication about groups typically tends to bolster stereotypes and shared beliefs about these groups (Brauer, Judd & Jacquelin, 200...

In social species, the interactions that occur between individuals and also between individuals and their environment can lead to various spatial distributions. Our goal was to understand how both factors (social and environmental) can affect such spatial distribution of individuals. Aggregation experiments were conducted on the ant Crematogaster scutellaris: the level of inter-attraction betwe...