versity through genetic drift, founder effects, and genetic bottlenecks. Such events can reduce a population’s evolutionary potential and increase the risk of extinction. In this chapter, we use plant immigrants as a model system to examine the circumstances in which genetic bottlenecks do (and do not) occur and where in the hierarchical partitioning of genetic diversity such bottlenecks take p...

Changes in vegetation from 1990 to 2000 were examined at 10 high country localities, representing four grassland types: fescue tussock (Festuca novae-zelandiae), snow tussock (Chionochloa rigida), red tussock (C. rubra), and silver tussock (Poa cita). At each locality, three treatments were established: ambient sheep+rabbit grazing, rabbit grazing only, and no grazing. The mutivariate methods o...

Fatty acids are of great nutritional, therapeutic, and physiological importance, especially the polyunsaturated n-3 fatty acids, possessing larger carbon chains and abundant double bonds or their immediate precursors. A few higher plant species are able to accumulate these compounds, like those belonging to the Echium genus. Here, the novel E. acanthocarpum hairy root system, which is able to a...

Abstract Shikonin and its derivatives are the main components of traditional Chinese medicine, Zicao. The pharmacological potential shikonin have been extensively studied. Yet, less is known about microbial assemblages associated with producing Borage plants. We studied profiles two species, Echium plantagineum (EP) Lithospermum erythrorhizon (LE), to identify dynamics colonization pattern with...