Copulatory cannibalism of male ‘widow’ spiders (genus Latrodectus) is a model example of the extreme effects of sexual selection, particularly in L. hasselti and L. geometricus where males typically facilitate cannibalism by females and mate only once. We show that these males can increase their reproductive success by copulating with final-instar, immature females after piercing the female's exoskeleton to access her newly developed sperm storage organs. Females retain sperm through their final moult and have...

Drought-induced tree mortality has been observed globally and is expected to increase under climate change scenarios, with large potential consequences for the terrestrial carbon sink. Predicting mortality across species is crucial for assessing the effects of climate extremes on forest community biodiversity, composition, and carbon sequestration. However, the physiological traits associated with elevated risk of mortality in diverse ecosystems remain unknown, although these traits could greatly improve understanding and prediction of tree mortality in forests....

Phenotypic plasticity is the primary mechanism of organismal resilience to abiotic and biotic stress, and genetic differentiation in plasticity can evolve if stresses differ among populations. Inducible defense is a common form of adaptive phenotypic plasticity and long-standing theory predicts that its evolution is shaped by costs of the defensive traits, costs of plasticity, and a trade-off in allocation to constitutive versus induced traits. We used a common-garden to study the evolution of defense in...

Plant breeders and conservationists depend on knowledge about the genetic variation of their species of interest. Pisum fulvum, a wild relative of domesticated pea, has attracted attention as a genetic resource for crop improvement, yet little information about its diversity in the wild has been published hitherto. We sampled 15 populations of P. fulvum from Israeli natural habitats and conducted genotyping by sequencing to analyse their genetic diversity and adaptive state. We also attempted to...

Isolation by environment (IBE) is a wide spread phenomenon in nature. It is commonly expected that the degree of differences among environments is proportional to the level of divergence between populations in these environments. Consequentially, it is assumed that species’ genetic diversity displays pattern of IBE in the presence of a strong environmental cline if geneflow does not mitigate isolation. We tested this common assumption by analyzing the genetic diversity and demographic history of Pisum...

1. The importance of symbiotic dinitrogen (N2) fixation in shaping the coupled nitrogen-carbon cycle is now known for most humid terrestrial ecosystems. However, whether N2 fixation can play a key role in the nitrogen and carbon budget of water-limited and seasonally dry ecosystems remains a mystery. 2. The maintenance of metabolically and physiologically costly symbiotic fixation in water-limited environments is highly complex. These costs are particularly high during the first developmental season, when allocation to...

Inbreeding is generally avoided in animals due to the risk of inbreeding depression following an increase in homozygous deleterious alleles and loss of heterozygosity. Species that regularly inbreed challenge our understanding of the fitness effects of these risks. We investigated fitness consequences of extended inbreeding in the haplodiploid date-stone beetle, Coccotrypes dactyliperda. We hypothesized that continuous inbreeding could result in reduced fitness, while outbreeding would either increase fitness due to heterosis or lower fitness if...

Survival and growth of woody species in the Mediterranean are mainly restricted by water availability. We tested the hypothesis that Mediterranean species acclimate their xylem vulnerability and osmotic potential along a precipitation gradient. We studied five predominant co-occurring Mediterranean species; Quercus calliprinos, Pistacia palaestina, Pistacia lentiscus, Rhamnus lycioides, and Phillyrea latifolia, over two summers at three sites. The driest of the sites is the distribution edge for all the five species. We measured key hydraulic...

Raw 454 GS-FLX sequences from microsatellite libraries for Planococcus citriHigh throughput DNA sequencing by 454-GS-FLX Titanium (Roche Diagnostics) chemistry of microsatellite libraries of Planococcus citriPciPool_sequences_TOT.fas.zipMicrosatellite 454 GS-FLX sequences from microsatellite libraries for Planococcus citriHigh throughput DNA sequencing by 454-GS-FLX Titanium (Roche Diagnostics) chemistry of microsatellite libraries of Planococcus citriPciPool_sequences_microsat.fas.zip

Increasing crop productivity under climate change requires the identification, selection and utilization of novel alleles for breeding. We analyzed the genotype and field phenotype of the barley HEB-25 multi-parent mapping population under well-watered and water-limited (WW and WL) environments for two years. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) for genotype by-environment interactions was performed for ten traits including flowering time (HEA) and plant grain yield (PGY). Comparison of the GWAS for traits per-se to that for...

Theory and empirical work suggest that behaviours such as dispersal and exploration are predictors of invasive success, and that behaviours may shift predictably after invasive populations have established and spread. However, there are limited data on temporal patterns in the distribution of behavioural traits linked to the timeline of establishment of invasive species. We examine dispersal and exploration, along with life history traits that may be linked to behaviour, across multiple invasive populations of the...

Domestication is considered a model of adaptation that can be used to draw conclusions about the modus operandi of selection in natural systems. Investigating domestication may give insights into how plants react to different intensities of human manipulation, which has direct implication for the continuing efforts of crop improvement. Therefore, scientists of various disciplines study domestication-related questions to understand the biological and cultural bases of the domestication process. We employed restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (RAD-seq)...

The pericarp is the predominant tissue determining the structural characteristics of most fruits. However, the molecular and genetic mechanisms controlling pericarp development remain only partially understood. Previous studies have identified that CLASS-II KNOX genes regulate fruit size, shape, and maturation in Arabidopsis thaliana and Solanum lycopersicum. Here we characterized the roles of the Solanum lycopersicum CLASS-II KNOX (TKN-II) genes in pericarp development via a detailed histological, anatomical, and karyotype analysis of the TKN-II knockdown (35S:amiR-TKN-II)...