Along the same lines, the negative correlation in the expression of red head traits and black bib detected in non-manipulated birds suggests that producing both types of ornaments at the same level could be particularly costly, e.g., [52], [54], [55].
An appropriate pattern of modularity and integration of traits (e.g. high pleiotropy among head morphology traits, and low pleiotropy between head traits and arm traits) would result in a distribution of new mutants that are better matched to (and better able to exploit) the adaptive landscape.
Within this framework, the gigantism observed for head traits in artichoke and leaf traits on leafy cardoon might be due to the action of a limited number of QTLs, respectively, but in artichoke fixed heterosis cannot be underestimated (Table 1 and Fig. 2), as data from molecular markers confirm (Sonnante et al., 2006 a ).
The heading trait has the most detected effects, with a total of 98 (75 main, 29 Q×E).
The number of main effects detected varied from 26 for the maturity trait to 75 for the heading trait, with an average of 61.86.
"What we bring to growers are new crop technologies to help them improve yield stability and the potential for greater return on investment," says Ian Jepson, Syngenta's global head of trait research & development.
In addition, our study also found that sperm competition levels are also associated to the degree of elongation of the sperm head, a trait which has received little attention despite the major role it could play in sperm hydrodynamics.
The evolved head skeletal traits offer a powerful system to test this prediction, as dozens of independently derived freshwater stickleback populations have evolved similar modifications in head skeletal morphology.
Here, we characterize variation in and test for an association between SARPs and head shape, a trait under strong sexual selection, in the stalk-eyed fly, Teleopsis dalmanni.
