Conclusively, the in depth analysis of the phenotypic diversity revealed the allelic and genotypic richness of the studied tomato landrace populations that can be exploited in tomato breeding programs.
Our study showed that although they are an artificial patches, traditional orchards help maintain biodiversity in rural agricultural landscapes, and that an increase in the area covered by similar patches in the surroundings also increases the species richness of the studied taxa.
Epigenetics is another burgeoning branch of biology that adds richness to the study of phenotype, especially as it suggests ways in which environmental circumstances might lead to genomic imprinting and hence inheritance of traits influenced by long-ago conditions experienced by ancestors (Jirtle and Skinner 2007).
Even though substantially different depth ranges are involved, results on relative taxonomic richness of the present study (Table 7) are consistent with those of Boschi [23] for coastal waters to 200 300 m depth in the Americas.
The analysis reveals that, in contrast to the richness of case study approaches, the majority of published case studies draw on positivistic foundations and are narrowly declared as explorative with a lack of clarity of the theoretical purpose of the case study.
Despite the relative richness of the data, our study has some limitations.
Given the richness of the publications we studied, it will not be possible to take account of all the arguments in great detail.
Piekkari et al. (2009) outline the methodological richness of case study research using the approaches of Yin et al. (1998), and Stake.
As a result, the authors identify a strong emphasis on the exploratory function of case studies, neglecting the richness of case study methods to challenge, refine, verify, and test theories (Welch et al. 2011: 755).
