As a dynamic ex situ conservation strategy,a clonal seed orchard was started in a nursery in Pomaio(POM)in central Italy in 1993 for an assisted migration experiment of Abies nebrodensis(Lojac.)Mattei.Two artifi cial ...As a dynamic ex situ conservation strategy,a clonal seed orchard was started in a nursery in Pomaio(POM)in central Italy in 1993 for an assisted migration experiment of Abies nebrodensis(Lojac.)Mattei.Two artifi cial ex situ populations were planted with this gene pool:a seedling arboretum in Pieve Santo Stefano(PSS)and a small dendrological collection in Papiano(PAP),both originating from the Sicilian relict population.Here,using AFLP markers,we estimated the relatedness among the relocated genotypes of the three collections to check whether the three collections had suffi cient genetic variability to be considered as additional sources of variability to the original gene pool for the assisted migration strategy.High individual genetic variability was found in the collections;each plant had a diff erent genotype and was confi rmed to belong to its population of origin.PAP and PSS trees were shown to be only from the original population of A.nebrodensis species and were derived from a limited set of maternal fertile genotypes.Based on the Sicilian fi r population inventory,nursery production in Sicily,and structure clustering analysis,close genetic relationships among POM,PAP and several PSS trees(1–35)were evident.Similarly,the PSS group(36–78)was genetically close to tree 1 of POM and in a lesser proportion to plants 7 and 9 of POM.The sampling of seedlings used to form batches in the nursery might have infl uenced the structure of the resultant plantations.All genotypes will be useful for enriching the original gene pool.展开更多
Islands are often regarded by scientists as living laboratories of evolution and an optimal context for the study of forces influencing evolution and diversification.Two main issues have been attentively scrutinized a...Islands are often regarded by scientists as living laboratories of evolution and an optimal context for the study of forces influencing evolution and diversification.Two main issues have been attentively scrutinized and debated:the loss of biodiversity and the peculiar changes undergone by island settlers,primarily changes in size of endemic vertebrates.Over time,several hypotheses have been formulated to explain the causal mechanism of body size modification.Faunas of those islands where mainland taxa migrate more than once provide the most interesting data to answer the question of whether or not trends of insular taxa result from a predictable response to differences in competition and availability of niches between insular and mainland environments.To contribute to the debate,the body size structure of the Pleistocene mammalian faunas from two Mediterranean islands,Sicily and Crete,were analyzed and compared with the structure of coeval mainland faunas.The results obtained suggest that:(i)size of endemic species does not directly depend on the area of islands;(ii)evolution and size of endemic species seems somewhat affected by the degree of isolation(constraining coloniza-tion from mainland)and physiography(sometimes permitting adaptive radiation);(iii)in unbalanced insular communities,the shift in size of non-carnivorous species largely depends on the nature of competing species;and(iv)body size of carnivorous species mainly depends on the size of the most available prey.Consequently,it is rational to suppose that the body size of insular mammals mainly results from the peculiar biological dynamics that characterizes unbalanced insular communities.Ecological interaction,particularly the intraguild competition,is the major driver behind the evolution of insular communities,leading towards an optimization of energy balance through a change in body size of endemic settlers.展开更多
基金funded by the Italian Ministry for Agriculture,Food and Forestry Policies in the framework of the“FAO-RGV(FAO-Vegetal Genetic Resources)Project”.
文摘As a dynamic ex situ conservation strategy,a clonal seed orchard was started in a nursery in Pomaio(POM)in central Italy in 1993 for an assisted migration experiment of Abies nebrodensis(Lojac.)Mattei.Two artifi cial ex situ populations were planted with this gene pool:a seedling arboretum in Pieve Santo Stefano(PSS)and a small dendrological collection in Papiano(PAP),both originating from the Sicilian relict population.Here,using AFLP markers,we estimated the relatedness among the relocated genotypes of the three collections to check whether the three collections had suffi cient genetic variability to be considered as additional sources of variability to the original gene pool for the assisted migration strategy.High individual genetic variability was found in the collections;each plant had a diff erent genotype and was confi rmed to belong to its population of origin.PAP and PSS trees were shown to be only from the original population of A.nebrodensis species and were derived from a limited set of maternal fertile genotypes.Based on the Sicilian fi r population inventory,nursery production in Sicily,and structure clustering analysis,close genetic relationships among POM,PAP and several PSS trees(1–35)were evident.Similarly,the PSS group(36–78)was genetically close to tree 1 of POM and in a lesser proportion to plants 7 and 9 of POM.The sampling of seedlings used to form batches in the nursery might have infl uenced the structure of the resultant plantations.All genotypes will be useful for enriching the original gene pool.
文摘Islands are often regarded by scientists as living laboratories of evolution and an optimal context for the study of forces influencing evolution and diversification.Two main issues have been attentively scrutinized and debated:the loss of biodiversity and the peculiar changes undergone by island settlers,primarily changes in size of endemic vertebrates.Over time,several hypotheses have been formulated to explain the causal mechanism of body size modification.Faunas of those islands where mainland taxa migrate more than once provide the most interesting data to answer the question of whether or not trends of insular taxa result from a predictable response to differences in competition and availability of niches between insular and mainland environments.To contribute to the debate,the body size structure of the Pleistocene mammalian faunas from two Mediterranean islands,Sicily and Crete,were analyzed and compared with the structure of coeval mainland faunas.The results obtained suggest that:(i)size of endemic species does not directly depend on the area of islands;(ii)evolution and size of endemic species seems somewhat affected by the degree of isolation(constraining coloniza-tion from mainland)and physiography(sometimes permitting adaptive radiation);(iii)in unbalanced insular communities,the shift in size of non-carnivorous species largely depends on the nature of competing species;and(iv)body size of carnivorous species mainly depends on the size of the most available prey.Consequently,it is rational to suppose that the body size of insular mammals mainly results from the peculiar biological dynamics that characterizes unbalanced insular communities.Ecological interaction,particularly the intraguild competition,is the major driver behind the evolution of insular communities,leading towards an optimization of energy balance through a change in body size of endemic settlers.
