I’ve spent the last few days struggling with a problem with Plantae’s rails code. I was certain that code like this should work:
class ContentController 'show', :id = @plant.id else ... end end def show @plant = Plant.find(params[:id]) end ... end These statements should create a new plant and then redirect to the show method which sends the newly created plant to the view.
The problem was that rails insisted on asking sqlite3 for the plant with id=0, which cannot exist.
How about a constitutional right to a healthy environment?
The Constitution of Canada guarantees its people important rights, such as freedom of religion, freedom of expression, fair trials, free elections, and language rights. But the effective exercise of these rights is impossible without safe water to drink, wholesome food to eat, and clean air to breathe. The right to a clean and healthy environment – arguably the most fundamental right of all – is conspicuously absent from our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, despite being a feature of the constitutions of many other nations.
Plantae now supports the addition and updating of species names and families. A rather important first step. Now onto adding character data to make the site actually useful.
I’ve made a variety of important changes to plantae’s foundations. For the curious they are:
Converted the webserver from apache to LightTPD. LightTPD is fast and easy to configure. Plus it has built-in support for FastCGI which makes plantae run much faster. Set up a Subversion repository. This manages the code for plantae and allows me to track and reverse changes. This will also be very useful if someone else helps with the coding.
Hermaphroditism is prevalent in plants but may allow interference between male function (pollen removal and dispersal) and female function (pollen receipt and seed production) within a flower. Temporal or spatial segregation of gender within a hermaphroditic flower may evolve to reduce this interference and enhance male and female reproductive success. We tested this hypothesis using Chamerion angustifolium (Onagraceae), in which pollen removal (male) and pollen deposition (female) were measured directly on hermaphroditic and experimentally produced unisexual flowers.
This book of about 600 pages is written to provide practitioners of pollination biology with a broadly based source of methodologies as well as the basic conceptual background to aid in understanding. Thus, the book reflects the expertise of the assembled a team of internationally acclaimed scientists. Pollination biology enjoys over 200 years of scientific tradition. In recent years, the interdisciplinarity of pollination biology has become a model for integrating physics, chemistry, and biology into natural history, evolutionary and applied ecology.
Protandry, a form of temporal separation of gender within hermaphroditic flowers, may reduce the magnitude of pollen lost to selfing (pollen discounting) and also serve to enhance pollen export and outcross siring success. Because pollen discounting is strongest when selfing occurs between flowers on the same plant, the advantage of protandry may be greatest in plants with large floral displays. We tested this hypothesis with enclosed, artificial populations of Chamerion angustifolium (Onagraceae) by experimentally manipulating protandry (producing uniformly adichogamous or mixed protandrous and adichogamous populations) and inflorescence size (two-, six-, or 10-flowered inflorescences) and measuring pollinator visitation, seed set, female outcrossing rate, and outcross siring success.
In self-compatible plants, small populations may experience reduced outcrossing owing to decreased pollinator visitation and mate availability. We examined the relation between outcrossing and population size in eastern Ontario populations of Aquilegia canadensis. Experimental pollinations showed that the species is highly self-compatible, and can achieve full seed-set in the absence of pollinators via automatic self-pollination. We estimated levels of outcrossing (t) and parental inbreeding coefficients (F) from allozyme variation in naturally pollinated seed families for 10 populations ranging in size from 32 to 750 reproductive individuals.
Historically, dichogamy (the temporal separation of gender in flowering plants) has been interpreted as a mechanism for avoiding inbreeding. However, a comparative survey found that many dichogamous species are self-incompatible (SI), suggesting dichogamy evolved for other reasons, particularly reducing interference between male and female function. Here we re-examined the association between dichogamy and SI in a phylogenetic framework, and tested the hypothesis that dichogamy evolved to reduce interference between male and female function.
Clonal growth in plants can increase pollen and ovule production per genet. However, paternal and maternal reproductive success may not increase because within-clone pollination (geitonogamy) can reduce pollen export to adjacent clones (pollen discounting) and pollen import to the central ramets (pollen limitation). We investigated the relationship between clone size and mating success using clones of Malus x domestica at four orchards (blocks of 1–5 rows of trees). For each block, we measured maternal function as fruit and seed set in all rows and paternal function as siring rate in the first row of the adjacent block.
Protandry (when male function precedes female) can enhance fitness by reducing selfing and increasing pollen export and outcrossed siring success. However, responses to selection on protandry may be constrained by genetic variation and correlations among floral traits. We examined these potential constraints in protandrous Chamerion angustifolium (Onagraceae) by estimating genetic variation in male-phase duration and associated floral traits using a paternal half-sib design and selection experiment. Narrow-sense heritability of male-phase duration was estimated as 0.
Mating by outcrossing plants depends on the frequency and quality of interaction between pollen vectors and individual flowers. However, the historical focus of pollination biology on individual flowers (floricentrism) cannot produce a complete understanding of the role of pollination in plant mating, because mating is an aggregate process, which depends on the reproductive outcomes of all of a plant’s flowers. Simultaneous display of multiple flowers in an inflorescence increases a plant’s attractiveness to pollinators, which should generally enhance mating opportunities.
Pollen and ovules experience diverse fates during pollination, pollen-tube growth, fertilization, and seed development, which govern the male and female potential of flowering plants. This chapter identifies these fates and many of their interactions, and considers their theoretical implications for the evolution of pollen export and the production of selfed and outcrossed seeds. This analysis clarifies the importance of pollen quantity and quality for seed production, including the opportunity for poor pollen quality to cause misidentification of pollen limitation.