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Despite their claimed low intraspecific variability, plant reproductive traits are less frequently used in functional ecology. Here we focused on underrepresented plant organs, i.e. flowers and fruits, by comparing their traits with well‐established leaf traits. We evaluated 16 functional traits (six floral, six fruit, and four leaf traits) in a randomly selected group of woody species under comparable environmental conditions. We aimed to assess interspecific and intraspecimen variability and explore the potential of the proposed flower and fruit traits for ecological research. Traits related to the dry mass of flowers and fruits exhibited the highest interspecific variability, while carbon content traits in flowers and leaves had the lowest. At a specimen level, specific leaf area revealed the highest variation. Carbon content traits for all organs demonstrated the least intraspecimen variability, with flower carbon content being the least variable. Our study revealed connections between the newly proposed traits and widely recognized functional traits, uncovering intriguing links between the established traits and the floral and fruit traits upon which we focused. This complements the already well‐recognized variability in plant form and function with additional insights into reproductive processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study was carried out on six local cornelian cherry (Cornus mas L.) genotypes, grown in Turceni town (Gorj county) and Baita village (Hunedoara county), in Romania. Several morphological and biochemical characteristics of cultivars were determined. Fruit weight and fruit flesh ratio of the analyzed genotypes ranged from 1.33 to 2.31 g and 61.53 to 78.58% respectively. Soluble solid contents were determined, the lowest noted as 10% and the highest as 25.5%. Results have shown that there was a high diversity in cornelian cherry populations within different ecological areas. Differences were exhibited in terms of fruit size and biochemical characteristics. The results of the study are useful for attempting to select superior genotypes of cornelian cherry for culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of virus-host interactions on subsequent generations is poorly understood. The evaluation of the effects of viral infection on inheritance of quantitative traits in the progeny of infected plants and elucidation of a possible relationship between chiasma frequency in the infected plants and variability of traits in the progeny were investigated. The current study involved genotypes of four intraspecific hybrids of tomato ( Solanum lycopersicum L.), their parental forms and two additional cultivars. Used as infection were the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) and potato virus X (PVX). The consequences of the effect of viral infection were evaluated based on chromosome pairing in diakinesis and/or by examining quantitative and qualitative traits in the progeny of the infected tomato plants. Tomato plants infected with TMV + PVX were found to differ in chiasma frequency per pollen mother cell or per bivalent. Deviations have been observed for genotypes of both F1 hybrids and cultivars. At the same time, differences in mean values of the traits under study have only been found for progeny populations (F2-F4) derived from virus-infected F1 hybrids, but not in the case of progeny of the infected cultivars. The rate of recombinants combining traits of both parents increased significantly (2.22–8.24 times) in progeny populations of hybrids infected with TMV + PVX. The above suggests that the observed effects could be the result of modification of recombination frequencies that can be manifested in heterozygous hybrids and make small contributions to variability in cases of ‘homozygous’ tomato genotypes (i.e. cultivars). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]