Artificial selection for flower size in Brassica rapa reveals moderate heritability and many correlated traits

With the ultimate goal of better understanding the impact of flower size on pollinator attraction, mating patterns, and plant fitness, four generations of artificial selection were performed on flower diameter in Brassica rapa . Selection produced a 90% difference in mean flower size between lines, expanded trait range by 6%, and revealed moderate heritability ( h ² = 0.25). It also resulted in correlated responses in flowering time, floral morphology, seed set, and biomass. These divergent lines offer a valuable experimental resource for testing hypotheses about pollinator-mediated selection, ecological trade-offs, and trait integration in plants.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  microPublication Biology

• Publication date

  2025-10-02

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.17912/micropub.biology.001691PMID 41122416PMCID 12536312
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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