Inventory of prey taxa consumed by the Grey Wagtail during an annual cycle and their seasonal distributions in the region of the Babors Mountains. Fo% = Occurrence frequency, Fc% = centesimal frequencies, A = aquatic prey, T = terrestrial prey, und. = undetermined Spring Summer Autumn Winter Global diet Prey taxa Life habitat of prey taxa

Background Temperate maize inbred lines with expired Plant Variety Protection Act certificates (Ex-PVP) are potential sources of desirable alleles for tropical germplasm improvement. Up to now, the usefulness of the Ex-PVP inbred lines as a potential source of novel beneficial alleles for Striga hermonthica resistance breeding to enhance genetic gain in tropical maize has not been reported. Results This study was thus conducted to characterize the combining ability of 24 Ex-PVP inbred lines in crosses with two tropical Striga resistant inbred testers under Striga-infested and non-infested conditions and across three locations for 2 years. Many testcrosses between Ex-PVP inbred lines and the first tester (T1) produced competitive or significantly higher grain yields compared to the hybrid between the two resistant testers under Striga infested and non-infested conditions and across multiple test locations. Also, most of the testcrosses with positive heterosis for grain yield and negative heterosis for Striga damage and emerged Striga count involved T1 as a tester. Our study identified six Ex-PVP inbred lines with positive GCA effects for grain yield under Striga infested and non-infested conditions and across multiple test locations. Amongst these, inbred lines HB8229-1 and WIL900-1 also displayed negative GCA effects for emerged Striga count and Striga damage rating. The inbred line HB8229-1 showed positive SCA effects for grain yield with T2, whereas WIL900-1 had positive SCA effects for grain yield with T1. Over 70% of the Ex-PVP inbred lines were consistently assigned to specific heterotic groups using yield-based classifying methods (mean grain yield and SCA effects). Conclusions These results could facilitate systematic introgression of the Ex-PVP inbred lines into the existing Striga resistant heterotic groups in IITA. The Ex-PVP inbred lines with positive GCA effects and producing high grain yields in hybrid combinations could be useful parents for enhancing Striga resistance and agronomic performance of tropical maize hybrids.

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Grass pea ( Lathyrus sativus L.) is a legume crop known to be an excellent source of protein, tolerant to drought, waterlogging, and salinity. The crop is used as an alternative source of protein to reduce malnutrition for resource-poor people and farmers leaving in marginal areas. However, due to the presence of a neurotoxin that causes lathyrism in the crop, it has been neglected and underutilized. As a necessary rst step towards, therefore, this investigation was undertaken to assess the genetic diversity and population structure that existed within grass pea accessions collected from the North-Western part of Ethiopia using simple sequence repeat markers. Twenty-ve grass pea accessions collected from the Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute were

Grass pea ( Lathyrus sativus L.) is a legume crop known to be an excellent source of protein, tolerant to drought, waterlogging, and salinity. The crop is used as an alternative source of protein to reduce malnutrition for resource-poor people and farmers leaving in marginal areas. However, due to the presence of a neurotoxin that causes lathyrism in the crop, it has been neglected and underutilized. As a necessary first step towards, therefore, this investigation was undertaken to assess the genetic diversity and population structure that existed within grass pea accessions collected from the North-Western part of Ethiopia using simple sequence repeat markers. Twenty-five grass pea accessions collected from the Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute were planted at the College of Agricultural Science, Ebonyi State University, Nigeria. The genomic DNA was extracted using Quick-DNA™ ZR Plant/Seed Miniprep Kit and amplified by ABI Veriti PCR with 10 pairs of SSR markers in IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria. Out of 10 SSR primers, only eight primers were polymorphic. A total of 41 alleles were detected with an average of 5.13. The Polymorphic information content and gene diversity values ranged from 0.074 to 0.944 with a mean of 0.474 and 0.536 respectively. The largest pairwise genetic distance (0.365) was detected between North Gondar and East Gojam populations. The ФPT (analogs of FST test) estimated through AMOVA were 0.24, 0.20, and 0.05 for within accessions, among regions, and population within regions respectively. The highest genetic differentiation value (76%) resides within accessions followed by 20% among regions. Both population structure and cluster analysis grouped the 25 grass pea accessions into two distinctive subgroups. This grouping pattern indicates the presence of gene flow among geographic regions. In general, the findings of this study indicate that despite few numbers of SSR markers it was possible to detect genetic diversity among grass pea accessions indicating the power of the SSR marker in picking up the existing genetic diversity within the studied accessions.