HYPOTHESIS

printed by www.postersession.co •Hyperassortative (HA) plants were pollinated with individuals flowering on the same day. Naturally assortative (NA) plants were pollinated within groups. •At maturity, fruit was harvested and plant size (stem diameter and # of leaf scars) was recorded. • Heritability in direction of early flowering is comparable to that in direction of late flowering (Fig 3a). This is surprising given the wide variation in offspring FT of late flowering mothers (Fig 2a). • Re-examining Fig 2a, increasing offspring variance does not necessarily indicate a reduced capacity to respond to selection. Heritability is constant and the mean FT is still higher. • Both mean and variance of flowering time are greater in the late selection lines than in the early selection lines (Fig 3b), consistent with the pattern observed in Fig 2b. • The slight asymmetry in HA lines in Fig 3a may be due to underlying genetic asymmetry, if hyperassortative mating exposes rare recessive alleles for late flowering. •A strong positive relationship exists between flowering day and plant size. This suggests that plant life-history traits may be constrained by genetic and environmental correlations resulting in an overall positive phenotypic correlation.4 Because parent-offspring resemblance is stronger in early flowering plants, we expect that a population will respond more rapidly to selection for early flowering than for late