Does Administrative Status Matter for Urban Growth? Evidence from Present and Former County Capitals in East Germany

Public sector activities are often neglected in the economic approaches used to analyze the driving forces behind urban growth. The institutional status of a regional capital is a crucial aspect of public sector activities. This paper reports on a quasi‐natural experiment on county towns in East Germany. Since 1990, East German cities have demonstrated remarkable differences in population development. During this same period, many towns have lost their status as a county seat due to several administrative reforms. Using a difference‐in‐differences approach, we compare the annual population development of former county capitals to population change in towns that have successfully held on to their capital status throughout the observed period. The estimations show that losing county capital status has a statistically significant negative effect on annual changes in population. This effect continues to increase over time after the respective reforms have been implemented.     

Erforschung der Bruchkatastrophen in den Ostschlesischen Beskiden in der Zeit von 1875–1942

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Cultivar identification and genetic map of mango (Mangifera indica)

Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) information was used for identification of mango (Mangifera indica L.) cultivars, for studying the genetic relationship among 16 mango cultivars and seven mango rootstocks and for the construction of a genetic linkage map. Six AFLP primer combinations produced 204 clear bands and on the average 34 bands for each combination. The average Band-Sharing between cultivars and rootstocks was 83% and 80%, respectively. The average Band-Sharing for mango is 81%. The probability of obtaining a similar pattern for two different mango cultivars and rootstocks is 6 × 10⁻³and 2 × 10⁻³, respectively. A preliminary genetic linkage map of the mango genome was constructed, based on the progeny of a cross between ‘Keitt’ and ‘Tommy-Atkins’. This linkage map consists of 13 linkage groups and covers 161.5 cm defined by 34 AFLP markers. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Inheritance of agriculturally important traits in mango

Summary High heterozygosity on the one hand, and the inability to carry out successful hand pollinations on the other hand, have limited the amount of systematic work which has been done in mango breeding. In studying the inheritance of important horticultural traits we must first analyse the distribution of different traits in seedlings derived from open pollination. We studied correlations between these traits and assessed the contribution of the three female parents to that distribution.Although in general the trait distribution pattern is similar among the three progenies, some differences were noted. We also detected some correlations among various traits which might be useful for future breeding. It was concluded from both a chi-square test and an intraclass correlation coefficient that there is a specific female parent effect on both harvest season and fruit color; a smaller effect was found on fruit taste and size, and no effect of the female parent tree was detected on the distribution of both the juvenile period and fertility.     

Phenotypic and genotypic analysis of a commercial cultivar and wild populations of Anemone coronaria

Seven wild populations of Anemonecoronaria were assessed for 11 phenotypic traits, most of them having economic value for the flower industry. The wild populations were sampled to represent the diversity in habitats, climates, rock and soil types, terrains, and elevations in Israel. AFLP analysis was carried out on 12 individuals from each of six out of the seven wild populations and for six individuals from the commercial cultivar ‘Mona-Lisa’. It was found that the Dorot population, which is located in the area bordering the semi-arid zone at the very end of the species distribution, exhibits extreme and different phenotypes with relatively low variability compared withthe other wild populations. The other six wild populations, that grow in more favorable geographic and climatic conditions exhibit phenotypes with larger plants, larger numbers of flowers and less dissected leaves. These populations were less uniform than that of Dorot. Genetic characterization by AFLP markers revealed a total of 165 bands. The wild populations exhibit wide variation within-population, with about 80% polymorphic bands and average gene diversity between pairs of about 30%. The Dorot population has the lowest genetic variation and the Megido population the highest. Thus, the phenotypic variation reflects the genetic variation. The cultivar ‘Mona-Lisa’, as expected, has much lower genetic variation. The Dorot population and the ‘Mona-Lisa’ cultivar were found to have the largest genetic distances from the other wild populations, and the highest genetic variation between themselves. Phenetic analysis yielded a dendrogram describing the genetic relatedness of these populations. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Discovery of c-SNPs in Anemone coronaria L. and Assessment of Genetic Variation

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were discovered in 44 cDNA clones from leaves by comparison of the commercial cultivar ‘Mona Lisa‘ with a wild population of Anemone coronaria L. One hundred and fifty five SNPs were discovered with an average frequency of one SNP per 167 bp. Forty nine percent of the SNPs are transitions, 43 are transversions, 26 are heterozygotes and 9% are InDels. Eighty two (68%) of the SNPs located in the ORF, resulted in a change of amino acid while 39 (32%) did not affect the amino acid. Thirty eight SNPs (46%), which change the amino acid, resulted in similar amino acid, while 44 SNPs (54%) resulted in a non-similar amino acid. Nine polymorphic sites were genotyped by matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) using genomic DNA. Phylogenetic analysis of 50 individuals from six wild populations and the commercial cultivar revealed high polymorphism within and low polymorphism between A. coronaria L. wild populations. The phylogenetic tree revealed only one clear cluster of the ‘Mona Lisa’ cultivar. All the other individuals from the various wild populations are distributed on different nodes indicating that the genetic variation within the wild populations is high while the commercial cultivar is quite homogenous and genetically different from all other populations.