Effect of clones, year of harvest and geographical origin of fruits on quality and chemical composition of Argan oil.

Argan oil is precious oil with food and cosmetic uses. In recent years, this oil has been subject to an increasing national and international demand. The present work aims at studying the effect of clones and age, year of harvest and geographical origin on Argan oil quality and chemical composition.

Do island plant populations really have lower genetic variation than mainland populations? Effects of selection and distribution range on genetic diversity estimates.

Ecological and evolutionary studies largely assume that island populations display low levels of neutral genetic variation. However, this notion has only been formally tested in a few cases involving plant taxa, and the confounding effect of selection on genetic diversity (GD) estimates based on putatively neutral markers has typically been overlooked. Here, we generated nuclear microsatellite and plastid DNA sequence data in Periploca laevigata, a plant taxon with an island-mainland distribution area, to (i) investigate whether selection affects GD estimates of populations across contrasting habitats; and (ii) test the long-standing idea that island populations have lower GD than their mainland counterparts.