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Fluctuating Asymmetry of Woody Plants

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Impacts of Point Polluters on Terrestrial Biota

Part of the book series: Environmental Pollution ((EPOL,volume 15))

Abstract

Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) represents small, random deviations from symmetry of a bilaterally symmetrical trait (Ludwig 1932). This variation is non-directional, with a normal distribution of signed right minus left differences whose mean is zero. Some researchers, however, suggest that the distribution of these values is generally leptokurtic, i.e., with a more acute peak around the mean and fatter tails than in a normally distributed variable (Gangestad & Thornhill 1999). Two other kinds of asymmetry are directional asymmetry (DA), when one side of the body is consistently larger than the other, i.e., the mean value of signed right minus left differences differs from zero; and antisymmetry, when the mean value does not differ from zero but the distribution of signed right minus left differences is platykurtic, i.e., broad-peaked or even bimodal (Palmer & Strobeck 1986). It is generally accepted that only FA can serve as a measure of developmental instability, reflecting the inability of an individual to control development under genetic and environmental stress (Møller & Swaddle 1997; Leamy 1999; Palmer & Strobeck 1986, 2003).

The concept of developmental stability unites many research fields, including developmental biology, genetics, ecology and evolution (Polak 2003). However, within the present study we explore only one of the regularities that, at least until recent years, was believed to be general: developmental stability is disturbed by environmental stress, and the consequent increase in developmental instability can be detected by measuring FA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section of Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Mikhail V. Kozlov, Elena L. Zvereva & Vitali E. Zverev

Authors
  1. Mikhail V. Kozlov
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  2. Elena L. Zvereva
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  3. Vitali E. Zverev
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Correspondence to Mikhail V. Kozlov .

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Kozlov, M.V., Zvereva, E.L., Zverev, V.E. (2009). Fluctuating Asymmetry of Woody Plants. In: Impacts of Point Polluters on Terrestrial Biota. Environmental Pollution, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2467-1_5

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