#Loblolly pine genome is sequenced largest ever: Seven times bigger than the human genomethe massive genome of the loblolly pine--around seven times bigger than the human genome--is the largest genome sequenced to date and the most complete conifer genome sequence ever published.
This achievement marks the first big test of a new analysis method that can speed up genome assembly by compressing the raw sequence data 100-fold.
Loblolly pine is the most commercially important tree species in the United states and the source of most American paper products.
The tree is also being developed as a feedstock for biofuel. The genome sequence will help scientists breed improved varieties
But the enormous size of the pine's genome had been an obstacle to sequencing efforts until recently.
The problem is assembling that sequence into order said David Neale a professor of plant sciences at the University of California Davis who led the loblolly pine genome project
This approach allowed the team to assemble a much more complete genome sequence than the draft assemblies of two other conifer species reported last year.
This will enable the loblolly to serve as a high-quality reference genome that considerably speeds along future conifer genome projects.
which will help scientists understand more about disease resistance in pines. The megagenomes of conifers are a challenge to sequence.
Thanks to the important innovations described in these articles the draft genome of the loblolly pine is not only the largest ever assembled its quality is impressive.
It paves the way for assembly of even larger genomes said Mark Johnston Editor-In-chief of the journal GENETICS.
Loblolly pine plays an important role in American forestry. Now that we've unlocked its genetic secrets loblolly pine will take on even greater importance as we look for new sources of biomass to drive our nation's bioeconomy
and ways to increase carbon sequestration and mitigate climate change said Sonny Ramaswamy director of USDA's National Institute of Food
We were stepping over all these dead trees on the ground that had been killed by the initial blast Mousseau said.
If a tree had fallen in my backyard it would be sawdust in 10 years or so.
They set out to assess the rate at which plant material decomposed as a function of background radiation placing hundreds of samples of uncontaminated leaf litter (pine needles and oak maple and birch leaves) in mesh bags throughout the area.
The team recently reported diminished tree growth near Chernobyl which he says likely results both from direct radiation effects and indirect effects such as reduced nutrient supply.
and redistribute the radioactive contamination that is in the trees and the plant biomass Mousseau says.
and corridors out of a longleaf pine plantation around the Savannah-river National Laboratory near Jackson S. C a network of sensors was erected to provide observations on wind speed turbulence temperature
and tree stems on the wind. The simulations include a virtual domain of roughly 6. 5 million pixels each representing a volume of air
living trees take carbon dioxide out of the air as they grow and dead trees put the greenhouse gas back into the air as they decompose.
The new study published in Nature Communications on March 18 is the first to measure tree deaths caused by natural processes throughout the Amazon forest even in remote areas where no data have been collected at ground level.
Fernando Espã rito-Santo of NASA's Jet propulsion laboratory Pasadena Calif. lead author of the study created new techniques to analyze satellite and other data.
He found that each year dead Amazonian trees emit an estimated 1. 9 billion tons (1. 7 billion metric tons) of carbon to the atmosphere.
In every scenario carbon absorption by living trees outweighed emissions from the dead ones indicating that the prevailing effect in natural forests of the Amazon is absorption.
In the years since then he worked with 21 coauthors in five nations to measure the carbon impacts of tree deaths in the Amazon from all natural causes--from large-area blowdowns to single trees that died of old age.
and his colleagues devised methods to identify dead trees in different types of remotely sensed images.
For example fallen trees create a gap in the forest canopy that can be measured by lidar on research aircraft
and branches of trees said Svenson of The Cleveland Museum of Natural history. This violates the common perception of praying mantises being slow and methodical hunters.
They often evade discovery by running to the opposite side of the tree before being noticed an escape tactic also seen in many tree dwelling lizards.
We can look at the evolutionary tree of these proteins and see which pairs of amino acids changed together.
whether it's walking down the hall to get some coffee or darting up a tree to avoid a predator.
And until now scientists believed the inner workings of movement were pretty much the same--the nerves send a message to the muscles
We were trying to understand how animals move in trees; how muscle in general deals with something as complex as climbing a tree with its horizontal and vertical inclines the tiny little branches
and the upright trunks said Kathleen Foster a Ph d. student in Evolution Ecology and Organismal biology who performed the study.
And the bark beetle is putting spruces all over Switzerland under increasing pressure because an additional generation of pests could hatch each year due to the rising temperatures.
The tree population is threatened by weaker growth and comes under increased pressure from bark beetles. This also reduces the protective effect against avalanches and rockfalls.
Things look different on the alpine treeline where tree growth is increasing. This has positive results for the protective effect as well as for wood production and carbon storage.
By the end of the century increasingly unsuitable climatic conditions will for example be endangering the survival of spruce and beech
which are now the most widespread types of tree in the midland. Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions urgently neededone conclusion of CH2014-Impacts is that with
and create biochar a highly porous charcoal said project principal investigator Karl Linden professor of environmental engineering.
while generating useful end products both in developing and developed nations said Linden. Since the 2012 grant Linden and his CU-Boulder team have received an additional $1 million from the Gates Foundation for the project
which includes a team of more than a dozen faculty research professionals and students many working full time on the effort.
Linden's team is one of 16 around the world funded by the Gates Reinvent the Toilet Challenge since 2011.
fibers said Linden. The energy generated by the sun and transferred to the fiber-optic cable system--similar in some ways to a data transmission line--can heat up the reaction chamber to over 600 degrees Fahrenheit to treat the waste material disinfect pathogens in both feces and urine and produce char.
Biochar is a valuable material said Linden. It has good water holding capacity and it can be used in agricultural areas to hold in nutrients
Linden is working closely with project co-investigators Professor R. Scott Summers of environmental engineering and Professor Alan Weimer chemical and biological engineering and a team of postdoctoral fellows professionals
We are doing something that has never been done before said Linden. While the idea of concentrating solar energy is not new transmitting it flexibly to a customizable location via fiber-optic cables is the really unique aspect of this project.
and moving parts and electrical engineers to design control systems Linden said. Tests have shown that each of the eight fiber-optic cables can produce between 80 and 90 watts of energy meaning the whole system can deliver up to 700 watts of energy into the reaction chamber said Linden.
In late December tests at CU-Boulder showed the solar energy directed into the reaction chamber could easily boil water
The great thing about the Gates Foundation is that they provide all of the teams with the resources they need Linden said.
Linden who called the 16 teams a family of researchers said the foundation has funded trips for CU-Boulder team members to collaborate with the other institutions in places like Switzerland South africa and North carolina.
and energy on our team and the Gates Foundation values that Linden said. It is one thing to do research another to screw on nuts and bolts
Whilst it is assumed generally that'more trees are better'in tropical rainforest this is not necessarily the case for tropical grassy ecosystems and so the outcomes of global carbon and conservation initiatives
Two articles published March 11 in The Plant Cell offer a step-by-step approach for studying plant traits drawing on comprehensive quantitative research on lignin formation in black cottonwood.
and water transport that enables some trees to grow 100 meters tall. However lignin must be removed for biofuel pulp
For example the systems biology approach could be applied in research to develop sweeter citrus fruit disease-resistant rice or drought-resistant trees.
When we looked at the soil samples from a lightly encroached hill prairie remnant it was very clear that there was a set of fungi that look like grassland fungi a set of fungi that look like tree fungi
and now native shrubs such as dogwood sumac shrubby black locust and eventually red cedar move in. We don't know yet what kind of long-term impact this could have on the environment Yannarell said.
and Cedars-Sinai--specialists in identifying and treating very rare diseases--used three innovative tools to detect a previously unknown gene mutation test potential therapies in the lab
and shows the immense potential of applying these technologies for future patients said Tyler Mark Pierson MD Phd a pediatric neurologist and member of the Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Neurology at Cedars-Sinai.
Pierson a member of the research faculty at the Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute is first author of an article in Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology that published online March 3 ahead
Pierson has continued his work with rare undiagnosed neurogenetic diseases at Cedars-Sinai with the Pediatric Neurogenetics and Neuromuscular Clinic and his laboratory in the Regenerative Medicine Institute.
The above story is provided based on materials by Cedars-Sinai Medical center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
but warming now may be tipping region into unparalleled droughtresearchers studying the rings of ancient trees in mountainous central Mongolia think they may have gotten at the mystery of how small bands of nomadic Mongol horsemen united to conquer much of the world within a span of decades
But the tree rings spanning 1112 years from 900 to 2011 also exhibit an ominous modern trend.
and the cultures around them said lead author Neil Pederson a tree-ring scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
In 2010 Pederson and coauthor Amy Hessl a tree-ring scientist at West virginia University were studying wildfires in Mongolia
when they came across a stand of gnarled stunted Siberian pines growing out of cracks in an old solid-rock lava flow in the Khangai Mountains.
They knew that on such dry nearly soil-less surfaces trees grow very slowly are exquisitely sensitive to yearly weather shifts
In a series of expeditions Pederson Hessl and colleagues sampled the pines'rings sawing cross-sections from dead specimens
They found that some trees had lived for more than 1100 years and likely could survive another millennium;
and rainfall so they could read past weather by calibrating ring widths of living trees with instrumental data from 1959-2009 then comparing these with the innards of much older trees.
The trees had a clear and startling story to tell. The turbulent years preceding Genghis khan's rule were stoked by intense drought from 1180 to 1190.
The tree rings show that after the empire's initial expansion Mongolia's weather turned back to its more normal dryness and cold though with many ups and downs over the hundreds of years since.
The tree rings show that the most recent drought from 2002-2009 compares in length and paucity of rainfall only to those of the pre-empire 1120s and 1180s.
what tree rings show was a disastrous drought. But said Stahle we live in a sea of coincidence--something like that is hard to prove.
The tree-ring study is the first in a related series by a larger interdisciplinary team working with Pederson and Hessl.
Hanqin Tian an ecologist at Auburn University in Alabama who studies modern grasslands is working on models to correlate ancient grass production with the tree-ring records of weather.
These can be read somewhat like tree rings to estimate the abundance of livestock over time via layers of fungal spores that live in the dung of animals;
Even with snow still on the ground trees have started budding and are the first to produce pollen creating major problems for people with allergies said David Rosenstreich M d. director of the Division of Allergy and Immunology at Montefiore Medical center.
when trees pollinate with birch cedar cottonwood and pine trees causing the biggest allergic triggers. Tree pollination in the Northeast has begun already according to Dr. Rosenstreich
and lasts through early June but can be almost year-round in warmer climates. Grass pollen allergies typically arise in late spring
and weeds cause hay fever from the summer through the fall. Ragweed is often one of the biggest offenders in most regions as it can grow in nearly every environment.
Scientists at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) say agroforestry--which is integrated an land use management technique that incorporates trees
For example a farm with trees will suffer less to the impacts of climate change because it will absorb some of these impacts
The report however notes that for farmers to incorporate trees in their farms there is need to revise the cultivation methods
#Tuscanys badlands acutely endangeredvast fields of sunflowers sprawling pine trees and slim cypresses as well as vineyards as far as the eye can see--these are typical memories of Tuscany for all those who have been there.
By contrast Professor Dr. Beate Michalzik from the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena and her colleagues are interested in the more barren aspects of the region in Central Italy:
In addition those consuming 3 to 5 cups of coffee daily had a smaller risk of dementia than those consuming less or more.
and shrubs and then new trees eventually take root. Expanding deer populations in the Northeast however stall forest development
If deer leave the forests alone such trees as cottonwood locust and sumac can sprout
They found the soil cores from outside of the exclosures contained many more seeds from nonnative species. Deer select forests for their trees
poplar wood and corn stover into biofuels. The technology could also supply a source of renewable jet fuel required by recent European union aviation emission regulations.
#Santorini tree rings support the traditional dating of the volcanic eruptionwill the dating of the volcanic eruption of Santorini remain an unsolved mystery?
After investigating tree rings a team of scientists led by the WSL has concluded that the volcano erupted in the 16TH CENTURY BC rather than any earlier than that.
The scientists show that 14c dating of individual pieces of olive wood enveloped by volcanic ash is too unreliable for precise dating.
if it can be shown clearly that the trees were still alive at the time of the eruption.
In the case of old olive trees in the Mediterranean region it is not at all unusual for dead branches to stay in place for several decades says Paolo Cherubini.
which in the case of the period of the volcanic eruption is based on tree-ring measurements from trees that are more than 4000 years old.
Olive trees produce many pseudo-tree ringspaolo Cherubini has investigated wood from many olive trees in southern Europe
and point out the limitations of tree-ring dating: In warm regions like Santorini with frequent dry periods in the summer and springlike winters olive wood often only produces tree rings that are difficult to identify.
Instead wood-density fluctuations are found inside certain rings. These arise mainly in dry periods of the year.
It is easy for even an expert to confuse such density fluctuations with actual annual tree rings.
By way of a'blind test'Cherubini recently asked 10 experts in five tree-ring laboratories in various countries to date the same wood samples from olive-tree branches.
These came from trees growing today on Santorini. As expected this produced sobering results the number of tree rings found varied between laboratories by more than 44%.
%This unreliability alone makes precisely dating a piece of wood from the period of the eruption seem unrealistic.
when comparing it with the reference curve whereas only precisely dated tree rings would allow the age of the tree to be determined correctly.
Improving heat tolerance in treesis it possible to improve tolerance of trees to high temperatures and other types of stress derived of climate change?
and the Centre for Plant Biotechnology and Genomics (CBGP) is studying the tolerance of trees using molecular and biotechnological tools.
The obtained poplars in this project with the collaboration of the Universidad de Málaga are significantly more tolerant to high temperatures than the control trees.
These trees are also more tolerant to drought to the presence of weed-killer to in vitro and ex vitro crops to contamination
and other ways of abiotic stress that have applied an interest for forestry. This work is a continuation of a project started by of a research team of the UPM a decade ago.
They are so fundamental that the obtained poplars in this work can resist other stress factors.
Dung beetles recount the nature of the pastthe biologists behind the new research findings synthesized decades of studies on fossil beetles focusing on beetles associated with the dung of large animals in the past or with woodlands and trees.
Amazonian canopy trees are of particular interest because they create the habitat occupied by a tremendous diversity of other plants and animals.
We discovered that this incredible region is a patchwork mosaic of trees with chemical signatures organized into communities to maximize their growth potential given their local soils
Within these communities the trees have evolved chemical portfolios that are different from one another maybe to help each species take a place in its community
The leaves collected by the team include the vast majority of canopy tree species found in the western Amazon.
Carnegie houses the world's first and largest library of dried and cryogenically frozen samples of tropical canopy trees along with herbarium specimen vouchers.
Current holdings include millions of samples from more than 10000 tropical trees and other lifeforms painstakingly collected from around the globe.
#Ancient Chinese medicine put through its paces for pancreatic cancerthe bark of the Amur cork tree (Phellodendron amurense) has traveled a centuries-long road with the healing arts.
UT Health Science Center researcher A. Pratap Kumar was already exploring the cork tree extract's promise in treating prostate cancer
and the cork tree extract appears to suppress that as well Dr. Kumar said. The complex interrelationship of these substances is the million-dollar question he said
but the advantage of cork tree extract available as a dietary supplement in capsule form is that it already has been established as safe for use in patients.
The study analyses data obtained from the simulation forest growth model GOTILWA+(Growth Of Trees Is limited by WATER) based on ecophysiological processes.
The most sensitive areasthe most sensitive areas to climate change effects are Mediterranean forests of evergreen oak Alepo pine
and Scots pine located in the southwest of the Iberian peninsula. Forest located in the northwest will be affected also as simulations show a severe precipitation decrease in this area.
For instance beech forests are particularly sensitive to a slight increase in average temperature as well as those forests located at low height so altitudinal migrations will probably occur.
but the quick release of nutrients heat and compounds found in ash and smoke play an important role in the life cycle of the native flora.
Some people with nut allergies were desensitized to related tree nuts to which were also allergic
study showsa new Boston University study shows that the consequences of milder winters--a smaller snowpack leaving the ground to freeze harder and longer--can have a negative impact on trees and water quality of nearby aquatic
Pamela Templer and her co-authors show that soil freezing due to diminishing snowpack damages the roots of sugar maple trees
Templer is following up her winter research with a new National Science Foundation funded project that uses warming cables in the ground to determine the combined effects of warmer winters and summer on the trees.
or refuges where there were brushy shrubs and even trees such as spruce birch willow and alder.
and saying look there was an environment with trees and shrubs that was very different than the open grassy steppe.
and trees O'Rourke says. But in recent years sediment cores drilled in the Bering sea
and along the Alaskan coast--the now-submerged lowlands of Beringia--found pollens of trees and shrubs.
#Methane leaks from palm oil wastewater are a climate concernin recent years palm oil production has come under fire from environmentalists concerned about the deforestation of land in the tropics to make way for new palm plantations.
For now the carbon footprint of cutting down forests to make way for palm plantations dwarfs the greenhouse gases coming from the wastewater lagoons.
although foliar applications in the field are allowed on some tree fruits crops. If we can include bactericides in a program that can minimize insecticide use then this could be integrated part of an disease management approach he said.
and Physical sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have been placed on the ice shelf surrounding Pine Island by University college London (UCL) and British Antarctic Survey (BAS) scientists to record changes of the Antarctic ice
but preliminary trials show the new radar system can detect changes of as little as a millimetre--about the amount the Pine Island Glacier melts in just 30 minutes.
Pine Island Glacier is thought to be highly sensitive to climate variability and has thinned rapidly over recent decades.
which is eating away at the underside of the ice shelf floating at the edge of Pine Island Glacier said Dr Keith Nicholls of The british Antarctic Survey A continuous record of seasonal changes which is
#Water filter from the sapwood in pine tree branchesif you've run out of drinking water during a lakeside camping trip there's a simple solution:
Break off a branch from the nearest pine tree peel away the bark and slowly pour lake water through the stick.
They say the size of the pores in sapwood--which contains xylem tissue evolved to transport sap up the length of a tree--also allows water through
The wood is composed of xylem porous tissue that conducts sap from a tree's roots to its crown through a system of vessels and pores.
which sap can essentially hopscotch flowing from one vessel to another as it feeds structures along a tree's length.
and spread in xylem eventually killing a tree. The xylem's tiny pores can trap bubbles preventing them from spreading in the wood.
Seeing redto study sapwood's water-filtering potential the researchers collected branches of white pine and stripped off the outer bark.
In general flowering trees have smaller pores than coniferous trees suggesting that they may be able to filter out even smaller particles.
However vessels in flowering trees tend to be much longer which may be less practical for designing a compact water filter.
You don't find mesquite trees growing in Canada and you don't find spruce or fir trees growing in Texas. If
I find mesquite pollen in a honey sample I know it didn't come from Canada or if
I find spruce or fir pollen in a honey sample I know it's not from Texas. Knowing where honey comes from is important
not only for accurate pricing says Bryant but also because different countries have different standards about pesticides
and using antibiotics in hives to keep the bees disease-free. To help regulate honey safety We have strict import laws that apply to honey coming from certain countries he says.
Every forest visitor can recognize these compounds as the typical fir needle smell. We managed to present the first molecular evidence of a direct and ubiquitous source of ELVOCS arising from the oxidation of monoterpenes and other volatile organic compounds in the gas phase.
The results suggest that about 10 percent of the reacting VOC mass is converted tosecondary organic aerosol over the tree tops.
Coniferous trees give off pine-scented vapors that form particles very quickly and seemingly out of nowhere.
New research by German Finnish and U s. scientists elucidates the process by which gas wafting from coniferous trees creates particles that can reflect sunlight
Scientists have known for decades that gases from pine trees can form particles that grow from just 1 nanometer in size to 100 nanometers in about a day.
In the new paper researchers took measurements in Finnish pine forests and then simulated the same particle formation in an air chamber at Germany's JÃ lich Research Centre.
Results showed that when a pine-scented molecule combines with ozone in the surrounding air some of the resulting free radicals grab oxygen with unprecedented speed.
Boreal or pine forests give off the largest amount of these compounds so the finding is especially relevant for the northern parts of North america Europe and Russia.
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