#Pine plantations provide optimum conditions for natural forests to develop underneath themif there is any native forest in the vicinity tree fern
and herbaceous species typical of these forests penetrate under the pine plantations without any need for action.
or pruning the seeds arriving from the adjoining forests thrive in the conditions provided by the pine trees.
and ferns and some herbaceous species are the ones that adapt to that environment best she added.
Part of that evidence comes in the form of a single dried-out leaf from a larch tree that grew thousands of years ago.
The researchers know that the glacier had remained previously unchanged for a very long time--in part because of the preserved larch leaf
They identified the leaf as belonging to Larix decidua or the European larch. Carbon dating determined it to be around 2600 years old.
The leaf supports the idea that prehistoric ice is still present at the highest elevations of the region Gabrielli said.
of root tissue that has been attacked by the parasitic nematode Radopholus similis. This local accumulation is crucial for the plant's resistance to this pest organism.
and vitamins B and C. Apart from fungi and insects the parasitic nematode Radopholus similis is considered a major banana pest.
It attacks the roots of banana plants causing slower growth and development of the plant and fruit.
and localize defense substances in banana roots: The plants accumulated so-called phenylphenalenones only in infected regions of their roots but not in healthy tissues.
This was the case in both the resistant and the susceptible banana variety. The concentration of the most active compound anigorufone however was much higher in the immediate vicinity of lesions on the roots of resistant bananas in comparison to infected root tissues of the nematode susceptible banana plants.
The production of the toxin alone is not responsible for the banana plant's resistance to nematodes.
It is the differential concentration in specific regions of the roots which is particularly high at the precise location of the nematode attack
Their research on wasps and leaf disease reveal that a Canadian wasp is an efficient killer of an agricultural pest
and a little-known fungus is hurting Highbush cranberries. Both research articles were subject to the same peer review process
We collect Highbush cranberries to make jelly. In 2012 Daust noticed a weird disease on the plants.
He sent pictures of the disease to an expert who identified the culprit as a rare kind of rust fungus about
The fungus was known to infect Highbush cranberry but nobody knew what effect it had on the plant.
the fungus may attack Highbush cranberry the most after wet spring weather. Wet springs are predicted to become more common in Daust's region of B c
This year there is tons of rust on the plants and there are hardly any berries Daust explained.
This is because many fungicides do not specifically combat fungi but prevent general processes in cells such as energy production
#Nutritional information on oilseed crop for use in pig dietslong considered a weed in North america Camelina sativa is valued increasingly as an oilseed crop.
When oil is extracted from the camelina seeds using either solvent extraction or expeller pressing the oil is used then in fuel production.
but there is very little knowledge about the nutritional value of camelina meal when fed to pigs said Hans Stein a U of I professor of animal sciences.
Camelina seeds and expellers have been evaluated for use in poultry and dairy cattle diets but to our knowledge the nutritional values of these ingredients have not been studied in pigs he said.
This lack of knowledge limits the use of camelina products in diets fed to pigs
and his team fed growing pigs diets containing one of five different camelina products. They tested camelina seeds from two different sources as well as camelina expellers from three different sources.
The camelina products were compared with each other and with canola meal. The digestibility of crude protein and most amino acids in two sources of camelina expellers did not differ from that of canola meal
whereas the third source had lower digestibility values. Digestibility values in both sources of camelina seeds were less than in canola meal.
Stein said that the variation in digestibility among the sources of camelina expellers might be due to genetic differences between the seeds or differences in the oil extraction procedures.
However amino acid digestibility in two of the sources of camelina expellers was comparable to that of canola meal
which indicates that camelina expellers may be included in diets fed to pigs he explained. The camelina expellers studied were pressed cold
and contained greater levels of trypsin inhibitors than canola meal. Amino acid digestibility in camelina products might be improved by heat treatment provided that heat damage is avoided.
These findings will help producers and feed companies evaluate camelina expellers for possible inclusion in pig diets.
Stein said that the next steps for research would be to determine the digestible and metabolizable energy content of camelina expellers and to conduct growth performance studies.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Tuberculosis in Zambia: spread, control of infectionin Zambia the incidence of all forms of human tuberculosis is estimated to be 444 per 100000.
There is also a high incidence of HIV and AIDS in the country. In the Kafue area a high incidence of Mycobacterium bovis in both cattle and the Kafue lechwe antilope has been detected.
The study published by the journal PLOS One showed that particular cultivars combined with drier sunnier conditions work together to increase the chances that salmonella will spread.
Tomato maturity and cultivar particular strains of salmonella and seasonal differences were the strongest factors affecting proliferation.
when one bee visits one flower. Second is abundance which measures the number of each type of bee observed in a study area.
or the number of flowers that a bee visits while foraging and the amount of time it spends at each flower.
The perfect bee would produce a lot of seeds and visit a lot of flowers even in poor weather--and there would be a lot of them Burrack says.
But as far as we know the perfect bee doesn't exist. The researchers conducted a pilot study using their comprehensive approach to assess the pollination performance of various bee species on economically important highbush blueberry crops in North carolina.
They found that small native bees had extremely high single-visit efficiency rates and were active during inclement weather.
The paper Multiple Criteria for Evaluating Pollinator Performance in Highbush Blueberry (Ericales: Ericaceae) Agroecosystems was published online Nov 25 in the journal Environmental Entomology.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by North carolina State university. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Seeds from soya peas lupins and other legumes are protein-rich feedstuffs which are given to normal livestock during periods of rapid growth or high egg and milk production.
When saponins were given to the fish together with broad beans sunflower meal rape and maize gluten meal they did not cause inflammation
or aerial live mass that generates a tree specially the canopy that is the upper part of the tree (leafs and branches) and in second term the trunk.
Additionally field work was carried also out to measure the trunk's diameter the height and specific weight of the wood besides comparing it to model information and data from satellite images.
Within the first results of the Project are that in Mexico city's conservation floor the oyamel harness the sun more efficiently in its leafs
Another important point was confirmed by proving that the leaf's size does influence in the greenery of the trees
#First in depth analysis of primate eating habitsfrom insect-munching tamarins to leaf-loving howler monkeys researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have compiled the most thorough review of primate
Larger monkeys eat a lot more foliage because their guts can tolerate high levels of cellulose and toxins
Another surprise was that primates with higher prevalence of fruit in their diets were historically among the most poorly studied meaning we still have a lot to learn about their importance as consumers and seed dispersers.
and predict direct structural contacts between amino acids called residues) from the proteins'genomic roots. Protein sequences are built by ribosomes from genetic data conveyed by MESSENGER RNA molecules.
They excluded damaged fruits to make sure that the smell of yeast would not influence the flies choices (yeast is the flies main food source.
Team reports on US trials of bioenergy grassesthe first long-term U s. field trials of Miscanthus x giganteus a towering perennial grass used in bioenergy production reveal that its exceptional yields
We use only about a fifth of that in our row-crop agriculture--cotton corn soybean wheat etc.
and you have a dense perennial root system that binds the soil. In fact Miscanthus is arguably better than leaving this land fallow he said.
As well as being productive aboveground Miscanthus was shown in Illinois to accumulate more roots over a period of five years than fallow land or even a native prairie ecosystem.
In the autumn and winter the nutrients drain out of the stems and leaves and are retained in the roots stimulating new growth the following spring.
The recycling of nutrients is not 100 percent efficient however and the team wanted to know
But in spiny forests most of the trees with woody stems are covered in rows of spines making them uncomfortable as well as dangerous sleeping sites
In addition to causing direct injury to the plant feeding can also provide the opportunity for infection by rot-inducing bacteria and fungi.
The team around Christine Lane (Oxford university) and Achim Brauer from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences reports in the latest volume of Geology that within the younger Dryas the last about 1100-year
#Himalayan flowers shed light on climate changeflower color in some parts of the world including The himalayas has evolved to attract bees as pollinators research has shown for the first time.
and RMIT University have investigated the evolution of flower colors due to the bee's color vision.
Associate professor Adrian Dyer of Monash and RMIT said previous studies had shown that flower color evolved to attract bees as pollinators in temperate environments
Dr Mani Shrestha from Monash University and his colleague Prakash Bhattrai from the Tribhuvan University Kathmandu collected spectral data from more than 100 flowering plants in Nepal over a range of altitudes from 900
Using computer models to examine flower colors as bees would see them the team addressed how pollinator vision had shaped flower evolution.
Dr Shrestha said flowers from both subtropical (900-2000m) and alpine (3000-4100m) regions showed evidence of having evolved color spectral signatures to enhance discrimination by bee pollinators.
The research could shed light on how flower colors may continue to evolve in particular environments depending upon the availability of the most effective pollinators.
While'bee colors'were prevalent at all elevations flower colors in high altitude zones were more diverse
& Food Research and the University of Otago has identified the gene controlling bulb development the first step in discovering genetic markers that can be used as tools to screen conventional breeding programmes for new onion varieties with the right genetic
By understanding how these plants control development of the bulb we can support the breeding of new cultivars that have the right genetic profile to respond to specific growing conditions ensuring each plant produces a bulb for sale on the market.
Commercial production of onions relies on cultivars tailored to the environment they are grow in responding to the right combination of day length
and temperature to form a bulb says John Mccallum of Plant & Food Research. Around 90 million tonnes of onions are produced globally each year
For iron rust goes right through Nordlander said. But for pure aluminum the oxide is so hard and impermeable that once you form a three-nanometer sheet of oxide the process stops.
#Protecting vital crops in Chinaevidence of disease in oilseed rape crops across China and how it may spread has been mapped by researchers led by the University of Hertfordshire--providing new strategic information on crop protection to the Chinese government.
Oilseed rape is prone to phoma stem canker also known as blackleg disease caused by two Leptosphaeria species. The more damaging pathogen Leptosphaeria maculans (L. maculans) has been spreading globally in oilseed rape crops over the last thirty years causing widespread losses
In China phoma stem canker on oilseed rape has not generally been a serious problem
However as China began to import millions of tons of oilseed rape to crush for cooking oil the route opened for L. maculans to spread via contaminated seed between countries.
This put China the world's biggest producer of rapeseed at risk of this highly infectious crop pathogen.
Phoma stem canker is responsible for losses worth more than £1200 million in oilseed rape crops across the world.
A widespread survey by Chinese collaborators of winter oilseed rape crops in central China and spring oilseed crops in north China found no evidence of L. maculans.
However the survey did confirm that the less damaging L. biglobosa is widespread across China
The researchers modelled the potential spread of the destructive L. maculans pathogen across the oilseed rape crops in China--with predicted rates of spread of up to seventy kilometers per year
and having a devastating effect on oilseed rape production. Professor Fitt continued: Reducing the risk of phoma stem canker in oilseed rape crops in China is a priority for Chinese government and industry.
There is a pressing need to decrease the amounts of crop debris a potent source of pathogen inoculum in seed imports.
And a number of the recommendations about preventing severe epidemics of phoma stem canker have already been taken up.
Short term strategies for the Chinese government include training farmers to recognise the symptoms of the disease to import oilseed rape through Chinese ports in regions where little oilseed rape is grown to test for the pathogen on imported seed
and importing rapeseed oil rather than importing the seed and crushing this locally. Longer-term strategies focus on introducing genes to the Chinese oilseed rape plants to build disease resistance.
The paper Leptosphaeria spp. phoma stem canker and potential spread of L. maculans on oilseed rape crops in China is published in Plant pathology.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Hertfordshire. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference c
#Barcodes for trees: Researchers identify genetic fingerprints of endangered conifersin the tropics and subtropics many evergreen conifers are endangered.
The timber of many of the 198 species is of great economic interest because of its excellent insect and fungus resistance.
For the first time we have used human stem cells derived from Parkinson's disease patients to show that a genetic mutation combined with exposure to pesticides creates a'double hit'scenario producing free radicals in neurons that disable specific molecular pathways that cause nerve-cell death
and director of Sanford-Burnham's Del E. Webb Center for Neuroscience Aging and Stem Cell Research and senior author of the study.
Using patient skin cells the researchers created human induced pluripotent stem cells (hipscs) containing the mutation
which tunnels in the stem of the plant and less so against the rootworm which attacks the roots.
First Bt proteins intended for the European corn borer are produced at a higher dose than the ones intended for rootworms;
Nikki Rust of the University's Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) said:''This research has shown for the first time that livestock guarding dogs can successfully be used in South africa to protect livestock from attack by predators as large as leopards or small as jackals.'
In addition results from these long-term studies show that early shrub removal and tree density control are the most effective and efficient ways to reduce fuel buildup.
Under Mediterranean climatic conditions shrubs reduce overstory tree growth and keep tree crowns in contact with the shrub canopy.
or without understory vegetation by controlling competing vegetation carbon is reallocated into the trees instead of shrubs;
#How scavenging fungi became a plants best friendglomeromycota is an ancient lineage of fungi that has a symbiotic relationship with roots that goes back nearly 420 million years to the earliest plants.
More than two thirds of the world's plants depend on this soil-dwelling symbiotic fungus to survive including critical agricultural crops such as wheat cassava and rice.
The analysis of the Rhizophagus irregularis genome has revealed that this asexual fungus doesn't shuffle its genes the way researchers expected.
The fungus is a member of the Glomeromycota family and frequently colonizes many plants important to agriculture and forestry.
Glomeromycota also called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) play a vital role in how phosphorus and carbon cycles through the atmosphere and land-based ecosystems but exactly how it does this vital job is understood poorly.
It was a long hard road to a sequenced arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus. In 2006 shortly after the DOE JGI sequenced the first tree genome Populus trichocarpa it became apparent that it took a village (of other organisms) to raise a poplar tree.
Researchers Jerry Tuskan of Oak ridge National Laboratory and Francis Martin of INRA recommended that the assembly of Populus-associated fungi
Rhizophagus irregularis is the next in this linage to be released by the DOE JGI it follows the ectomycorrhizal fungal symbiont Laccaria the poplar rust pathogen Melampsora and dozens of bacterial genomes.
A relic of fungal evolution AMF diverged early on from other forms of fungus. They form dense clusters of branched structures--called arbuscules--in root cells much like a tight many-fingered handhold The arbuscules are the main route of nutrient exchange between plants and fungi.
Unable to live on their own AMF are entirely dependent on their plant hosts for the sugars they need for food.
Scientists theorize that the benefits these fungi provided enabled ancient plants to evolve during the Paleozoic era about 250 to 500 million years ago.
and developed deeper and stronger roots to take advantage of the nutrients that underground AMF fed them.
In exchange plants provided nutrients the fungi couldn't obtain themselves. Analysis of the R. irregularis genome also revealed several surprising details.
For comparison the button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) also sequenced and published by the DOE JGI has a genome of about 30 Mb.
'Unlike many other fungi R. irregularis seems to lack mechanisms that can keep these transposable elements from running amok.
They also have an abundance of genes for communication between cells via signaling proteins including small secreted effectors highly expressed during symbiosis. Plant roots send out a plethora of chemical signals
For example it can't make most of the toxins other plant-interacting fungi release probably the researchers speculate to avoid setting off the host plant's immune system.
It has also cast off most of its genes for breaking down plant cell walls a critical ability for free-living fungi that feed off dead organic matter in soils.
Teasing apart the complex relationship between soil fungi and plants is likely to have an impact on improving biofuel production from plant biomass.
while holding on to the branch of a tree within the Lumbini Garden midway between the kingdoms of her husband and parents.
and other institutes have succeeded in unraveling the whole genome sequence of desert poplar Populus euphratica and the genetic bases underlying poplar to against salt stress.
Wang Project Manager at BGI Our work also demonstrate that trans-omic approach to study salt-tolerant plants is applicable on both herbaceous plant
and woody plant providing new insights into the comprehensive understanding of plants'salt tolerance and drought resistance.
and placed in hives 90 days before bloom begins The most part of the honey produced in Mexico is exported mostly to Europe where health standards are very high mainly concerning chemical residues.
and plant roots killed 100%of sample breast cancer cells without toxic side effects on normal cells.
One of the primary causes of both the recurrence of breast cancer and deaths is a small group of cancer stem cells that evade therapy notes Dr. Raj.
and turmeric root (a spice used in Indian curry) before settling upon six#Curcumin known as tumeric Isoflavone from soybeans Indo-3-Carbinol from cruciferous plants C-phycocyanin from spirulina Reservatrol from grapes and Quercetin
Magnetic pollen replicas offer multimodal adhesionresearchers have created magnetic replicas of sunflower pollen grains using a wet chemical layer-by-layer process that applies highly conformal iron oxide coatings.
The spikes inherited from sunflower pollen provide short range adhesion--over nanoscale distances --while the oxide chemistry provides an adhesion mode that operates over much longer distances--up to one millimeter.
Sandhage and graduate student Brandon Goodwin began by examining the microscopic shapes of several types of pollen--including ragweed pecan
and dandelion--before choosing particles from the sunflower (Helianthus annuus). The sunflower pollen grains are nearly spherical
but covered with spikes that can entangle with the hairs on bees'legs or adhere to surfaces via Van der waals forces at nanometer-scale distances Sandhage explained.
They then applied iron oxide using an automated layer-by-layer surface sol-gel process they had developed earlier for coating diatom shells made of silica.
They studied replica pollen adhesion to polyvinyl alcohol polyvinyl acetate polystyrene silicon nickel and neodymium-iron-boron--and compared the adhesion properties to those of the original sunflower pollen grains.
A research team led by conservation biologist Miles Silman will launch two different drones to conduct climate research in the region giving a never-before-seen bird's eye view of one of the most difficult locations in the world to study.
Messenger will present on canopy leaf temperature data collected by a drone at the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting in San francisco Dec 9-13.
Researchers received funding from the National Science Foundation and Wake Forest's Center for Energy Environment and Sustainabilitydrones Deliver a Bird's eye Viewone of the researchers'robots a copter drone relies on eight small propeller units
or thermal imaging camera to gather data on everything from leaf and flower characteristics to temperature readings and animal behavior.
#Nut consumption linked to reduced death rate, study suggestsin the largest study of its kind people who ate a daily handful of nuts were 20 percent less likely to die from any cause over a 30-year period than were those who didn't consume nuts say scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer
Their report published in the New england Journal of Medicine contains further good news. The regular nut-eaters were found to be more slender than those who didn't eat nuts a finding that should alleviate the widespread worry that eating a lot of nuts will lead to overweight.
Several previous studies have found an association between increasing nut consumption and a lower risk of diseases such as heart disease type 2 diabetes colon cancer gallstones and diverticulitis.
Higher nut consumption also has been linked to reductions in cholesterol levels oxidative stress inflammation adiposity and insulin resistance.
But no previous research studies had looked in such detail at various levels of nut consumption
nonetheless the findings are strongly consistent with a wealth of existing observational and clinical trial data to support health benefits of nut consumption on many chronic diseases.
The study is supported by a research grant from the International Tree Nut Council Nutrition Research & Education Foundation and the National institutes of health grants UM1 CA167552 P01 CA87969 R01 HL60712 R01ca124908 P50
When D'Antonio and Yelenik revisited the study sites they noticed that the invasive exotic perennial grasses (primarily an African invader called Melinis minutiflora) were dying so they decided to repeat measures of nutrient cycling and plant community change.
This indicates that the changing impacts of the grass over time do not alter the seedlings'ability to grow in the ecosystem.
A study employing DNA sequences from all species of the papaya family instead revealed that the closest relatives of papaya are three herbaceous species
and a small tree with stinging hairs occurring from Mexico to Guatemala and El salvador. The stingy-haired tree in fact is known only from cloud forests in the Sierra de Juarez in Oaxaca southern Mexico.
The three herbaceous species are well known to Mexicans living in the area and Mexican botanists had figured out their correct names some time ago.
#Cows chomping on fresh grass, red clover produce omega milkfat is an important ingredient that has a material impact on the nutritional value texture taste shelf-life
Changing to red clover is worth itmilk fatty-acid composition was investigated also by replacing grass silage with red clover silage
and using a compatible vegetable oil supplement (rape sunflower and camelina). The changes in ruminal lipid metabolism are based on the differences between plant species in terms of digestion kinetics and microbial flora in the rumen.
Replacing grass silage with red clover accomplished a distinct decrease in the saturation of fatty acids in the rumen
when given as camelina press cake. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by MTT Agrifood Research Finland.
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