Although renowned for their ability to chew through a gardener's prize petunias or strawberry patch still relatively little is known about the effect these munching molluscs have on large scale grassland conservation projects.
But for the first time this latest research shows that some of the most ecologically important species--such as the red clover--are particularly tasty to slugs
which may reduce the number of seedlings becoming established and overall plant diversity. Publishing their results next month in a special edition of the academic journal Annals of Botany the research team has shown the impact of Deroceras reticulatum
in order to help seedlings establish and contribute towards successful restoration. Herbivory is a fundamental driver of plant diversity explains Dr Sarah Barlow who carried out the work
One of these red clover is particularly important due to the symbiotic bacteria which live in its roots
and help to fix Nitrogen into the soil benefitting not just the clover but all the meadow seedlings.
Only around 5%of the slug pop u la tion is actually above ground at any one time.
and is particularly fond of seedlings which is why they can have such a devastating impact on this type of conservation project.
yarrow; Yorkshire fog; rough-stalked meadow grass creeping red fescue and red clover. On the bright side said Dr Barlow the slugs did not like the seedlings of some of the desirable wildflowers such as wood cranesbill rough hawkbit and greater burnet.
Newcastle University's Dr Gordon Port a senior lecturer and an expert in pest management said:
Just like us slugs have their favourites and will eat some plants in preference to others.
and windpipes created from stem cells this is the first time 3d printing has been used to treat tracheobronchomalacia--at least in a human.
In future trials Wheeler plans to add stem cells to the splint in order to accelerate healing.
and by the availability of native prairie and vegetation cover at nest sites. Unexpectedly the scientists also found that female survival rates increased after wind turbines were installed.
#Plant molecular biologist are getting to the root of the matterworking to identify key genes in the root development of poplar trees three Michigan Technological University scientists have come up with a new model for how genes interact
They also identified a network of genes that cause poplar roots to grow well in low-nitrogen soil making them ideal candidates for biofuel tree plantations on marginal lands.
The article is titled Nitrogen deprivation promotes Populus root growth through global transcriptome reprogramming and activation of hierarchical genetic networks.
and causes increases in algal blooms greenhouse gases and insects like mosquitoes that carry disease.
Nobody knew the mechanisms of how low nitrogen affects plant roots Busov explains. They turned to the poplar for their studies
Surprisingly the roots got larger and longer says Yordanov. We think that the roots were looking for nitrogen Busov suggests.
But what is the genetic machinery behind this growth? The scientists did a series of experiments over time under the same experimental conditions to identify the genes involved in the changes they observed.
and the roots grow 58 percent more than controls'says Busov. What Wei wound up with is a new model of how genes function together.
Our discovery of a second receptor in the mosquitoes'sodium channel gives us a better understanding of how the insecticide works at a molecular level as well as could lead to ways to stem mosquitoes'resistance to pyrethroids.
The fire-haze episode straddling the Strait of Malacca in June 2013 has reignited a decades-long debate about responsibility.
#Even slight temperature increases causing tropical forests to blossoma new study led by Florida State university researcher Stephanie Pau shows that tropical forests are producing more flowers in response to only slight increases in temperature.
and rainfall affect the number of flowers that tropical forests produce. Results showed that clouds mainly have an effect over short-term seasonal growth
While other studies have used long-term flower production data this is the first study to combine these data with direct estimates of cloud cover based on satellite information.
The results of the study Clouds and Temperature Drive Dynamic Changes in Tropical Flower Production was published July 7 in the journal Nature Climate Change.
and how many flowers they produce is one vital sign of their health said Pau an assistant professor in Florida State's Department of Geography.
and flower production will decrease. We're not seeing that yet at the sites we looked at
and cloudiness on local flower production Betancourt said. It confirms other recent findings that in the tropics even a modest warming can pack quite a punch.
and year-to-year flower production in two contrasting tropical forests--a seasonally dry forest on Barro Colorado Island Panama and an ever-wet forest in Luquillo Puerto rico. The seasonally dry site according to Pau
has been producing more flowers at an average rate of 3 percent each year over the last several decades an increase that appears to be tied to warming temperatures.
We studied flowers because their growth is a measure of the reproductive health and overall growth of the forests and because there is long-term data on flower production available Pau said.
The amount of sunlight reaching tropical forests due to varying amounts of cloud cover is an important factor just not the most important
when it comes to flower production. Clouds are a huge uncertainty in understanding the impacts of climate change on tropical forests Pau said.
and deeper rootsplants with thinner roots can grow deeper a trait which could be exploited in lands affected by drought and nutrient deprivation.
New research to be presented at the Society for Experimental Biology meeting on July 5 shows that maize roots which have fewer cortical cells in the outer layer of their roots are more efficient at accessing water and nutrients.
A research team headed by Prof Jonathan Lynch at the Pennsylvania State university United states found that maize roots show natural variation in the number of cortical cells in their roots which can be selected preferentially for cultivation on land where deep roots are an advantage.
A field study in collaboration with the Bunda College of Agriculture in Malawi shows that a lower number of cortical cells reduces the energetic cost of soil exploration by the roots.
By combining this trait with other plant traits such as improved disease resistance the researchers expect that there is potential to produce improved seeds for agriculture.
According to researchers animals on organic farms should have supplemented their diets with natural sources of iodine such as seaweed
Seaweed as an alternative sourcenevertheless according to LÃ pez the most relevant aspect of the study is that it brings this limitation to light
We are trialling the use of seaweed as a source of iodine and have had good results she affirms.
and proximity to streams with riparian vegetation may contribute to maintaining both crop production and good water quality.
and plant tissues killed and collected on known dates from 1905 to 2008. The samples included elephant tusks and molars hippo tusks and canine teeth oryx horn hair from monkeys and elephant tails and some grasses collected in Kenya in 1962.
whether animals ate diets based on tree and shrub leaves and fruits or upon grasses and grazing animals.
which prey on herbivorous insects but also caterpillars of the Egyptian cotton leafworm moth Spodoptera littoralis a species that feeds on maize leaves.
The cherry laurel is an evergreen and if it disperses on the forest floor it may create too much shade for the existing flora on the forest floor to survive.
but with a mechanism they had never been able to observe according to Dr. Hays Rye Texas A&m Agrilife Research biochemist.
and how they interact with each other in a complicated network said Rye who also is associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Texas A&m.
Rye explained that individual amino acids get linked together like beads on a string as a protein is made in the cell.
Rye said researchers have been trying to understand this process for more than 50 years but in a living cell the process is complicated by the presence of many proteins in a concentrated environment.
and just sort of buzz along inside a cell driving a protein folding reaction every few seconds Rye said.
They are bound together like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle Rye explained. And the proteins--those little beads on the string that are designed to fold up like origami--are folded to position all these beads in three-dimensional space to perfectly wrap around those molecules
or folds incorrectly it turns into an aggregate which Rye described as white goo that looks kind of like a mayonnaise like crud in the test tube.
Rye's team focused on a key molecular chaperone--the HSP60. They're called HSP for'heat shock protein
and unfold Rye said. The cell is built to respond by making more of the chaperones to try
and literally puts it inside a little'box'Rye said. He added that the mystery had long been how the folding worked
Rye and the team zeroed in on a chemically modified mutant that in other experiments had seemed to stall at an important step in the process that the machine goes through to start the folding action.
and view a structure as a three-dimensional model Rye said. What the team saw was this:
Rye collaborated on the research with Dong-Hua Chen and Wah Chiu at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston Damian Madan and Zohn Lin at Princeton university Jeremy Weaver at Texas A&m
but with a mechanism they had never been able to observe according to Dr. Hays Rye Texas A&m Agrilife Research biochemist.
and how they interact with each other in a complicated network said Rye who also is associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Texas A&m.
Rye explained that individual amino acids get linked together like beads on a string as a protein is made in the cell.
Rye said researchers have been trying to understand this process for more than 50 years but in a living cell the process is complicated by the presence of many proteins in a concentrated environment.
and just sort of buzz along inside a cell driving a protein folding reaction every few seconds Rye said.
They are bound together like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle Rye explained. And the proteins--those little beads on the string that are designed to fold up like origami--are folded to position all these beads in three-dimensional space to perfectly wrap around those molecules
or folds incorrectly it turns into an aggregate which Rye described as white goo that looks kind of like a mayonnaise like crud in the test tube.
Rye's team focused on a key molecular chaperone--the HSP60. They're called HSP for'heat shock protein
and unfold Rye said. The cell is built to respond by making more of the chaperones to try
and literally puts it inside a little'box'Rye said. He added that the mystery had long been how the folding worked
Rye and the team zeroed in on a chemically modified mutant that in other experiments had seemed to stall at an important step in the process that the machine goes through to start the folding action.
and view a structure as a three-dimensional model Rye said. What the team saw was this:
Rye collaborated on the research with Dong-Hua Chen and Wah Chiu at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston Damian Madan and Zohn Lin at Princeton university Jeremy Weaver at Texas A&m
low-elevation sitespredicted increases in temperature and drought in the coming century may make it more difficult for conifers such as ponderosa pine to regenerate after major forest fires on dry low-elevation sites in some cases leading to conversion
or shrub lands a report suggests. Researchers from Oregon State university concluded that moisture stress is a key limitation for conifer regeneration following stand-replacing wildfire
While mature trees can use their roots to tap water deeper in the soil competition with dense understory vegetation can make it difficult for seedlings to survive.
and increase tree survival after wildfire as well as provide a seed source for future trees Dodson said.
Resistance gene found against Ug99 wheat stem rust pathogenthe world's food supply got a little more plentiful thanks to a scientific breakthrough.
stem rust pathogen--called Ug99--that was discovered first in Uganda in 1999. The discovery may help scientists develop new wheat varieties
and strategies that protect the world's food crops against the wheat stem rust pathogen that is spreading from Africa to the breadbaskets of Asia
The project was funded by the U s. Department of agriculture and Borlaug Global Rust Initiative. The team's study Identification of Wheat Gene Sr35 that Confers Resistance to Ug99 Stem Rust Race Group appears in the journal Science.
It identifies the stem rust resistance gene named Sr35 and appears alongside a study from an Australian group that identifies another effective resistance gene called Sr33.
This gene Sr35 functions as a key component of plants'immune system Akhunov said. It recognizes the invading pathogen
Wheat stem rust is caused by a fungal pathogen. According to Akhunov since the 1950s wheat breeders have been able to develop wheat varieties that are largely resistant to this pathogen.
or three genes that were so efficient against stem rust for decades that this disease wasn't the biggest concern Akhunov said.
First they chemically mutagenized the resistant accession of wheat to identify plants that become susceptible to the stem rust pathogen.
and showed resistance to the Ug99 race of stem rust. Now that the resistance gene has been found Akhunov
what proteins are transferred by the fungus into the wheat plants and recognized by the protein encoded by the Sr35 gene.
because unlike their larger bodied relatives in other parts of the country that eat larger prey their diet consists of small mammals birds carrion insects fungi and other plant material.
because unlike their larger bodied relatives in other parts of the country that eat larger prey their diet consists of small mammals birds carrion insects fungi and other plant material.
Maloof and colleagues studied the domestic tomato Solanum lycopersicum and wild relatives S. pennellii S. habrochaites and S. pimpinellifolium.
The despised weed makes herbicide to kill neighboring plantscontrary to popular belief crabgrass does not thrive in lawns gardens and farm fields by simply crowding out other plants.
A new study in ACS'Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry has found that the much-despised weed actually produces its own herbicides that kill nearby plants.
but had a hard time proving that the weed thrived by allelopathy. From the Greek allelo-meaning other
Their larvae emerge the following spring and feast on the roots of newly planted corn.
Some of these sites (including Piper City Ill. are hot spots of rotation-resistance and others (in Nebraska and northwest Missouri for example) lack evidence of rotation-resistant rootworms.
and weed science at Virginia Tech said that William Hamilton a pioneer botanist who corresponded with William Bartram
During these timber salvage operations crews are building roads and moving a lot of soil and seed.
The older seed-producing trees were often found upwind from the sites of the recent ailanthus growth.
Ailanthus which is also calledchinese sumac or stinking sumac grows in 60 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties according to the researchers--nine more counties than reported in previous studies.
The research also suggests that the incidence of ailanthus in Pennsylvania's northern-tier counties where the tree has been historically absent will likely increase like previous ailanthus expansions in southern parts of the state.
#Flowers: Pistil leads pollen in life -and-death dancepollination essential to much of life on earth requires the explosive death of the male pollen tube in the female ovule.
In new research Brown University scientists describe the genetic and regulatory factors that compel the male's role in the process.
Finding a way to tweak that performance could expand crop crossbreeding possibilities. Millions of times on a spring day there is a dramatic biomolecular tango where the flower rather than adorning a dancer's teeth is the performer.
In this dance the female pistil leads the male pollen tubes follow and at the finish the tubes explode and die.
A new paper in Current Biology describes the genetically prescribed dance steps of the pollen tube
and how their expression destines the tube for self-sacrifice allowing flowering plants to reproduce. High school biology leaves off with this:
In normal pollination sperm-carrying pollen grains land on the pistil's tip or stigma and grow tubes down its style to reach the ovaries in the ovules at the pistil's base.
Once the tubes reach their destination they burst open and release their sperm to fertilize each of the two ovaries in every ovule.
Among the fundamental biology questions at play in the sex lives of flowers for example are how cells recognize each other know what to do
Last year for instance Johnson and his research group showed how for all the hundreds of pollen tubes that grow through the pistil each ovule receives exactly two fertile sperm.
The moves in the dance between the pollen and the pistil are a back -and-forth of signals as the pollen tube is growing.
It's quite a dynamic system that happens over the course of a few hours. Making the male listenin the new paper Johnson's group led by third-year graduate student Alexander Leydon sought to discover what convinces the male pollen tubes to stop growing
and burst when they reach the ovule. Scientists have begun to understand the female's commands
What they knew from a prior study is that the gene expression in pollen tubes that had grown through a pistil was much different than that of pollen tubes grown in the lab. Leydon's first step
or transcription factors were at work in pistil-grown pollen tubes but not in the lab-grown ones.
and found under the microscope that these transcription factors accumulated in the nuclei of the pollen tubes as they grew in the pistil.
Then he took the pollen from each to pollinate normal flowers. The pollen tubes from all three plants reliably made it to ovules
but in 70 percent of the ovules encountered by the triple mutants the pollen tubes didn't stop growing and then burst.
Instead they kept growing coiling and remaining intact. The pollen tube gets to the right place
which you'd think is the hardest part Johnson said. But once it gets there it's unable to hear the message from the female to stop growing and burst.
which pollen tube-expressed genes were being regulated by the MYB transcription factors. In pollen tubes that had grown through pistils they found 11 that were grossly underexpressed in the mutated pollen tubes compared to normal ones.
Finally they looked at what those genes do. They encode a variety of tasks but one in particular got Leydon's attention
In other words expressing that gene could be pushing the pollen tube's self-destruct mechanism. This is not just a dialogue
and determining whether thionin is indeed the pollen tube buster that the genes and their MYB-related expression seem to indicate.
but fertilization often fails at the pollen tube burst -and-release step. Among crop plants pollination means food.
because high-nutrient conditions promote the growth of cattail reeds and other wetland big boys that produce a lot of plant biomass and carbon Mitsch says.
How patterns on flowers help bees spot their first nectar-rich flowerbumblebees searching for nectar go for signposts on flowers rather than the bull's eye.
n and Catherine Plowright from the University of Ottawa in Canada shows that the markings at the center of a flower are not as important as the markings that will direct the bees to the center.
which visual stimuli do they use to identify that first flower that will provide them with the reward they are looking for?
versus pattern position in a group of bumblebees that have searched never for nectar before i e. flower-naive bees.
and video recordings the researchers exposed a total of over 500 flower-naive bees to two types of patterns on artificial clay flowers:
Radial patterns are composed of distinctly colored lines extending from the outside of the flower converging at the center where nectar
either central or peripheral on the corolla (or petals) of the flower. They found that both visual properties had significant effects on flower choice.
However when pitted against each other pattern type trumped position. Bees preferred radial patterns over concentric patterns.
It appears that the visual cues from the radial pattern guide the bees to the periphery of the flower.
Once there they will find the rewarding nectar in the center of the flower. The researchers conclude:
The behavior of bees has been shaped over the course of evolution as adaptations to flower appearance.
Flowers may be taking advantage of a principle that will be familiar to students and teachers alike:
The new species was collected in a wide river valley near mountain mixed forests dominated by various conifer trees bushes and rhododendron.
which have the extraordinary ability to feed on some poisonous plants the chemicals contained in which would definitely kill other insects.
They develop gastrointestinal and other symptoms from eating wheat barley rye and other grains that contain gluten-related proteins.
or glabrous canary seed which lacks the tiny hairs of the seed traditionally produced as food for caged birds.
which allowed the team to track the carbon levels by periodically taking leaf root and dead animal samples.
At the same time the grasses stored more carbon in their roots in a response to being disturbed at low levels
or break environmental collective actionssustainability programs are a Goldilocks proposition--some groups are too big some are too small
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Bacteriology colonies of leaf-cutter ants cultivate thriving communities of fungi
While these fungus gardens are a source of food and shelter for the ants for researchers they are potential models for better biofuel production.
We are interested in the whole fungus garden community because a lot of plant biomass goes in and is converted to energy for the ants says Frank Aylward a bacteriology graduate student and researcher with the Great lakes Bioenergy Research center.
and support from Roche Applied science's 10 Gigabase Grant Program to understand the unique roles of fungi and bacteria.
In addition to sequencing the genome of Leucoagaricus gongylophorous the fungus cultivated by leaf-cutting ants the researchers looked at the genomes of entire living garden communities.
In a symbiotic relationship L. gongylophorous provides food for the leaf-cutter ant Atta cephalotes by developing fruiting bodies rich in fats amino acids and other nutrients.
To fuel production of these fruiting bodies the fungus needs sugar which comes in the form of long cellulose molecules packed inside the leaf clippings the ants deliver.
To get at the sugars the fungus produces enzymes that break the cellulose apart into glucose subunits.
After sequencing the L. gongylophorous genome the researchers noticed that the fungus seemed to be doing the lion's share of cellulose degradation with its specialized enzymes.
However they also realized that it was by no means working alone: in fact the gardens are also home to a diversity of bacteria that may help boost the fungus's productivity.
We think there could potentially be a division of labor between the fungus and bacteria says Garret Suen co-author of the study and a UW-Madison assistant professor of bacteriology and Wisconsin Energy Institute researcher.
The researchers have a few leads in their investigation of the mysterious role of bacteria in leaf-cutter ant communities
In addition to providing nitrogen and key vitamins the bacteria appear to help the fungus access energy-rich cellulose by breaking apart other plant polymers that encase it such as hemicellulose.
Enzymes such as those of the leaf-cutting ants'fungus specialize in breaking down leaves but understanding how they work in the context of the ant community could help researchers create similar methods for processing cellulosic biofuel feedstocks such as corn stalks and grasses.
The researchers are discovering however that both the beauty and the challenge of the leaf-cutter ant garden lie in its complexity.
A peek into UW-Madison's resident colony in the Microbial Sciences Building reveals a metropolis of brown insects bustling around the pale pitted surface of the fungus garden many with leaf sections held aloft.
and a faster harvest time than other woody plant species that they evaluated said U of I associate professor of crop sciences Gary Kling.
It's typically been tough to break down the biomass in woody plants to make it useful for alcohol production.
As part of the initial study two-year old seedlings were planted in the spring of 2010 grown over the summers of 2010 and 2011
By coppicing the plants after a period of growth or cutting the plants back from a single stem just a few inches from the ground Kling explained that this process allows the plant to grow back with multiple stems coming from the base
It forces the plants to essentially grow up as shrubs with more frequent harvests. By planting much closer together and causing them to branch like that you are able to fill up available space intercept light more quickly
and put out new shoots in May. By the end of last season the plants were nearly equivalent to the first two years'growth he said.
This rapid growth is distinguished what the black locust from other woody plants in the study. We are now looking at harvesting every 2 years rather than every 3 to 5 years as we first assumed Kling explained.
In the first Kling said seedlings were ordered from 10 different commercial sources across 8 states.
The second experiment involved obtaining seed sources internationally through the USDA including seeds from Afghanistan Uzbekistan and Iran.
Seeds were taken also from the site of a remediated quarry area in Vermillion County where they found native black locust growing.
The seeds and seedlings for the two new evaluations were treated in greenhouses over the winter
and the other researchers will evaluate whether to coppice the plants at the end of 1 or 2 years.
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