Presumably the irreplaceable host of M. chomskyi are the beautiful flowers of the widespread Onagraceae or the so-called Evening-primrose family.
Unlike the other representatives of the family that chew leaves or flower petals many species of Megachile neatly cut circular pieces of leaves or petals for nest construction.
Nests of Megachile are constructed often within hollow twigs or other similarly constricted natural cavities but some species including members of the subgenus Megachiloides excavate burrows in the ground.
Despite their tiny brains bees are smart enough to pick out the most attractive flowers by watching other bees and learning from their behaviour.
By using simple logic they see which coloured flowers are the most popular and conclude that those of the same colour must also contain lots of energy-rich nectar.
Most worker bees visit thousands of flowers every day in their search for nectar to feed their queen's brood.
Copying flower colour choices may be a shortcut to success bypassing the exhausting process of exploring each flower to see
Bees were trained to know that sugar could be found on flowers where other foragers were present.
The bees then watched through a screen as their companions chose a particular flower colour
When later allowed to choose a flower colour alone the test bees copied their companions'choices.
if they knew that those bees were visiting bitter-tasting flowers. Instead the test bees actively avoided the flower colours that other bees chose.
The flowers were made bitter using quinine--a flavour used in tonic water which bees typically dislike.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Queen Mary University of London. Note:
Researchers are using UAVSAR's vegetation and cloud penetrating capabilities to search for unrecorded archaeological features in an attempt to preserve sensitive sites from encroaching civilization.
Her discoveries will be shared with seed companies so they can transfer the traits into their varieties.
Jaskot says the Green peas are exciting candidates to help astronomers understand a major milestone in the development of the cosmos 13 billion years ago.
It was authored co by civil engineering postdoctoral researchers Jeryang Park and Heather Gall and by Rao and Dev Niyogi Indiana state climatologist and an associate professor in the Purdue Department of Agronomy and the Department of Earth
Berkebile has uncovered many examples of other plant life the Puebloans might have used as a food source such as purslane pinyon nut juniper berries globemallow and even cactus.
Examples at MU 125 include purslane globemallow and chenopodium. -Gathered wild resources: These are also Southwestern plants that predated maize
Examples at MU 125 include pinyon nut juniper berries and cactus. -Domesticated resources: These are brought plants to the Southwest by humans
Metals in flowers may play role in bumblebee declinebeekeepers and researchers nationally are reporting growing evidence that a powerful new class of pesticides may be killing off bumblebees.
and nickel found in flowers growing in soil that has been contaminated by exhaust from vehicles industrial machinery and farming equipment.
but can do so only after they visit a contaminated flower. Therefore the insects are exposed to toxins before they even sense the presence of metals.
Ashman and George Meindl coauthor of the study and a Phd candidate in Ashman's lab studied bumblebee behavior using the Impatiens capensis a North american flower that blooms in summer.
Its flowers are large producing a high volume of sugar-rich nectar each day--an ideal place for bumblebees to forage.
The blooms were collected from the field each morning of the two-week study and were of a similar age color and size.
and aluminum in the flowers'nectar influenced bumblebee behavior Ashman and Meindl used two groups of uncontaminated flowers one group of flowers contaminated by nickel and another contaminated by aluminum.
When a bumblebee visited a flower in an array the entire visitation was recorded as well as the time spent (in seconds) foraging on each individual flower.
This included monitoring whether the bee moved from a contaminated to a noncontaminated flower whether the bee moved to the same group it had sampled just or whether the bee left the flower group without visiting other individual blooms.
Following each observed visit all flowers in the array were replaced with new flowers to ensure accurate results.
We found that the bees still visited those flowers contaminated by metal indicating that they can't detect metal from afar said Ashman.
However once bumblebees arrive at flowers and sample the nectar they are able to discriminate against certain metals.
In the study the bees were able to taste discriminate against and leave flowers containing nickel.
However this was not the case for the aluminum-treated flowers as the bees foraged on the contaminated flowers for time periods equal to those of the noncontaminated flowers.
It's unclear why the bees didn't sense the aluminum said Meindl. However past studies show that the concentrations of aluminum found throughout blooms tend to be higher than concentrations of nickel.
This suggests that the bees may be more tolerant or immune to its presence. These results also have implications for environmentally friendly efforts to decontaminate soil in particular a method called phytoremediation--a promising approach that involves growing metal-accumulating plants on polluted soil to remove such contaminates.
Ashman says this approach should be considered with caution because the bees observed in the study foraged on metal-rich flowers.
She states that further research is needed to identify plants that are ecologically safe and won't pose threats to local animals that pollinate.
Funding was provided by the Carnegie Museum of Natural history's Powdermill Nature Reserve in Rector Pa. a Botany-In-Action Fellowship from the Phipps Botanical garden and Conservatory in Pittsburgh an Ivey Mcmanus Predoctoral Fellowship
The little crustacean grazers some resembling tiny shrimp are critical in protecting seagrasses from overgrowth by algae helping keep these aquatic havens healthy for native
The researchers found that these plant-eating animals feast on the nuisance algae that grow on seagrass ultimately helping maintain the seagrass that provides nurseries for seafood.
Drifting seaweed usually thought of as a nuisance also plays a part in this process providing an important habitat for the grazing animals that keep the seagrass clean.
In seagrass systems tiny grazers promote healthy seagrasses by ensuring algae is consumed quickly rather than overgrowing the seagrass.
And by providing additional refuge from predators fleshy seaweeds that drift in and out of seagrass beds can maintain larger grazer populations
and enhance their positive impact on seagrass. USGS scientist Jim Grace a study coauthor emphasized that seagrass habitats are also quite beneficial to people.
Not only do these areas serve as nurseries for commercially important fish and shellfish such as blue crabs red drum and some Pacific rockfish but they also help clean our water
These tiny animals by going about their daily business of grazing are integral to keeping healthy seagrass beds healthy.
In fact the authors wrote if not for the algal munching of these grazers algae could blanket the seagrasses blocking out sunlight
which would ultimately kill the seagrasses. Seagrass declines in some areas are attributed partly to excessive nutrients in water bodies stimulating excessive algal growth on seagrasses.
Coastal managers have been concerned for years about excess fertilizer and sediment loads that hurt seagrasses said J. Emmett Duffy of Virginia Institute of Marine Science and coauthor of the study.
Our results provide convincing field evidence that grazing by small animals can be just as important as good water quality in preventing nuisance algae blooms and keeping seagrass beds healthy.
The USGS scientists involved in this study serve as members of a worldwide consortium of researchers examining the health of seagrasses.
This research by Virginia Institute of Marine Science and USGS researchers is the first in a series of studies worldwide on seagrass ecosystems.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by United states Geological Survey. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
In places where trees and shrubs have encroached into native grassland soil carbon increased 31 percent after several decades according to the study.
and death of roots and their associated fungi he said. The study involved a reexamination of 46 research papers published between 1957 and 2010 as well as an analysis of 409 soil profiles from the National Soil Carbon Network database.
Corn and cotton have been modified genetically to produce pest-killing proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt for short.
As reported in the study the pyramid strategy has been adopted extensively with two-toxin Bt cotton completely replacing one-toxin Bt cotton
We tested the underlying assumptions of the models in lab experiments with a major pest of corn and cotton.
For their experiments the group collected cotton bollworm--also known as corn earworm or Helicoverpa zea-a species of moth that is a major agricultural pest and selected it for resistance against one of the Bt toxins Cry1ac.
As expected the resistant caterpillars survived after munching on cotton plants producing only that toxin. The surprise came
when Carriã re's team put them on pyramided Bt cotton containing Cry2ab in addition to Cry1ac.
and may also explain the reports indicating some field populations of cotton bollworm rapidly evolved resistance to both toxins.
because they use the long stalks for roofing thatch and other applications. However where millet is cultivated intensively dwarf millet allows farmers to harvest the grain with mechanical threshers.
Ranchers like dwarf millet as a forage plant because it has a high leaf-to-stem ratio Devos said.
and grow to maturity under high temperatures said the study's lead author Kent Bradford a professor of plant sciences and director of the UC Davis Seed Biotechnology Center.
And because this mechanism that inhibits hot-weather germination in lettuce seeds appears to be quite common in many plant species we suspect that other crops also could be modified to improve their germination he said.
Most lettuce varieties flower in spring or early summer and then drop their seeds--a trait that is likely linked to their origin in the Mediterranean region
Scientists have observed for years that a built-in dormancy mechanism seems to prevent lettuce seeds from germinating under conditions that would be too hot and dry to sustain growth.
In the California and Arizona lettuce industries lettuce seeds are planted somewhere every day of the year--even in September in the Imperial Valley of California
or priming the seeds to germinate by presoaking them at cool temperatures and redrying them before planting--methods that are expensive and not always successful.
In the new study researchers turned to lettuce genetics to better understand the temperature-related mechanisms governing seed germination.
They identified a region of chromosome six in a wild ancestor of commercial lettuce varieties that enables seeds to germinate in warm temperatures.
Further genetic mapping studies zeroed in on a specific gene that governs production of a plant hormone called abscisic acid--known to inhibit seed germination.
when the seed is exposed to moisture at warm temperatures increasing production of abscisic acid. In the wild ancestor that the researchers were studying
and the seeds can still germinate. The researchers then demonstrated that they could either silence or mutate the germination-inhibiting gene in cultivated lettuce varieties
and acting as a vital part of the life cycle of many plant species through their role as seed dispersers.
In addition to Kern Gilbert and Hossain other scientists involved in the research include Kalpesh Patel Soma Ghosh and Anil Bhunia from Johns Hopkins. Story Source:
or federal noxious weed lists are regulated and those lists are biased often toward species that affect agricultural crops.
Quinn said that a more transparent listing process would be based on a scientific process developed by the USDA known as the weed risk assessment.
unless it's on the noxious weed list said U of I professor of agricultural law A. Bryan Endres.
For economic reasons the horticultural industry has a strong incentive to keep these new plants off of the noxious weed list
Quinn first noticed the discrepancies in the regulated noxious weed lists and the nonregulated invasive plant lists
For some really problematic plants like yellow star thistle landowners are required not to do anything. It made no sense to
In comparing the lists from all 50 states the researchers found that Montana has a noxious weeds law that is well enforced.
If a noxious weed is found on private property it's the responsibility of the landowner to eradicate it Quinn said.
They don't want individuals to be able to go to their local weed commissioner and complain'my neighbor is going to plant Miscanthus
'and it gets added to the state's noxious weed list. That's not a good way to do business and to develop a new industrial model.
During their research and development phase they would petition the invasive species council to do the weed risk assessment on the plant that they're proposing.
The current cultivars that are being sold for production are sterile but new hybrids that are being developed are fertile so Quinn said there could be the potential for confusion.
and we have another kudzu on our hands Endres said. Quinn who is a postdoctoral research associate at the Energy Biosciences Institute at the University of Illinois conducted the research along with James Mccubbins and A. Bryan Endres both U of
I attorneys who specialize in agricultural law and Jacob Barney a weed scientist at Virginia Tech.
and analyzed two ancestral wheat genomes of Triticum urartu and Aegilops tauschii respectively throwing light on the biology of the world's primary staple crop
and providing valuable new resource for the genetic improvement of wheat. Wheat is a globally important crop due to its enhanced adaptability to a wide range of climates and improved grain quality for the production of baker's flour.
In corn however Hollick's lab had discovered previously that the absence of Pol IV creates clear problems in the plants such as growing seeds in the tassel.
Since we knew the misplaced tassel-seed trait was due to misexpression of a gene we hypothesized that this pigment trait might be due to a pigment regulator being expressed in a tissue where it normally is expressed never.
Boal said prairie chickens for example are not very likely to use cotton fields to nest in or for lekking (places where males aggregate to try to attract females to mate with).
The survey revealed that more than 80%of people in these areas use wetland resources including collecting water catching fish hunting bush meat (Sitatunga a type of antelope
One gene we're interested in is the so-called evergreen locus in peaches which extends the growing season said Daniel Rokhsar DOE JGI Eukaryotic Program head under
Among these adjustments scientists highlight the possibility of reusing leftover organic pulp (the glycerol and protein pulp that is not converted into biodiesel)
Though similar studies have been done on other alga species dinoflagellate microalgae have shown themselves to be a very promising group that stands out from the rest.
and bioethanol (obtained from monoculture of palm oil sugar cane maize etc.)have presented problems that make them less attractive.
So it's possible that the displacement of A. picea may affect the spread of seeds produced by early spring ephemerals said Warren. By comparing data collected in 1974 to current data Warren
. Because A. picea break dormancy at cooler temperatures than A. rudis they become active earlier in the spring when certain forest ephemerals such as Erythronium americanum (trout lilies) bloom.
The absence of A. picea may affect the spread of seeds produced by early-flowering woodland plants.
Acidic soils dissolve aluminum from clays in the soil making it toxic to plant roots in half the world's arable lands.
and locks up aluminum thereby preventing it from harming roots. We found three functional copies that were said identical senior author Leon Kochian director of the U s. Department of agriculture--Agriculture Research Service Plant Soil and Nutrition Laboratory at Cornell.
and aluminum-sensitive plants she found a similar MATE1 allele (version of a gene) in both types of plants.
The decline in the number of primates causes a reduction in the dispersal of seed by the primates and this leads to a reduction in the numbers of important fruit trees and changes to the rainforest.
Both apes and small monkeys play an important role in seed dispersal in the rainforest as they feed on a variety of different fruits.
as a result of hunting their seed spreading role also declines. If fewer fruit seeds are spread fewer fruit trees will grow in the forests.
Instead species with wind-dispersed seeds will most likely take over. Ola Olsson stressed that the present study does not give any definite answers to how the composition of the forests could change
but in his view there could well be an increase in bushes and lianas. This would also have negative consequences for the local population.
Many of the trees which have seeds that are dispersed by primates are also important to people
battery electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf; hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles such as the Mercedes F-Cell scheduled to be introduced about 2014;
Unchecked the pest burrows into potato roots to feed obstructing nutrients and causing stunted growth wilted leaves and other symptoms that can eventually kill the plant.
Severe infestations can cause tuber yield losses of up to 80 percent. Now however U s. Department of agriculture (USDA) and cooperating scientists are evaluating new ways to control G. pallida using naturally occurring chemicals called egg-hatching factors.
According to lead scientist Roy Navarre with USDA's Agricultural research service (ARS) the egg-hatching factors are exuded actually chemicals from the roots of potato and certain other solanaceous plants into surrounding soil.
and planting sticky nightshade as a trap crop whose roots exude the chemicals but don't support the nematode's reproduction.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by United states Department of agriculture-Research Education and Economics.
#Scientists map genome of fungus that causes Dutch elm diseaseresearchers from the University of Toronto and Sickkids Research Institute announced today that they have mapped successfully the genes in the fungus that causes Dutch elm disease.
The researchers believe this is the first time the 30 million DNA letters for the fungus Ophiostoma ulmi have been mapped.
The findings published in this week's online journal BMC Genomics could help scientists figure out how to prevent the fungus from destroying elm trees in the future.
Essentially Dutch elm disease is caused by a fungus that prevents the normal distribution of nutrients in the tree by blocking the flow of sap said Alan Moses an Assistant professor with the University of Toronto's department of Cell & Systems Biology one of the authors of the study.
The tree wilts and eventually dies. Relatively little is known about the fungus that causes Dutch elm disease
and it's a very distant relative of the fungi that are studied more often by researchers like bread mould or beer yeast.
We hope that the availability of the genome will encourage and speedup research on this fungus--it's only a matter of time before most the elm trees are gone.
Dutch elm disease is believed to have originated in The himalayas travelling to Europe from the Dutch east indies in the late 1800s.
#Social bees mark dangerous flowers with chemical signalsscientists already knew that some social bee species warn their conspecifics
Researchers at the University of Tours (France) in collaboration with the Experimental Station of Arid Zones of Almeria (Spain) have demonstrated now that they also use chemical signals to mark those flowers where they have previously been attacked.
whether bees are capable of using evasive chemical signals to mark those flowers where they have previously been attacked.
Evasive alarm pheromones provoke an escape response in insects that visit a particular flower and until now we were not sure of the role that these pheromones played in social bees.
Our results indicate that unlike solitary bees social bees use this type of alert system on flowers to warn their conspecifics of the presence of a nearby predator as explained by Ana L. Llandres from the University of Tours
Solitary bees responded similarly in the case of flowers that had been attacked by control predators and control flowers.
Despite approaching both types of flower the probability of landing on control flowers was much higher.
The scientists also detected that the probability of social bees rejecting flowers was much greater
More accurate, sensitive DNA test allows early identification of fungus causing white nose syndromeeven after researchers studying White Nose Syndrome (WNS) established that a fungus called Geomyces destructans is at the heart
Additionally this opens the door to examine the use of gene silencing as a control mechanism for this devastating fungus.
and guides us to controlling this fungus is needed critically. Daniel Lindner a research plant pathologist with the Forest Service's Northern Research Station led research that identified 35 species of Geomyces more than doubling the number of known species. Lindner
Developing a specific test for this fungus was difficult because we found that every sample from bats
and caves contained a huge diversity of unidentified unnamed fungi and these were interfering with detection.
Conclusively identifying the fungus either on a bat or in soil has been difficult and time consuming
Previous tests also lacked sensitivity making it possible to miss the fungus in some samples.
and can detect a single spore of the fungus. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by USDA Forest Service-Northern Research Station.
#Whole genome sequencing of wild rice reveals the mechanisms underlying oryza genome evolutionin a collaborative study published online March 13 in Nature Communications researchers from Institute of Genetics
and Developmental Biology Chinese Academy of Sciences BGI-Shenzhen and University of Arizona have completed the genome sequencing of wild rice Oryza brachyantha.
This work provides new insights for researchers to understand the function and evolution of Oryza genomes.
The Genus oryza is an idea model system for studying plant comparative genomics evolutionary biology and functional biology.
It was also proved to have the most compact genome in the Genus oryza suggesting the genome may not experience many changes after the divergence of Oryza species. In this study researchers generated a high-quality reference genome sequence of O. brachyantha (261mb)
and tandem duplications further expanded by transposable element insertions contributed to transition from euchromatin to heterochromatin in the rice genome reflecting the dynamic nature of the Oryza genomes.
Quanfei Huang Project Manager from BGI said This work revealed many important genomic mechanisms underlying Oryza genome such as the genome size variation gene movement and transition of euchromatin
In the near future I believe there will be more genomes of Oryza species to be cracked enabling the Genus oryza be unparalleled an system for functional and evolutionary studies in plants.
and production has the potential to be 20 times more efficient than making ethanol from corn and sugar cane.
Allen said cows stood for longer bouts of time as their core body temperatures rose from 101 degrees Fahrenheit to above 102 degrees.
#Fungi may be able to replace plastics one dayfungi with the exception of shitake and certain other mushrooms tend to be something we associate with moldy bread or dank-smelling mildew.
But they really deserve more respect. Fungi have fantastic capabilities and can be grown under certain circumstances in almost any shape
and be totally biodegradable. And if this weren't enough they might have the potential to replace plastics one day.
Union College Biology Professor Steve Horton likens this mostly underground portion of fungi (the mushrooms that pop up are the reproductive structures) to a tiny biological chain of tubular cells.
and the fungus is able to grow as a result. When you think of fungi and their mycelia their function--ecologically--is really vital in degrading and breaking things down Horton added.
Without fungi and bacteria we'd be I don't know how many meters deep in waste both plant matter and animal tissue.
Looking something like extremely delicate white dental floss mycelia grow in through and around just about any organic substrate.
Ecovative uses several species of fungi to manufacture environmentally-friendly products. The process starts with farming byproducts like cotton gin waste;
hemp or other plant materials. These are sterilized mixed with nutrients and chilled. Then the mycelia spawn are added
Mycelium is comparatively inexpensive too as it can grow on farm waste that can't be fed to animals
Better yet the fungi can be propagated without sunlight or much human oversight in simple trays at room temperature--no immense greenhouses with costly temperature-control systems needed.
In Horton's lab he and his students are tinkering with a species of fungus Ecovative uses in its manufacturing.
if we can make versions of the fungus to suit certain applications the company has in mind Horton said.
and indirectly increase the growth rate of Douglas-fir seedlings replanted after harvest. The findings which are among the first to speak to the benefits of second-growth logging debris are published online in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.
At levels typically left after forest harvesting where 40 percent of the ground is covered by logging debris we found that debris inhibited the growth of competing herbaceous vegetation
The findings are based on a study of seedling development under three levels of logging debris--0 40 and 80 percent cover--at two sites in Washington
Harrington and his colleagues expanded on previous research on logging debris effects by increasing the number of seedlings studied extending the study period to four years and looking at the responses of additional variables like vegetation abundance
and seedling water potential. In addition to having a vegetation control effect the retained woody debris helped promote Douglas-fir seedling growth by reducing evaporation;
slowing decomposition and allowing soil carbon and other nutrients to accumulate; and inhibiting the invasion of aggressive nonnative species including Scotch broom and hairy cat's ear.
These responses occurred where no herbicide treatments were applied. However where the use of herbicides to control competing vegetation was combined with logging debris seedling growth rates were observed the highest in the study especially where debris cover was 80 percent.
Industrial forest managers and private landowners in Washington and Oregon are already using early results of the study to prevent Scotch broom invasions Harrington said.
But these new findings suggest that long-term forest productivity will benefit from debris retention indicating much broader applicability of the research Harrington said.
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