#An innovative way to increase flower, seed and fruit productiona scientist from UPM has developed a method to enhance crop yield by the contact of roots aerial parts or even the substratum of the plant fungus'Colletotrichum tofieldiae'.
or weight of its seeds fruits and flower. Â This discovery has been protected by patent and its implementation could lead to cost savings
Within the agriculture sector the Colletotrichum fungi are well known because they have a large amount of crop pathogen.
Researchers have found that by applying a composition that contains Colletotrichum tofieldiae a non-pathogenic fungus for the Arabidopsis thaliana model plant this plant can produce bigger seeds without substantially affecting its vegetative growth.
This method was patented (P201331839-A method to increase the production of flower seed and fruit of plants:
e g. caterpillars) consume more nonnative (introduced from other places) oak leaf material in areas with diverse native plant communities than in less diverse communities.
The researchers examined herbivore damage on leaves of nonnative oak trees in arboreta across the United states. They found that nonnative oaks in regions with high oak species diversity showed more leaf damage than those in regions with low diversity.
While native oaks still suffered more leaf damage than nonnative oaks overall in the absence of native oaks nonnative oaks showed even less leaf damage.
or a meadow most people would probably begin with the plants the species diversity or the color of the foliage.
Among land-use types researchers also found sugarcane in the soils of the Everglades Agricultural area near Lake Okeechobee and wetlands stored the most soil carbon
The study thought to be the first to assess these compounds in apple cultivars grown in the Pacific Northwest appears in October's print edition of the journal Food Chemistry.
Now scientists have discovered that plants may package their commensal bacteria inside of seeds; thus ensuring that sprouting plants are colonized from the beginning.
Most of these bacteria are symbiotic drawing from and providing for the plant in ways such as nitrogen-fixing and leaf-protection.
whether commensal bacteria could be found in various plant sources including seed supplies said Dr. Lee.
and grow a bacterium that was packaged inside a seed was quite surprising. The researchers first sterilized and tested the outer portion of a sealed whole seed.
When that was determined to be sampled sterile they and plated the interior of the seeds and placed them in bacterial agar
which they incubated. What they found was the new strain of Bacillus pumilus a unique highly motile Gram-positive bacterium capable of colonizing the mung bean plant without causing any harm.
The finding that plant seeds can be colonized pre may be an important mechanism by which a beneficial plant microbiome is established and sustained.
Instead weather and topography play a greater role in the ecological severity of fires than these bark-boring beetles.
Forests attacked by bark beetles --which burrow into the bark of lodgepole pines to mate and incubate their larvae--can seem nothing more than ample kindling for a raging blaze with their dead wood and dry reddish-brown needles.
The burrows the beetles carve under the bark of pines called galleries choke off water and nutrient circulation in the trees.
The trees die and for the first couple of years they hold on to their dry lifeless needles.
By year three most beetle-attacked trees have entered the gray stage dropping their once green pine foliage becoming needleless wood carcasses.
and stripped sections of bark from over 10000 trees to determine what killed them beetles
or Fire beetle galleries can remain visible under the bark even after fire. As they sifted through the blackened trees
and windy--did areas with more beetle-killed trees show signs of more ecologically severe fires such as more deeply burned trunks
Lodgepole pines are adapted to fire containing two types of seed-carrying cones: those that release seeds as soon as they mature
By counting the number of post-fire tree seedlings in their plots the researchers found very little beetle-related impact.
Tree seedlings were most numerous where more of the fire-killed trees bore the fire-adapted or serotinous cones.
Beetle-killed trees likely contributed to post-fire seedling establishment too as their seeds remain viable in cones
Only high-reaching char from tall flames reduced the number of seed-spreading cones. The scientists emphasize the results may differ in other forest types or with different lengths of time between beetle outbreaks and fire.
which are trapped inside truffle fruiting bodies. White truffles from the Piedmont region in Italy can reach 5000 Euro per kilogram and black truffles from the PÃ rigord region in Southern France as much as 2000 Euro per kilogram.
therefore a model organism to investigate how symbiosis evolved between plants and fungi. Truffles are also useful to study fungal smell and flavour.
Yeasts and bacteria which make cheese and wine have been researched in depth but little is known about how the flavour of other organisms including truffles is created.
Over the past 10 years researchers already suspected that microorganisms trapped inside truffle fruiting bodies contributed to the flavour.
When the genome of the black Perigord truffle was mapped in 2010 we thought that the fungus had sufficient genes to create its flavour on its own junior professor Richard Splivallo from the Institute for Molecular Life sciences at the Goethe University explained.
and French scientists studied the white truffle Tuber borchii. It is native to Europe but has been introduced recently in New zealand and Argentina.
because the compounds we investigated are only found in the white truffle Tuber borchii. For this reason in the future they plan to study compounds which are found in the PÃ rigord
We are interested also in how the symbiosis between fungi and microorganisms has evolved and how this benefits both symbiotic partners.
and the flowering plants visited by the bees at a large number of sites across southern Norfolk including both urban and rural sites over a three month period.
Additionally the Tree Bumblebee preferred to forage on a set of flowering plants different to the sets of plants favoured by the other bumblebee species being more likely to use some species of flowering trees
and thistles but less likely to use some common herbaceous flowers. The results are the first evidence that in its new range in the UK the Tree Bumblebee is associated with built-up areas such as towns and villages and that these areas form a large part of its habitat use.
alfalfa canola corn cotton soybean and sugar beet. Food-producing animals such as cows pigs goats chickens
and monitoring trees researchers describe the relatedness of trees track flower and seed production collect insects survey mammals quantify carbon stocks
and flows within the ecosystem take soil samples and measure climate variables like rainfall and temperature.
Phragmites australis or the common reed is a rapid colonizer that has overrun many coastal wetlands from New england to the Southeast.
A nonnative perennial it can form dense stands of grass up to 10 feet high that block valuable shoreline views of the water kill off native grasses
Land managers traditionally have used chemical herbicides to slow phragmites'spread but with only limited and temporary success. Now field experiments by researchers at Duke
or other livestock in severely affected marshes can reduce the stem density of phragmites cover by about half in around three weeks said Brian R. Silliman lead author of the new study and Rachel Carson associate professor of marine conservation
and his colleagues found that a pair of the hungry herbivores could reduce phragmites cover from 94 percent to 21 percent on average by the end of the study.
and bulldozers to remove its roots. More often than not however it returns. In this study we show that sustainable low-cost rotational livestock grazing can suppress the unwanted tall grass
Silliman said the re-emergence of native marsh plants could happen even faster and be sustained more
if managers combine grazing with the selective use of herbicides to eradicate any remaining phragmites
and recently has been tested successfully on small patches of heavily phragmites-invaded marshes in New york he notes.
and Walter Dodds university distinguished professor of biology are researching grassland streams and the expansion of nearby woody vegetation such as trees and shrubs.
They have found that burn intervals may predict the rate of woody vegetation expansion along streams.
Their latest research appears in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE in an article Fire and Grazing Influences on Rates of Riparian Woody plant Expansion along Grassland Streams.
and woody plants are expanding and converting grasslands into forest ecosystems. This change in environment can affect stream hydrology
In their latest research the biologists studied 25 years of aerial photography on Konza and observed the expansion of trees and shrubs in riparian areas
and the historical presence of woody vegetation. Their analysis revealed an important finding: Burn intervals predicted the rate of woody vegetation expansion.
Burning every one to two years slowed the growth of trees and shrubs Veach said.
Although we can reduce woody expansion by burning more frequently we can't prevent it from occurring over time Veach said.
Woody plant encroachment may not be prevented by fire alone. The research shows the importance of burning to maintain the tallgrass prairie Dodds said.
and shrubs additional actions are need to maintain quickly disappearing grassland ecosystems. It's clear from this research that
Dodds and Veach also found that bison do not significantly affect woody vegetation expansion along streams.
and shrubs Veach said. Woody vegetation also may be expanding in grasslands because of more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere Dodds said.
Grasses and trees compete for carbon dioxide and grasses are much better at conserving water and efficiently using carbon dioxide.
or differences in climate change may allow woody plant species to competitively take over grasslands. The biologists plan to continue studying water quality
and can feed on plant tissues containing toxins or deterrents without the expected negative effects. Insects overcome plant defenses by the rapid excretion sequestration
Like all cereals and other members of the grass family maize plants defend themselves with chemistry.
which was derived from Texas mesquite wood was prepared to exacting standards in the lab of Rice geochemist Caroline Masiello a study co-author to ensure comparable results across soil types.
when the city of Houston called for ideas about how to get rid of an estimated 5. 6 million cubic yards of fallen trees broken branches
and dead greenery left behind by the storm. The Rice Biochar Group won the $10000 grand prize in the city's Recycle Ike contest
#Flying doctor bees to prevent cherry diseaseuniversity of Adelaide researchers are introducing a method to use bees to deliver disease control to cherry blossom preventing brown rot in cherries.
Brown rot is caused by a fungus which significantly impacts the $150 million Australian cherry industry through costs of applying fungicide yield loss
Instead of spraying fungicide we're using bees to deliver a biological control agent right to the flowers where it is needed.
The biological control agent contains spores of a parasitic fungus that prevents another fungus that causes the brown rot from colonising the flower.
Every morning the cherry grower sprinkles the spores into a specially designed dispenser that has been fitted in front of the hive.
The bees pick up the spores between their body hairs and bring them to the flowers.
The'flying doctors'technology is used successfully in Europe to control strawberry grey mould but it's the first time for Australia
and stone fruit. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Adelaide. Note:
and precipitation are the main factors influencing the local adaptation of sheep by their indirect effects on the amount of grasses and vegetation available.
For example in the face of globally changing climates that may favor more woody vegetation at the expense of grasses the finding are useful for identifying particular breeds
i e. have increased feed efficiency on novel vegetation communities. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Molecular biology and Evolution (Oxford university Press.
In his trunk a luggage-sized air-sampling instrument sniffs the outside air through a small tube to measure the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane.
The instrument in the trunk quickly detects a large plume of methane emanating from the landfill.
The scientists were careful to find a gradient of temperature change where potentially confounding factors were held constant including vegetation composition disturbance history geology and soil type and moisture.
but also for biofuels production since the same sugars can be fed to yeast to generate ethanol and other liquid fuels.
because it was isolated first as a volatile produced by jasmine Kolomiets said. Jasmonic acid one of perhaps 600 oxylipin molecules identified in plants is known to have diverse functions.
Another volatile group derived from fatty acid is known as the green leaf volatiles. To test how it functions in plant during insect attacks Kolomiets
and his team used a mutant corn plant that could not produce the green leaf volatiles mown-grass smell when cut or torn.
And thatâ##s when they observed that the parasitic wasps didnâ##t pay attention to plants without the green leaf volatile. â#oethere are actually two roles for this moleculeâ#he said. â#oefirst it activates the jasmonate hormone
when an insect chews on the leaf. So this volatile is required to attract parasitoids. We have provided genetic evidence that green leafy volatiles have this dual function â#in the plant they activate production of insecticidal compounds
when they lack the green leaf volatiles. â#Kolomiets hopes to continue the research by testing the impact of the presence of jasmonates and green leaf
By modifying the gene expressions responsible for the branch growth during the first year of woody species researchers of the Centre for Plant Biotechnology
However some lateral buds sprout during the same season such as poplar trees other salicaceae species and many tropical species. This way a syleptic branching can increase de amount of branches leaf
and the corn stalks were bending almost double. From the perspective of an animal living in the corn we thought'That's got to have a big effect.'
Looking at both lines he identified 33 proteins that are expressed differentially in the tolerant cultivar.
and compare those results with the list of differentially expressed proteins from the Korean cultivars.
#Seeding plant diversity for future generationsoxford researchers have constructed a'hit list'of the plant species most needed to boost the overall diversity of the Millennium Seed Bank
which is storing seeds in its vaults for future generations. The Millennium Seed Bank dries freezes stores
and maintains seeds for future generations to enjoy and use. It aims to save seeds from all the wild plant species of the world
and so far since its founding in 2000 it has banked 14%of them. Scientists from the University of Oxford and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew which manages the Millennium Seed Bank have shown how by using advanced mathematics they can boost the overall diversity of the seed bank by targeting a'hit list'of particular species
. Their paper also includes maps showing where the species are located so they can be gathered efficiently.
The findings are published in the journal Conservation Biology. The research team constructed a new evolutionary tree of a major family of wild plant species taking the distance between species as a proxy for plant trait diversity.
They calculate that by adding just 10 more carefully chosen species the overall diversity of plant species in the seed bank would be boosted by 10%.
%Furthermore the researchers say that by adding a particular 177 species to the bank the seed vaults would contain almost the entire diversity of the family worldwide (95%.
%More than 150 organisations in 80 countries are involved currently in collecting seeds from wild species. In their study the team from Oxford
if seed priority is determined only by whether they are endangered of economic value or endemic (otherwise known as the 3e approach) this would make the collection significantly less diverse than it could be.
Happily making sure a few carefully chosen species from the'hit list'are collected will keep the diversity of the seed bank high into the future.
The researchers assessed the existing collection of the Millennium Seed Bank by focusing on the legume family.
and beans peanuts clover and lupins--to see how it was represented in the seed bank.
However using the evolutionary tree they found that as the seed bank collection grew in the future
So as the Millennium Seed Bank gets more and more of these conservation priority species the overall diversity of the collection doesn't go up very much.'
you can get more diversity at the cost of getting fewer conservation priority species.'Tim Pearce international coordinator at the Millennium Seed Bank and an author on the study concluded:'
'With the race against time to secure seed before it's gone forever this insight into how best to capture maximum diversity gives us the opportunity to really focus on where in the world we need to target our seed-collecting programmes.'
'John Dickie head of botanical information at the Millennium Seed Bank added:''For a number of years we have been keen to know just how much phylogenetic diversity the total outcome of millions of years of seed plant evolution we have in the vault.
Thanks to this study we not only have a sound estimate of the effectiveness of our current collecting strategy in capturing legume phylogenetic diversity;
into the roots to control the number of bacteria-holding nodules in the roots. This collaborative study was conducted by researchers from the National Institute for Basic Biology the Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI) and the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science in Japan.
Legumes an important plant family which includes lentils soybeans and peanuts have the ability to prosper in nitrogen-poor soil environments thanks to an ingenious adaptation:
they develop a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria called rhizobia allowing the bacteria to infect them within special structures known as nodules that are located along their roots.
and that somehow the leaves transmit the information to the roots using an unknown chemical mechanism to signal that the plant should develop
The upward signal from root to shoot is known to be done by peptides called CLE-RS1
In this research published in Nature Communications the group demonstrates using the model legume Lotus japonicus that the downward signaling is performed actually by a cytokinin--though the exact molecule remains to be identified
--which is passed into the roots through a network of tissues called the phloem. Cytokinins are known important plant hormones to regulate many aspects of plant growth
Then rhizobial infection of the roots triggers the production of certain peptides in the roots
and the perception of this signal by the receptor kinase HAR1 in shoots it is presumed induces the production of an unidentified shoot-derived inhibitor that translocates to the roots and blocks further nodule development.
and development and opens the road to identifying the exact cytokinin involved in downward signaling in the Lotus japonicus.
Now our study with Lotus japonicus has given us the first convincing evidence of a shoot-to-root signal function of cytokinin.
Subsequent infilling was caused by vegetation growth channel narrowing increased sinuosity and vertical accumulation of sediments.
Friedman and colleagues write that strongly depositional sediment transport interacted with floodplain shrubs to produce a characteristic narrow trapezoidal channel.
and filling but not of arroyo incision channel narrowing or floodplain vegetation development. Friedman and colleagues conclude that the occurrence of upstream progression within large basins like the Rio Puerco makes precise synchrony across basins impossible.
Along the west coast of North america winds lift deep nutrient-rich water into sunlit surface layers fueling vast phytoplankton blooms that ultimately support fish seabirds and marine mammals.
#Fall foliage season may be later, but longer on warmer Earththe fall foliage season that prompts millions of Americans to undertake jaunts into the countryside each year could come much later
and possibly last a little longer within a century according to new research. Climate change could postpone fall leaf peeping in some areas of the United states as summer temperatures linger later into the year Princeton university researchers report in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography.
For instance the paper birch--a popular foliage tree that is the state tree of New hampshire--could change color one to three weeks later by the end of the century the researchers found.
Although some trees will be less susceptible to the ongoing heat than the paper birch the more southern the region the more likely there is to be a greater overall delay in leaf coloration the researchers found.
Trees need daily temperatures to be low enough and daylight hours to be short enough to produce the vivid vistas of fall explained senior author David Medvigy an assistant professor of geosciences and associated faculty member at the Princeton Environmental Institute.
not only be used to predict the timing of leaf coloration but that the influence of these factors depends on the individual tree species and the specific geographic area.
Aside from fall foliage and its economic importance to many areas the research has broad implications for predicting growing seasons agricultural productivity
Mark D. Schwartz a distinguished professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee explained that fall leaf coloration marks the end of the growing season in temperate climates
and light level--for determining leaf coloration that still allow for regional differences Schwartz said. When you get at the growing season you can relate this to a huge number of things.
They collected data on leaf-change dates for several tree species both in Alaska using the USA National Phenology Network a free online database of seasonal-change observations recorded by scientists
The researchers also found that the timing of leaf change is more sensitive to temperature in warmer areas than in colder regions.
Alaska's foliage season is in September and is unlikely to change in the next 100 years.
But Massachusetts'foliage season will likely occur in November instead of October as it does said now he.
Now that Medvigy knows what information is needed to predict what the future holds for leaf coloration he plans to again collaborate with his colleagues at GFDL to do more sophisticated modeling based on the study results he said.
and leaf color are related he said. This understanding will help us make better forecasts for climate as well as for the basic dynamics of forests.
There was a 65 per cent reduction in large seaweeds a 60 per cent reduction in other algae and invertebrates and a 40 per cent reduction in the overall number of species present.
Algal forests or seaweeds provide food and shelter to hundreds of species and fulfil a role similar to trees in terrestrial forests.
In particular they have tracked the fate of the grass Spartina alterniflora which their research has found to be the victim of herbivorous Sesarma purple marsh crabs run amok.
Last summer they also measured the amount of grass both in terms of the density of stalks as well as above-and belowground biomass of samples.
A new study led by researchers from the University of Arizona reveals that the impact that spelled doom for the dinosaurs also decimated the evergreen flowering plants to a much greater extent than their deciduous peers.
They hypothesize that the properties of deciduous plants made them better able to respond rapidly to chaotically varying post-apocalyptic climate conditions.
Applying biomechanical formulae to a treasure trove of thousands of fossilized leaves of angiosperms--flowering plants excluding conifers--the team was able to reconstruct the ecology of a diverse plant community thriving during a 2. 2 million-year period
The fossilized leaf samples span the last 1400000 years of the Cretaceous and the first 800000 of the Paleogene.
The researchers found evidence that after the impact fast-growing deciduous angiosperms had replaced their slow-growing evergreen peers to a large extent.
Living examples of evergreen angiosperms such as holly and ivy tend to prefer shade don't grow very fast
When you look at forests around the world today you don't see many forests dominated by evergreen flowering plants said the study's lead author Benjamin Blonder.
and could take advantage of changing conditions such as deciduous plants. We measured the mass of a given leaf in relation to its area
which tells us whether the leaf was a chunky expensive one to make for the plant
or whether it was a more flimsy cheap one Blonder explained. In other words how much carbon the plant had invested in the leaf.
In addition the researchers measured the density of the leaves'vein networks a measure of the amount of water a plant can transpire and the rate at
while slow-growing evergreens dominated the plant assemblages before the extinction event fast-growing flowering species had taken their places afterward.
At the Fondazione Edmund Mach in Italy Ilaria Pertot and her team of the EU research project PURE have found ways to reduce the high pesticide rate in the European grapevine sector by disturbing the mating processes of the pests.
This study demonstrates for the first time that host plants from different plant families and with different ecological strategies possess very different microbial communities on their leaves said lead author Steven W. Kembel a former postdoctoral researcher in the UO's Institute of Ecology
Some bacteria were very abundant and present on every leaf in the forest while others were rare and only found on the leaves of a single host species Kembel said.
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