常温和低温条件下不同浓度外源褪黑素对降香黄檀幼苗的生理生态影响

为探究外源褪黑素对不同温度下降香黄檀幼苗的生理生态影响,该研究开展了不同浓度外源褪黑素(300、500、600、700、900、1 200μmol·L^-1)对常温（白天28℃/夜晚25℃）和低温（白天8℃/夜晚5℃）下降香黄檀（Dalbergia odorifera）幼苗的生长发育、光合作用、叶片色素含量、叶片水分状况、膜系统等方面影响研究,并通过隶属函数分析综合评价筛选出具有促进降香黄檀幼苗生长发育和提高低温耐受性的最适外源褪黑素浓度。结果表明：（1）在常温下喷施各个浓度的褪黑素溶液,在生长发育（形态、茎高增长和株高增长）,光合作用参数[净光合速率（P_n）、气孔导度（G_s）、胞间二氧化碳浓度（C_i）和蒸腾速率（T_r）],光合色素[总叶绿素（Total Chl）、叶绿素a（Chl a）、叶绿素b（Chl b）和类胡萝卜素（Caro）]和可溶性蛋白含量上均有一定的提高。（2）低温胁迫处理下,喷施各个浓度的褪黑素溶液可在不同程度上缓解低温胁迫对植株形态、茎高增长、株高增长、P     

Foliar characteristics,cambial activity and wood formation in Azadirachta indica A. Juss. as affected by coal–smoke pollution

This study, aimed at elucidating changes in the foliar and cambial behavior in Azadirachta indica (Neem tree) due to coal-smoke pollution, has revealed inhibitory effects of pollution stress on leaf pigments concentrations, nitrate reductase activity and the contents of reducing sugars and total N content, whereas stimulatory effects were given on stomatal index and nitrate and sulphur contents. Under smoke effects, stomatal conductance was low, leading to a drop in the net photosynthetic rate and a rise in the internal CO₂ concentration of leaf. Cambial reactivation in the stem was delayed at the polluted site. Although the total span of the cambial activity was reduced, greater amount of wood was observed to accumulate in the stem axis under heavy pollution stress. Vessel proportion in the wood increased, whereas size of vessel elements and xylem fibers decreased. “Vulnerability factor” (ratio between mean vessel diameter and mean vessel abundance) and “mesomorphic ratio” (multiplication product of vulnerability factor and mean length of vessel element) of the stem–wood, both declined with increase in the pollution stress, thus indicating a tendency of the species for shifting towards xeromorphy when grown under stress. Given the opposite trends of photosynthetic rate and wood increment, the carbon-partitioning pattern rather than the photosynthetic rate seems to have influenced the accumulation of new wood. The Neem tree proves to be suitable for growing in the polluted areas.     

August Weismann on Germ-Plasm Variation

August Weismann is famous for having argued against the inheritance of acquired characters. However, an analysis of his work indicates that Weismann always held that changes in external conditions, acting during development, were the necessary causes of variation in the hereditary material. For much of his career he held that acquired germ-plasm variation was inherited. An irony, which is in tension with much of the standard twentieth-century history of biology, thus exists – Weismann was not a Weismannian. I distinguish three claims regarding the germ-plasm: (1) its continuity,(2) its morphological sequestration, and (3) its variational sequestration. With respect to changes in Weismann's views on the cause of variation, I divide his career into four stages. For each stage I analyze his beliefs on the relative importance of changes in external conditions and sexual reproduction as causes ofvariation in the hereditary material. Weismann believed, and Weismannism denies, that variation, heredity, and development were deeply intertwined processes. This article is part of a larger project comparing commitments regarding variation during the latter half of the nineteenth century. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

DEVELOPMENT,FUNCTION, AND THE QUANTITATIVE GENETICS OF WING MELANIN PATTERN IN PIERIS BUTTERFLIES

Do genetic correlations among phenotypic characters reflect developmental organization or functional coadaptation of the characters? We test these hypotheses for the wing melanin pattern of Pieris occidentalis butterflies, by comparing estimated genetic correlations among wing melanin characters with a priori predictions of the developmental organization and the functional (thermoregulatory) organization of melanin pattern. There were significant broad-sense heritabilities and significant genetic correlations for most melanin characters. Matrix correlation tests revealed significant agreement between the observed genetic correlations and both developmental and functional predictions in most cases; this occurred even when the overlap between developmental and functional predictions was eliminated. These results suggest that both developmental organization and functional coadaptation among melanin characters influence the genetic correlation structure of melanin pattern in this species. These results have two important implications for the evolution of melanin pattern in P. occidentalis and other butterflies: 1) most phenotypic variation in pattern may reflect variation among, rather than within, sets of developmentally homologous wing melanin characters; and 2) in a changing selective environment, genetic correlations may retard the disruption of functionally coupled melanin characters, thus affecting the evolutionary response to selection.     

Phenotypic flexibility of digestive morphology and physiology of the South American omnivorous rodent Akodon azarae (Rodentia: Sigmodontinae)

We have determined the occurrence of responses at different levels (morphological, physiological and biochemical) in the omnivorous rodent Akodon azarae upon cold acclimation (15 degrees C). A short-term enhancement in food consumption appeared to account for the maintenance of both mass and body composition. At the morphological level, the main response was an increase in the dimensions of small intestine, which constitutes the section of the gut where absorption and secretion take place. An increase in sucrase specific activity was only found in small intestine. Sucrose independent maltase activity was very low since 99.8% of total maltase activity was due to sucrase-isomaltase (SI) complex. Protease specific activities were not affected. The fact that resting metabolic rates determined at 15 and 23 degrees C were similar in cold acclimated animals suggests a change in lower critical temperature. In conclusion, our results show that A. azarae exhibits different strategies to support cold environment that could lead to an enhancement in digestion and absorption efficiency. Furthermore, this work suggests that low temperature is an independent cue of other environmental factors to trigger the strategies allowing the maintenance of body condition in A. azarae.     

Aspects of plant intelligence

Intelligence is not a term commonly used when plants are discussed. However, I believe that this is an omission based not on a true assessment of the ability of plants to compute complex aspects of their environment, but solely a reflection of a sessile lifestyle. This article, which is admittedly controversial, attempts to raise many issues that surround this area. To commence use of the term intelligence with regard to plant behaviour will lead to a better understanding of the complexity of plant signal transduction and the discrimination and sensitivity with which plants construct images of their environment, and raises critical questions concerning how plants compute responses at the whole-plant level. Approaches to investigating learning and memory in plants will also be considered.     

沙木蓼和沙枣对地下水位变化的生理生态响应Ⅰ.叶片养分、叶绿素、可溶性糖和淀粉的变化

在甘肃民勤沙生植物园内利用植物蒸腾耗水量观测场,研究了两种优势旱生植物沙木蓼（Atraphaxis frutescens)和沙棘（Elaeagnus angustifolia)叶片中的叶绿素、可溶性糖,淀粉和N、P、K、含量等对不同地下水深度（1－3．4m）的响应。结果表明：1）1.4m,2.4m和3．4m 3种不同地的地下水深度处理,产生了3种差异显著的土壤水分梯度;2）地下水深度的变化导致了这两种旱生植物叶绿素a、叶绿素b、叶绿素总量、叶绿素a与叶绿素b的比值等的显著变化（P＜0．01）;3）地下水深度的增加引起了两种植物叶片可溶性糖含量的升高和淀粉含量的降低;4）地下水深度的增加引起了两种植物叶片中N、P、K含量的降低;5）不同的地下水深度引起沙棘和沙木蓼叶绿素a、叶绿素b、叶绿素总量、叶绿素a与叶绿素b的比值、N、P、K含量,可溶性糖和淀粉增加或减少的程度不同。沙棘是非豆科固氮植物,两者的差异是否与固氮作用相关还有待于进一步研究。     

Canalization of development and ecdysteroid timing during the last instar in lubber grasshoppers

Development in many phytophagous, holometabolous insects is flexible at the beginning but inflexible at the end of the last larval instar. A prominent feature of the inflexible period is a peak in hemolymph levels of ecdysteroids. We tested whether this pattern holds true for the final molt of a phytophagous, hemimetabolous insect, Romalea microptera (the Eastern lubber grasshopper). We fed one group of grasshoppers a high quantity diet (H) throughout the 5th (final) instar and a second group a low quantity diet (L) throughout the instar. Three other diet treatments involved starting the instar on the high diet and then abruptly switching to the low diet at 3, 8, or 13 days (H3L, H8L, and H13L respectively) and continuing the low diet until adult molt. Diet treatment did not affect the maximum hemolymph level of ecdysteroids (E(max)); this peak typically reached ~4000 ng/ml. Ecdysteroid levels were elevated for ~4 days in all groups. In contrast, diet significantly affected age at adult molt and age at E(max) such that H = H13L = H8L < H3L = L. We identified estimates of thresholds for weight gain (20% initial weight) and hemolymph ecdysteroids (100 ng/ml), after which diet did not affect the time to the adult molt. The weight gain threshold was less precise than the ecdysteroid threshold. These results suggest that R. microptera has an extended period of inflexible (canalized) development during the final instar that includes a peak of ecdysteroids. We hypothesize this pattern holds for many phytophagous, hemimetabolous insects.     

Evolutionary Landscapes for the Acquisition of New Ligand Recognition by RNA Aptamers

The evolution of ligand specificity underlies many important problems in biology, from the appearance of drug resistant pathogens to the re-engineering of substrate specificity in enzymes. In studying biomolecules, however, the contributions of macromolecular sequence to binding specificity can be obscured by other selection pressures critical to bioactivity. Evolution of ligand specificity in vitro—unconstrained by confounding biological factors—is addressed here using variants of three flavin-binding RNA aptamers. Mutagenized pools based on the three aptamers were combined and allowed to compete during in vitro selection for GMP-binding activity. The sequences of the resulting selection isolates were diverse, even though most were derived from the same flavin-binding parent. Individual GMP aptamers differed from the parental flavin aptamers by 7 to 26 mutations (20 to 57% overall change). Acquisition of GMP recognition coincided with the loss of FAD (flavin-adenine dinucleotide) recognition in all isolates, despite the absence of a counter-selection to remove FAD-binding RNAs. To examine more precisely the proximity of these two activities within a defined sequence space, the complete set of all intermediate sequences between an FAD-binding aptamer and a GMP-binding aptamer were synthesized and assayed for activity. For this set of sequences, we observe a portion of a neutral network for FAD-binding function separated from GMP-binding function by a distance of three mutations. Furthermore, enzymatic probing of these aptamers revealed gross structural remodeling of the RNA coincident with the switch in ligand recognition. The capacity for neutral drift along an FAD-binding network in such close approach to RNAs with GMP-binding activity illustrates the degree of phenotypic buffering available to a set of closely related RNA sequences—defined as the sets functional tolerance for point mutations—and supports neutral evolutionary theory by demonstrating the facility with which a new phenotype becomes accessible as that buffering threshold is crossed.     

Models of coral growth: spontaneous branching,compactification and the Laplacian growth assumption

In stony corals it is often observed that specimens collected from a sheltered growth site have more open and more thinly branched growth forms than specimens of the same species from more exposed growth sites, where stronger water currents are found. This observation was explained using an abiotic computational model inspired by coral growth, in which the growth velocity depended locally on the absorption of a resource dispersed by advection and diffusion (Kaandorp and Sloot, J. Theor. Biol 209 (2001) 257). In that model a morphological range was found; as the Péclet-number (indicating the relative importance of advective and diffusive nutrient transport) was increased, more compact and spherical growth forms were found. Two unsatisfactory items have remained in this model, which we address in the present paper. First, an explicit curvature rule was responsible for branching. In this work we show that the curvature rule is not needed: the model exhibits spontaneous branching, provided that the resource field is computed with enough precision. Second, previously no explanation was given for the morphological range found in the simulations. Here we show that such an explanation is given by the conditions under which spontaneous branching occurs in our model, in which the compactness of the growth forms depends on the ratio of the rates of growth and nutrient transport. We did not find an effect of flow. This suggests that the computational evidence that hydrodynamics influences the compactness of corals in laminar flows may not be conclusive. The applicability of the Laplacian growth paradigm to understand coral growth is discussed.