Fifty years of character compatibility concepts at work

In the mid 19th century,systematic biologists realized that observable similarities and differences among a group of related species could be the basis for hypotheses about the evolutionary relationships among the species and their ancestors.Such hypotheses Can be expressed as characters.A character is comprised of two or more character states of species considered to be similar with respect to a basis for comparison.The states of a character may also be arranged into a character state tree to hypothesize speciation events associated with changes from one character state to another.In the mid 20th century.some systematists realized that sometimes paxrs of characters(or character state trees)could be incompatible as hypotheses,i.e.,they could not both be true.Through the 1950s,'60s and'70s,tests for,and ways to resolve,incompatibilities were used to estimate an ancestor relation based on mutually compatible characters.An estimate was often shown as a diagram connecting ancestors to their immediate descendants(not quite correctly)called a phylogenetic tree.More recently,other applications of compatibility concepts have been developed,including:identify characters that appear to be random in the context of their data set;combine estimates of ancestor relations for subsets of taxa in a larger collection into a single estimate(a so-called supertree)for the whole collection;and interpret geographic patterns in an evolutionary context.     

人工湿地对胡子鲇养殖水体循环净化的研究

以大型观光植物美人蕉-砾石为基础的垂直流人工湿地对胡子鲇养殖水体进行净化处理和回流使用,在胡子鲇养殖中测定了水体主要水质指标的变化,表明人工湿地对养殖水体净化效果显著,养殖期间BOD5、COD、TN的平均去除率分别为81.77%、55.55%和65%,净化后水质部分符合渔业用水标准,可以循环利用.对照池水体由于BOD5、COD、TN得不到去除而持续增加,混浊度显著高于实验池,并出现水华.这种水体循环养殖模式具结构简单和易推广等优点.     

Character compatibility of molecular markers to distinguish asexual and sexual reproduction

Particularly in polyploids, the potential of the high variability of dominant markers such as random amplified polymorphic DNA fragments (RAPDs) and amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) in population genetic studies and analysis of breeding systems is reduced due to their dominant nature. In contrast, the criterion of character compatibility is hindered neither by dominance nor by polyploidy as allelic interpretation is not necessary. Character compatibility, which can be used to detect events of genetic exchange (or recombination), is particularly informative if these events are expected to be rare such as in taxa with extensive vegetative reproduction or apomixis. Binary unordered characters such as presence and absence of anonymous DNA markers are incompatible if all four pairwise combinations of character states are present among the individuals studied. Because incompatible character state distributions defy any progenitor–derivative relationship among individuals, they provide strong evidence for genetic exchange. Both the absolute number of incompatible character combinations and the probability of compatibility can be used as a measure of incompatibility. Although these measures may not directly relate to the frequency of genetic exchange, they provide a useful tool to heuristically explore data sets. The most commonly used input for multivariate analyses and analysis of molecular variance in population genetic studies of (dis)similarity of marker distributions are amalgamates of mutation and recombination. Character compatibility can be used to complement these traditional methods of analysis. Advantages and disadvantages of character incompatibility relative to multilocus analysis of modes of reproduction and population genetics are demonstrated with data from RAPDs, isozymes, and restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) of the nuclear ribosomal and chloroplast genome.     

Graft union formation in artichoke grafting onto wild and cultivated cardoon: An anatomical study

In order to develop a non-chemical method such as grafting effective against well-known artichoke soil borne diseases, an anatomical study of union formation in artichoke grafted onto selected wild and cultivated cardoon rootstocks, both resistant to Verticillium wilt, was performed. The cardoon accessions Belgio (cultivated cardoon) and Sardo (wild cardoon) were selected as rootstocks for grafting combinations with the artichoke cv. Romolo. Grafting experiments were carried out in the autumn and spring. The anatomical investigation of grafting union formation was conducted by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) on the grafting portions at the 3rd, 6th, 10th, 12th day after grafting. For the autumn experiment only, SEM analysis was also performed at 30 d after grafting.     

Age as a factor in induction of systemic acquired resistance in tomato against bacterial speck by aqueous fruit extracts of Azadirachta indica

In the present study, the effect of aqueous fruit extracts of Azadirachta indica on activity of Peroxidase (POX) at different ages of Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) leading to induction of systemic resistance against Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato was evaluated. For this evaluation, four ages, that is, 6, 8, 10 and 12?weeks of plants were selected. A single leaf at the third node from base of each plant was treated either singly or with different combinations of Neem extract and pathogen. Samples were collected at an interval of 24?h for up to five days and after two weeks of the treatment from both treated and untreated nodes. The change in the activity of defence enzyme POX and expression of its isoforms was studied. The results demonstrate that systemic acquired resistance induced by the Neem fruit extract increases as the plant matures but it is not only the limiting factor.     

Stage-specific induction of systemic acquired resistance by fruit extracts of Azadirachta indica

In the present study, the efficacy of aqueous fruit extract of Azadirachta indica A. Juss. (Neem) on induction of systemic acquired resistance (SAR) in tomato against Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato through enhancement in the activity of polyphenol oxidase (PPO) at different ages was studied. Plants at 6, 8, 10 and 12?weeks of age were selected. A single leaf at the third node from the base of each plant was treated either singly or with different combinations of the pathogen and Neem fruit extract. Samples were collected from the non-treated leaves at an interval of 24?h up to five?days for enzyme assay and after two?weeks for disease development from both treated and untreated plants. The results demonstrate that the neem fruit extract could induce additional PPO isoforms both locally as well as systemically. The PPO activity was observed to be elevated in both the treated and non-treated leaves leading to induction of SAR. The induction of SAR enhances with the increase in the age of the plant.     

Effect of various pre-treatments on the seedling growth performance of Tamarindus indica L.

ABSTRACT

Pre-treatment of seeds of Tamarindus indica L. with 95% sulphuric acid for 5, 10 or 15 min, methanol, ethanol, iso-propanol or butanol for 10 or 20 min, or boiling water for 10, 15, 20 or 30 min, was used to determine the effect of the various treatments on the development and vigour of the resultant seedlings. Seeds immersed in methanol, ethanol and sulphuric acid for 10 min produced seedlings with high vigour     

Purification and characterization of α-glucosidase in Apis cerana indica

Apis cerana indica foragers were used for the isolation of a full‐length α‐glucosidase cDNA, and for purification of the active nascent protein by low salt extraction of bee homogenates, ammonium sulphate precipitation and diethylaminoethyl‐cellulose and Superdex 200 chromatographies. The molecular mass of the purified protein was estimated by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis resolution, and the pH, temperature, incubation, and substrate optima for enzymic activity were determined. Conformation of the purified enzyme as α‐glucosidase was performed by BLAST software homology comparisons between matrix assisted laser desorption ionization time of flight mass spectroscopy analysed partial tryptic peptide digests of the purified protein with the predicted amino acid sequences deduced from the α‐glucosidase cDNA sequence.