One hundred years ofEchinacea angustifolia harvest in the smoky hills of Kansas, USA

Echinacea angustifolia DC. (Asteraceae) is a major North American medicinal plant that has been harvested commercially in north-central Kansas for 100 years, making it one of the longest documented histories of large-scale commercial use of a native North American medicina herb. We have compiled historical market data and relate it to harvest pressure on wildEchinacea populations. Interviews with local harvesters describe harvesting methods and demonstrate the species’ resilience. Conservation measures forE. angustifolia also should address the other threats faced by the species and may include restoration and management of its mixed-grass prairie habitat and protection by private landowners.     

One hundred years of instability in ensiferan relationships

Although Ensifera is a major insect model group, its phylogenetic relationships have been understudied so far. Few phylogenetic hypotheses have been proposed, either with morphological or molecular data. The largest dataset ever used for phylogeny reconstruction on this group is molecular (16S rRNA, 18S rRNA and 28S rRNA sequences for 51 ensiferan species), which has been used twice with different resultant topologies. However, only one of these hypotheses has been adopted commonly as a reference classification. Here we re‐analyse this molecular dataset with different methods and parameters to test the robustness and the stability of the adopted phylogeny. Our study reveals the instability of phylogenetic relationships derived from this dataset, especially for the deepest nodes of the group, and suggests some guidelines for future studies. The comparison between the different classifications proposed in the past 70 years for Ensifera and our results allows the identification of potential monophyletic clades (katydids, mole crickets, scaly crickets + Malgasia, true crickets, leaf roller crickets, cave crickets) and the remaining unresolved clades (wetas, Jerusalem crickets and most of the highest rank clades) in Ensifera phylogeny.     

One hundred years ago : Fashion and medicine

Objective: To determine which attributes of clinical practice guidelines influence the use of guidelines in decision making in clinical practice. Design: Observational study relating the use of 47 different recommendations from 10 national clinical guidelines to 12 different attributes of clinical guidelines—for example, evidence based, controversial, concrete. Setting: General practice in the Netherlands. Subjects: 61 general practitioners who made 12 880 decisions in their contacts with patients. Main outcome measures: Compliance of decisions with clinical guidelines according to the attribute of the guideline. Results: Recommendations were followed in, on average, 61% (7915/12 880) of the decisions. Controversial recommendations were followed in 35% (886/2497) of decisions and non-controversial recommendations in 68% (7029/10 383) of decisions. Vague and non-specific recommendations were followed in 36% (826/2280) of decisions and clear recommendations in 67% (7089/10 600) of decisions. Recommendations that demanded a change in existing practice routines were followed in 44% (1278/2912) of decisions and those that did not in 67% (6637/9968) of decisions. Evidence based recommendations were used more than recommendations for practice that were not based on research evidence (71% (2745/3841) v 57% (5170/9039)). Conclusions: People and organisations setting evidence based clinical practice guidelines should take into account some of the other important attributes of effective recommendations for clinical practice.

Key messages

• Specific attributes of clinical practice guidelines determine whether they are used in practice
• Evidence based recommendations are better followed in practice than recommendations not based on scientific evidence
• Precise definitions of recommended performance improve the use of guidelines
• Testing the feasibility and acceptance of clinical guidelines among the target group is important for effective implementation
• People setting evidence based guidelines need to understand the attributes of effective guidelines

     

One hundred years of pleiotropy: a retrospective

Pleiotropy is defined as the phenomenon in which a single locus affects two or more distinct phenotypic traits. The term was formally introduced into the literature by the German geneticist Ludwig Plate in 1910, 100 years ago. Pleiotropy has had an important influence on the fields of physiological and medical genetics as well as on evolutionary biology. Different approaches to the study of pleiotropy have led to incongruence in the way that it is perceived and discussed among researchers in these fields. Furthermore, our understanding of the term has changed quite a bit since 1910, particularly in light of modern molecular data. This review traces the history of the term "pleiotropy" and reevaluates its current place in the field of genetics.     

One hundred years of zygotic embryo culture investigations

Summary Isolation of zygotic embryos from seeds and their culture in a defined medium, initiated by Hanning in 1904, has proved to be a promising method to study the factors that control growth and differentiation of embryos. Using this technique, several investigations have focused on the carbohydrate and nitrogen nutrition during germination of cultured seed embryos and on the effects of plant hormones on their morphogenesis. Culture of immature embryos leads to their germination into weak seeldings, skipping the later stages of embryogenesis, by a process known as precocious germination. Progressively smaller embryos have been cultured by supplementation of the medium with coconut milk or hormonal additives or by osmotic adjustment of the medium by high concentrations of sucrose or mannitol. Although methods have not been developed for large-scale isolation and culture of zygotes, zygotes of maize isolated from embryo sacs and those obtained by in vitro fertilization have been grown in culture into full-term embryos. Embryo culture techniques are widely used to rescue embryos from seed of wide crosses which usually abort and to overcome dormancy of recalcitrant seeds.