Botrytis cinerea: the cause of grey mould disease

Introduction:  Botrytis cinerea (teleomorph: Botryotinia fuckeliana ) is an airborne plant pathogen with a necrotrophic lifestyle attacking over 200 crop hosts worldwide. Although there are fungicides for its control, many classes of fungicides have failed due to its genetic plasticity. It has become an important model for molecular study of necrotrophic fungi.
  Taxonomy:  Kingdom: Fungi, phylum: Ascomycota, subphylum: Pezizomycotina, class: Leotiomycetes, order: Helotiales, family: Sclerotiniaceae, genus: Botryotinia.
  Host range and symptoms: Over 200 mainly dicotyledonous plant species, including important protein, oil, fibre and horticultural crops, are affected in temperate and subtropical regions. It can cause soft rotting of all aerial plant parts, and rotting of vegetables, fruits and flowers post-harvest to produce prolific grey conidiophores and (macro)conidia typical of the disease.
  Pathogenicity:  B. cinerea produces a range of cell-wall-degrading enzymes, toxins and other low-molecular-weight compounds such as oxalic acid. New evidence suggests that the pathogen triggers the host to induce programmed cell death as an attack strategy.
  Resistance:  There are few examples of robust genetic host resistance, but recent work has identified quantitative trait loci in tomato that offer new approaches for stable polygenic resistance in future.
  Useful websites:  http://www.phi-base.org/query.php , http://www.broad.mit.edu/annotation/genome/botrytis_cinerea/Home.html , http://urgi.versailles.inra.fr/projects/Botrytis/ , http://cogeme.ex.ac.uk     

Justice, Transaction, Translation: Blackfoot Tipi Transfers and WIPO's Search for the Facts of Traditional Knowledge Exchange

In this article, I examine the complexities and politics of enrolling one socially embedded form of transaction and knowledge into the terms or practices of another. I look at the correspondences and divergences in how the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) transposed the "facts" of Blackfoot tipi-transfer practices in efforts to harmonize global intellectual property (IP) regimes and to achieve "justice" and "empowerment." WIPO's translation work is set against a case where Piikani Blackfoot tipi holders used relational transfer practices to effect a use arrangement, bypassing the means and ends of IP. I argue that looking at WIPO's practices helps us to see anthropology's own epistemological, instrumental, and political constraints, while looking at Piikani transfers helps us to conceive of alternatives. This has bearing across anthropology's disciplinary spectrum where problems of knowledge translation are commonplace.     

Predation of late Marjuman (Cambrian) linguliformean brachiopods from the Deadwood Formation of South Dakota, USA

One hundred and twenty-five linguliformean brachiopods of late Marjuman (Cambrian) age with shell perforations, presumably caused by predation, were recovered from shallow-water limestones at two localities of the Deadwood Formation in the Black Hills of South Dakota, USA. Three-quarters of the perforated valves belonged to taxa in the order Acrotretida, while one-quarter of the specimens belonged to those of the order Lingulida. This is the first report of predation of fossil lingulids. In both orders there was a marked selection for valve type. Ninety-five per cent of all perforations of acrotretids were in the ventral valve, while 87% of all perforations of lingulids were in the dorsal valve. The highest rate of predation of collected acrotretids, at any stratigraphic horizon, was 22%, while the rate of predation of collected lingulids, at any given stratigraphic horizon, was as high as 9%. Half of the perforated valves had round holes with a sharp, non-beveled exterior edge, and half had irregularly shaped holes with chipped interior edges. The former type is attributed to either boring or a swift, piercing percussive strike, while the latter is attributed to a smashing percussive strike with a blunt appendage. A third type of perforation consisting of minute, roughly circular holes is thought to be too small to be the work of predators, and is assumed to be the result of an encrusting organism or parasite. The different types of perforation seen in the brachiopod valves indicate that there was more than one type of predator attacking them, including possibly one of the earliest durophages. Various hypothetical predators are suggested as potential candidates for causing the shell perforations. The criteria for their selection as possible linguliformean predators include possessing the ability to produce one of the two types of shell perforation, and being small enough to warrant preying on small (< 2 mm) brachiopods.     

RETRACTED: SENSORY SUGGESTIVENESS AND LABELING: DO SOY LABELS BIAS TASTE?1

Can labels suggestively influence sensory perceptions and taste? Using a “ Phantom Ingredient” taste test, we show that the presence or absence of a labeled ingredient (soy) and the presence or absence of a health claim negatively bias taste perceptions toward a food erroneously thought to contain soy. We found a label highlighting soy content made health claims believable but negatively influenced perceptions of taste for certain segments of consumers. Our results and discussion provide better direction for researchers who work with ingredient labeling as well as for those who work with soybean products.     

Effect of high temperature treatment on disinfestation and quality characteristics of sorghum

Sorghum grain (two varieties) was modified to different water contents (12% to 16% wet weight basis) and heated to 60°C, 70°C and 80°C for periods of 4, 8 and 12 min. Germination, seedling vigour, seedling dry matter, free fatty acid (FFA) content, fungal contamination and infestation with the insect pest Rhyzopertha dominica (F.) were all markedly affected by heat treatment. The effectiveness of the heat treatment was also influenced by the size of the sample used. Heat treatment at 60°C and 70°C resulted in germination being unaffected or stimulated while at 80°C and the higher water contents significantly reduced, when compared to untreated controls. The dry matter of seedlings, and seedling vigour was positively correlated with germination and heat treatment. Heat treatment had no effect on FFA. All stages of the insect pest, R. dominica, were destroyed at 70°C and an 8 min exposure time. However, the water content of the sorghum was critical in determining the efficacy against this pest. The percentage fungal contamination of grain was reduced from 90% to about 25% by heat treatment. However, some grain fungi, particularly Eurotium spp., Aspergillus niger and Penicillium spp. could still be isolated from sorghum grain treated at 80°C for up to 12 minutes.     

Myxomycetes from the Kimberley Region, Western Australia

An account of the Myxomycetes of the Kimberley Region of north Western Australia is presented. It is based on collections obtained mainly from the Napier and Oscar Ranges during the Kimberley Research Project, 1988. The thirty-two collections represent eighteen species, four of which are new records for Australia and twelve new to Western Australia. All but one are new to the Kimberley region, from where only four species were previously known.     

The changing ecosystem of a shallow, brackish lake, Hickling Broad, Norfolk, U.K. I. Trophic relationships with special reference to the role of Neomysis integer

• 1 Hickling Broad, a shallow, brackish lake in England, changed from dominance by submerged aquatic plants to dominance by phytoplankton in the 1970s. These changes were ascribed to the effects of guanotrophicatioh by black-headed gulls, and increased salinity which together resulted in fish kills caused by a toxic alga, Prymnesium parvum. A mysid, Neomysis integer, was believed to be important in switching the system to plankton dominance through its presumed selective feeding on Cladocera and increasing population size as fish predation decreased.
• 2 Studies on laboratory predation rates of the mysid on Cladocera and on the population dynamics, predation rates and diet of the mysid and the populations of the major zooplankter, Eurytemora affinis in the Broad in the 1980s, have shown that the former explanations were incomplete. The mysid could have markedly reduced the cladoceran community, for it has potentially high predation rates, but Cladocera were probably lost through salinization. Neomysis feeds efficiently on Eurytentora affinis, but the latter reproduces rapidly and its populations are unlikely to be controlled by mysid predation. Nauplii and small copepodites are selectively taken. Alternative and probably major food sources for the mysid are periphyton and benthic algae and detritus.
• 3 Roach and bream readily take the mysid but the present fish stock in the Broad is very low and can now exert minimal pressure on the mysid population. An invertebrate predator on the mysid, Palaemometes varians, is also unlikely to have major effects. The former model of the operation of the Broad's ecosystem needs reconsideration in view of the findings.

     

The changing ecosystem of a shallow, brackish lake, Hickling Broad, Norfolk, U.K. II. Long-term trends in water chemistry and ecology and their implications for restoration of the lake

• 1 Hickling Broad underwent major changes from a clear water, charophyte-dominated state in the decades previous to 1970 to a turbid, phytoplankton-dominated state by the mid 1970s. These changes were complexly linked with increasing eutrophication by black-headed gulls and increased salinity due to agricultural changes in the catchment.
• 2 At the turn of the 1970s, the lake began to change again and during the 1980s a submerged plant community, of tall, vigorously growing species (e.g. Myriophyllum spicatum, Patamogeton pectinatus) had recovered, despite a major reduction in the roosting gull population, no change in salinity, and only small reductions in phytoplankton biomass and total phosphorus concentration.
• 3 Recovery of the plants may be linked to grazing of periphyton on them by an increased population of a mysid Neomysis integer which had been suppressed by toxicity from an alga, Prymnesium parvum formerly stimulated by the ingress of gull guano.
• 4 A cladoceran community present in the clear-water phase has not recovered and may be suppressed by continued high salinities. Further restoration of the lake requires displacement of the large phytoplankton biomass and this might best be contemplated by land use changes leading to lowered salinity and predicted recovery of grazing Cladocera.
• 5 Models are given which summarize the likely workings of the system in the early twentieth century, the mid-twentieth century, the 1970s and the late 1980s.