Culm (ramet) demography of two bamboos, Fargesia robusta and Bashania fangiana, was studied over 7 yr in southwest China to determine if: 1) ramet numbers remain relatively constant; 2) ramet mortality was constant; 3) density response was greater in spreading vs. compact clones; 4) extrinsic factors (e.g., predation, climate) influenced ramet dynamics; and 5) ramets that die are smaller than ones that live. Culm numbers remained relatively constant (±20%) in most plots, but culm numbers increased (>;20%) on some sites. Mortality of culms >;6 mo old over 7 yr was low and constant, but mortality of younger culms (≤6 mo) was high and variable due to predation. Spreading clones had greater recruitment response to density than compact clones, but predation and climate may have diminished or amplified the observed demographic patterns. Predators and perhaps climate influenced culm demography, and culms that died were smaller than remaining live culms. The demography of the two bamboos we studied is compared to other clonal plants, including bamboos, to identify common processes controlling ramet demography. 相似文献
The status of plant and microbial nutrient limitation have profound impacts on ecosystem carbon cycle in permafrost areas, which store large amounts of carbon and experience pronounced climatic warming. Despite the long-term standing paradigm assumes that cold ecosystems primarily have nitrogen deficiency, large-scale empirical tests of microbial nutrient limitation are lacking. Here we assessed the potential microbial nutrient limitation across the Tibetan alpine permafrost region, using the combination of enzymatic and elemental stoichiometry, genes abundance and fertilization method. In contrast with the traditional view, the four independent approaches congruently detected widespread microbial nitrogen and phosphorus co-limitation in both the surface soil and deep permafrost deposits, with stronger limitation in the topsoil. Further analysis revealed that soil resources stoichiometry and microbial community composition were the two best predictors of the magnitude of microbial nutrient limitation. High ratio of available soil carbon to nutrient and low fungal/bacterial ratio corresponded to strong microbial nutrient limitation. These findings suggest that warming-induced enhancement in soil nutrient availability could stimulate microbial activity, and probably amplify soil carbon losses from permafrost areas. 相似文献
Unequal breeding sex ratio can significantly reduce effective population size, allowing a rare neutral allele to jump to a high frequency through genetic drift. However, this one-way alteration to allele frequency appears inconsistent with the concept that drift is non-directional. Based on binomial sampling distribution, this study developed a method to directly and exhaustively measure drift by calculating the mean deviation of change in allele frequency, then applied it to cases of unequal breeding sex ratio. The result shows that, under those cases, (1) the mean deviation can always be divided into two halves that are equal in size but opposite in direction; (2) each half consists of one or several categories represented by various allele proportions in the rare sex; (3) this proportion is another factor that determines the outcome of drift, in addition to effective population size and allele frequency; (4) drift is non-directional on a global scale, but whether an allele will drift up or down can be predicted based on the above factors. This method enables us to dissect every component of the expected change in allele frequency caused by drift and to find out the combined effect of population size, allele frequency and allele proportion in the rarer sex under neutrality but unequal breeding sex ratio. 相似文献
Zanthoxylum armatum and Zanthoxylum bungeanum, known as ‘Chinese pepper’, are distinguished by their extraordinary complex genomes, phenotypic innovation of adaptive evolution and species-special metabolites. Here, we report reference-grade genomes of Z. armatum and Z. bungeanum. Using high coverage sequence data and comprehensive assembly strategies, we derived 66 pseudochromosomes comprising 33 homologous phased groups of two subgenomes, including autotetraploid Z. armatum. The genomic rearrangements and two whole-genome duplications created large (~4.5 Gb) complex genomes with a high ratio of repetitive sequences (>82%) and high chromosome number (2n = 4x = 132). Further analysis of the high-quality genomes shed lights on the genomic basis of involutional reproduction, allomones biosynthesis and adaptive evolution in Chinese pepper, revealing a high consistent relationship between genomic evolution, environmental factors and phenotypic innovation. Our study provides genomic resources and new insights for investigating diversification and phenotypic innovation in Chinese pepper, with broader implications for the protection of plants under severe environmental changes. 相似文献
Cardiomyopathy is a progressive disease of the myocardium leading to impaired contractility. Genotoxic cancer therapies are known to be potent drivers of cardiomyopathy, whereas causes of spontaneous disease remain unclear. To test the hypothesis that endogenous genotoxic stress contributes to cardiomyopathy, we deleted the DNA repair gene Ercc1 specifically in striated muscle using a floxed allele of Ercc1 and mice expressing Cre under control of the muscle-specific creatinine kinase (Ckmm) promoter or depleted systemically (Ercc1−/D mice). Ckmm-Cre+/−;Ercc1−/fl mice expired suddenly of heart disease by 7 months of age. As young adults, the hearts of Ckmm-Cre+/−;Ercc1−/fl mice were structurally and functionally normal, but by 6-months-of-age, there was significant ventricular dilation, wall thinning, interstitial fibrosis, and systolic dysfunction indicative of dilated cardiomyopathy. Cardiac tissue from the tissue-specific or systemic model showed increased apoptosis and cardiac myocytes from Ckmm-Cre+/-;Ercc1−/fl mice were hypersensitive to genotoxins, resulting in apoptosis. p53 levels and target gene expression, including several antioxidants, were increased in cardiac tissue from Ckmm-Cre+/−;Ercc1−/fl and Ercc1−/D mice. Despite this, cardiac tissue from older mutant mice showed evidence of increased oxidative stress. Genetic or pharmacologic inhibition of p53 attenuated apoptosis and improved disease markers. Similarly, overexpression of mitochondrial-targeted catalase improved disease markers. Together, these data support the conclusion that DNA damage produced endogenously can drive cardiac disease and does so mechanistically via chronic activation of p53 and increased oxidative stress, driving cardiac myocyte apoptosis, dilated cardiomyopathy, and sudden death. 相似文献
Elevated arginases including type-I (Arg-I) and type-II isoenzyme (Arg-II) are reported to play a role in aging, age-associated organ inflammaging, and fibrosis. A role of arginase in pulmonary aging and underlying mechanisms are not explored. Our present study shows increased Arg-II levels in aging lung of female mice, which is detected in bronchial ciliated epithelium, club cells, alveolar type 2 (AT2) pneumocytes, and fibroblasts (but not vascular endothelial and smooth muscle cells). Similar cellular localization of Arg-II is also observed in human lung biopsies. The age-associated increase in lung fibrosis and inflammatory cytokines, including IL-1β and TGF-β1 that are highly expressed in bronchial epithelium, AT2 cells, and fibroblasts, are ameliorated in arg-ii deficient (arg-ii−/−) mice. The effects of arg-ii−/− on lung inflammaging are weaker in male as compared to female animals. Conditioned medium (CM) from human Arg-II-positive bronchial and alveolar epithelial cells, but not that from arg-ii−/− cells, activates fibroblasts to produce various cytokines including TGF-β1 and collagen, which is abolished by IL-1β receptor antagonist or TGF-β type I receptor blocker. Conversely, TGF-β1 or IL-1β also increases Arg-II expression. In the mouse models, we confirmed the age-associated increase in IL-1β and TGF-β1 in epithelial cells and activation of fibroblasts, which is inhibited in arg-ii−/− mice. Taken together, our study demonstrates a critical role of epithelial Arg-II in activation of pulmonary fibroblasts via paracrine release of IL-1β and TGF-β1, contributing to pulmonary inflammaging and fibrosis. The results provide a novel mechanistic insight in the role of Arg-II in pulmonary aging. 相似文献
Continuous cropping (CC) obstacle is a major threat in legume crops production; however, the underlying mechanisms concerning the roles allelochemicals play in CC obstacle are poorly understood. The current 2-year study was conducted to investigate the effects of different kinds and concentrations of allelochemicals, p-hydroxybenzoic acid (H), cinnamic acid (C), phthalic acid (P), and their mixtures (M) on peanut root growth and productivity in response to CC obstacle. Treatment with H, C, P, and M significantly decreased the plant height, dry weight of the leaves and stems, number of branches, and length of the lateral stem compared with control. Exogenous application of H, C, P, and M inhibited the peanut root growth as indicated by the decreased root morphological characters. The allelochemicals also induced the cell membrane oxidation even though the antioxidant enzymes activities were significantly increased in peanut roots. Meanwhile, treatment with H, C, P, and M reduced the contents of total soluble sugar and total soluble protein. Analysis of ATPase activity, nitrate reductase activity, and root system activity revealed that the inhibition effects of allelochemicals on peanut roots might be due to the decrease in activities of ATPase and NR, and the inhibition of root system. Consequently, allelochemicals significantly decreased the pod yield of peanut compared with control. Our results demonstrate that allelochemicals play a dominant role in CC obstacle-induced peanut growth inhibition and yield reduction through damaging the root antioxidant system, unbalancing the osmolytes accumulation, and decreasing the activities of root-related enzymes.