Development of simple sequence repeat markers for the plant pathogenic rust fungus Puccinia triticina

Eighteen polymorphic di‐ and trinucleotide simple sequence repeat markers were developed for the phytopathogenic rust fungus Puccinia triticina. The allelic diversity varied from two to nine alleles per locus. Levels of observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.095 to 0.952. Seven of the loci deviated significantly from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (P < 0.002) with 70% having levels of observed heterozygosity higher than expected heterozygosity. Null allele(s) were observed for locus PtSSR76 with a frequency of 9%. A preliminary screen of other cereal rust fungi (P. coronata, P. graminis, P. recondita and P. striiformis) indicated that these primer pairs are specific to P. triticina.     

Palaeoecology of solitary corals in soft-substrate habitats: the example of Cunnolites (upper Santonian, Eastern Alps)

The upper Santonian Hofergraben Member (Eastern Alps) provides an example of a soft‐substrate habitat suited mainly for solitary corals (Cunnolites), for colonial forms of solitary coral‐like shape (Placosmilia, Diploctenium), and for colonial corals of high sediment resistance (e.g. Actinacis, Pachygyra). The Hofergraben Member consists mainly of silty‐sandy marls of wave‐dominated, low‐energy shore zone to shallow neritic environments. Substrates of soft to firm mud supported level‐bottoms of non‐rudist bivalves, gastropods, solitary corals, colonial corals, rudists, echinoids, and benthic foraminifera. Boring and/or encrustation of fossils overall are scarce. In the marls, Cunnolites is common to abundant. Both a cupolate shape and a lightweight construction of the skeleton aided the coral to keep afloat soft substrata. Cunnolites taphocoenoses are strongly dominated by small specimens (about 1–3 cm in diameter). Cunnolites was immobile and mostly died early in life upon, either, smothering during high‐energy events, rapid sedimentation associated with river plumes, or by toppling and burial induced by burrowing. Comparatively few large survivor specimens may show overgrowth margins interpreted as records of partial mortality from episodic sedimentation or tilting on unstable substrate. Scattered pits and scalloped surfaces on large Cunnolites may have been produced, in some cases at least, by predators (durophagous fish?). Post‐mortem, large Cunnolites provided benthic islands to corals, epifaunal bivalves and bryozoans. In a single documented case of probable in vivo contact of Cunnolites with the colonial coral Actinastraea, the latter prevailed.