The ion concentration of dew condensed on Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) needles

Summary Dew droplets collected with pipettes from coniferous needles were analysed for their ionic composition. Almost all samples of dew taken from Scots pine trees (Pinus sylvestris) showed significantly higher ion concentrations than those taken from Norway spruce trees (Picea abies). This can be explained by the micromorphology of the needle surface. The higher microscale roughness of the wax layer of a pine needle causes a more efficient flux of atmospheric aerosol particles compared to the spruce needle surface. Dew on coniferous needles is shown to be capable of maintaining pH values below 3 for several hours.     

Acoustic Signals of a Dog and Cat Induce Hemodynamic Responses within the Human Brain

The objective of this study was to evaluate the response of the human frontal cortex when listening to cat meows and dog barks, accompanied with a non-verbal pictorial using an affective rating system that assesses the dimensions of valence and arousal. Each participant (24 students; 12 females and 12 males) sat individually in the middle of a room and listened to the sounds (cat meows, dog barks, and the sound of a train) through ceiling-mounted speakers with a near infrared spectroscopic (NIRS) device. Participants had significantly higher oxygenated hemoglobin (oxy-Hb) levels during the exposure to meows (p < 0.05) and barks (p < 0.01) compared with the train sound. A significant correlation was observed between the dimensions of valence and oxy-Hb activation when the participants listened to cat meows (r = 0.53, p < 0.017; Bonferroni correction). In conclusion, we found that the acoustic signals of companion animals lead to frontal cortex responses in humans, suggesting that their signals have an important function related to their long coexistence with people.     

Food consumption and utilization by 6th-instar larvae of spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumiferana: a comparison on three Picea (spruce) species

The effects of tree species, shoot age, and sex of larvae on food consumption and utilization were investigated in a factorial experiment. Diets prepared from lyophilized and powdered current-year shoots, from two age classes (sample dates) of Picea glauca (Moench) Voss, Picea rubra, Sarg., and Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P., were evaluated for eight performance criteria. All factors had significant effects on all criteria except for tree species on assimilation efficiency, shoot age on development time, and sex on net growth efficiency. Eight of the possible 24 two-factor interactions and one of the possible eight three-factor interactions were significant. Food utilization efficiencies and relative growth rate were in the low and moderate characterization limits for immature arthropods; relative consumption rates were high. The higher performance values on Picea glauca were related to this species greater vulnerability to spruce budworm. Performance criteria of similar larvae on an artificial diet were compared with those on the foliage-diets.

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Résumé L'auteur a déterminé la quantité d'aliments utilisées, à 22±0,5 °C, par des larves de Tordeuse des bourgeons de l'épinette parvenues à leur sixième stade de développement qui s'étaient nourries d'un régime artificiel et d'aiguilles de l'année en cours lyophilisées et réduites en poudre, prélevées à deux dates différentes, à 10 jours d'intervalle, et provenant d'épinettes blanchés (Picea glauca [Moench] Voss), d'épinettes rouges (Picea rubra Sarg.) et d'épinettes noires (Picea mariana [Mill.] B.S.P.). Les femelles ont invariablement ingéré une quantité significativement plus importante de tous les régimes que les mâles, consommant 24% de plus d'aiguilles d'épinette noire et 73% de plus d'aiguilles d'épinette blanche.Les femelles prenaient en général plus de temps pour parvenir au stade de chrysalide et avaient un taux d'utilisation des aliments significativement plus élevé. L'efficacité nette de la croissance chez les deux sexes ne présentait toutefois aucune différence significative. La performance des larves ayant ingéré des aiguilles provenant de deux classes d'âge différait de façon significative mais non pas uniforme d'un régime à l'autre: les aiguilles d'épinette blanche plus récentes donnaient une performance généralement plus élevée contrairement aux aiguilles plus jeunes d'épinette rouge et d'épinette noire. Les larves ingéraient une quantité significativement plus élevée, avaient un taux de consommation et de croissance supérieur et augmentaient davantage leur biomasse avec des aiguilles d'épinette blanche. L'efficacité d'utilisation des aliments et le taux de croissance relatif étaient de faibles à modérément faibles pour un lépidoptère arboricole phyllophage; la vitesse d'ingestion relative était élevée. La qualité des aiguilles des trois essences d'épinettes était faible. Les aiguilles d'épinette blanche permettaient aux larves d'avoir une performance significativement plus élevée, performance mesurée à partir de plusieurs critères, alors que les aiguilles d'épinette rouge et d'épinette noire donnaient une performance égale. La supériorité des performances obtenues avec l'épinette blanche explique la plus grande vulnérabilité de cette essence à la Tordeuse des bourgeons de l'épinette.

     

Copper-chelatin: isolation from various eucaryotic sources.

Bovine factor V was treated with highly purified neuraminidase to yield asialo factor V. Different preparations of factor V were found to exhibit heterogeneity with respect to the content of sialic acid, which ranged from 5% to 12%. The activity of asialo factor V in accelerating blood coagulation was found to be significantly greater than native factor V; thus, sialic acid is not essential for activity but may modulate its function. Asialo-factor V was 3.8 times more stable as calculated from the thermal decay constant at 37 °C. when compared to unmodified factor V.The increase in activity of factor V by thrombin was biphasic after removal of all sialic acid residues. The binding of asialo-factor V to phosphatidyl ethanolamine, as, characterized both by kinetics and by sucrose density gradient ultracentrifugation, resulted in an inactive complex. Double immunodiffusion shows that the sialic acid component of factor V is not necessary for its antigenicity.     

Physiological and biochemical analysis of overwintering and cold tolerance in two Central European populations of the spruce bark beetle, Ips typographus

Overwintering success is one of the key aspects affecting the development and outbreaks of the spruce bark beetle, Ips typographus (L.) populations. This paper brings detailed analysis of cold tolerance, and its influence on overwintering success, in two Central European populations of I. typographus during two cold seasons. Evidence for a supercooling strategy in overwintering adults is provided. The lower lethal temperature corresponds well to the supercooling point that ranges between −20 and −22 °C during winter months. The supercooled state is stabilized by the absence of internal ice nucleators and by seasonal accumulation of a mixture of sugars and polyols up to the sum concentration of 900 mM. The cryoprotective function of accumulated metabolites is probably based on increasing the osmolality and viscosity of supercooled body fluids and decreasing the relative proportion of water molecules available for lethal formation of ice nuclei. No activity of thermal hysteresis factors (stabilizers of supercooled state) was detected in hemolymph. Lethal times for 50% mortality (Lts50) in the supercooled state at −5, −10 or −15 °C are weeks (autumn, spring) or even months (winter), suggesting relatively little mortality caused by chill injury. Lts50 at −15 °C are significantly shorter in moist (6.9 days) than in dry (>42 days) microenvironment because there is higher probability of external ice nucleation and occurrence of lethal freezing in the moist situation.     

Genomic selection accuracies within and between environments and small breeding groups in white spruce

Background

Genomic selection (GS) may improve selection response over conventional pedigree-based selection if markers capture more detailed information than pedigrees in recently domesticated tree species and/or make it more cost effective. Genomic prediction accuracies using 1748 trees and 6932 SNPs representative of as many distinct gene loci were determined for growth and wood traits in white spruce, within and between environments and breeding groups (BG), each with an effective size of N_e ≈ 20. Marker subsets were also tested.

Results

Model fits and/or cross-validation (CV) prediction accuracies for ridge regression (RR) and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator models approached those of pedigree-based models. With strong relatedness between CV sets, prediction accuracies for RR within environment and BG were high for wood (r = 0.71–0.79) and moderately high for growth (r = 0.52–0.69) traits, in line with trends in heritabilities. For both classes of traits, these accuracies achieved between 83% and 92% of those obtained with phenotypes and pedigree information. Prediction into untested environments remained moderately high for wood (r ≥ 0.61) but dropped significantly for growth (r ≥ 0.24) traits, emphasizing the need to phenotype in all test environments and model genotype-by-environment interactions for growth traits. Removing relatedness between CV sets sharply decreased prediction accuracies for all traits and subpopulations, falling near zero between BGs with no known shared ancestry. For marker subsets, similar patterns were observed but with lower prediction accuracies.

Conclusions

Given the need for high relatedness between CV sets to obtain good prediction accuracies, we recommend to build GS models for prediction within the same breeding population only. Breeding groups could be merged to build genomic prediction models as long as the total effective population size does not exceed 50 individuals in order to obtain high prediction accuracy such as that obtained in the present study. A number of markers limited to a few hundred would not negatively impact prediction accuracies, but these could decrease more rapidly over generations. The most promising short-term approach for genomic selection would likely be the selection of superior individuals within large full-sib families vegetatively propagated to implement multiclonal forestry.     

南京市香樟树皮重金属含量及分布特征

重金属易在大气细颗粒物中富集,经呼吸道进入人体肺泡沉积,危害人类健康。该研究以南京市香樟树皮为对象,选取文教区、交通区、工业区、风景区和商业区5个功能区,探究了不同季节香樟树皮中重金属Cr、Pb、Cu和Zn含量的分布特征,比较了树皮和叶面颗粒物中不同重金属含量的空间分布差异。结果表明:南京市商业区和工业区重金属污染较严重。不同功能区香樟树皮重金属含量具时空分布差异,树皮中重金属含量基本呈秋季冬季春季夏季的季节变化特征,各功能区重金属含量表现为商业区(CA)文教区(CEA)≈工业区(TA)交通区(IA)风景区(SA)。与树皮相比,叶面颗粒物重金属含量较高,商业区叶面颗粒物重金属含量最高,风景区含量最低。经Pearson相关性分析,工业区和文教区香樟树皮中Cr元素具显著相关性(P0.05),Cu与Zn相互对应呈显著相关,表明这两种元素可能具有相似来源;工业区和交通区树皮中Pb具极显著相关性(P0.01)。植物监测可以指示和预测大气重金属污染水平,能反映地区污染情况。     

Species richness and resilience of forest communities: combined effects of short-term disturbance and long-term pollution

Recovery of the species richness of plant communities after experimental disturbances of various severities were studied in spruce forests polluted by atmospheric entry of SO₂ and heavy metals from a copper smelter. In the three toxic load zones (impact, buffer, and background), 60 experimental “pit-and-mound” complexes (sized 1 m × 2 m, 20 complexes in each zone) were created. Colonization of disturbed areas by vascular plants was observed during a 6-year period after the disturbance. The results showed that the recovery processes were affected by disturbance severity and that the recovery differed significantly among the communities. In all of the zones, species richness increased rapidly after mild disturbance. In degraded communities, levelling of differences in the rate of colonization after mild and severe disturbances was observed. The highest colonization rate was found in the communities of background zone, while the lowest was found in the heavily degraded communities of impact zone. The disturbances significantly increased the species diversity of communities in all zones and caused a certain reversion of degraded communities to previous stage of anthropogenic succession. Mild disturbance promoted the greatest increase in the diversity indices. The study results indicate that recovery rate of species richness of plant communities is determined by the duration of negative effect of disturbances. Recovery also depends significantly on the magnitude and endurance of positive effect of disturbances. The studied communities differed significantly in these parameters. The study results also suggest that short-term disturbances can significantly modify the process of transformation of plant communities by atmospheric pollution. On the other hand, long-term pollution can considerably modify the response of forest communities to disturbances. The results also conclude that the resilience of communities does not exclusively depend on their species richness.     

Growth and defence in young pine and spruce and the expression of resistance to a stem-feeding weevil

Defence in young trees has been much less studied than defence in older ones. In conifers, resin within ducts in bark is an important quantitative defence, but its expression in young trees may be influenced by developmental or physical constraints on the absolute size of the resin ducts as well as by differential allocation of resources to growth and resin synthesis. To examine these relationships, we used nitrogen fertilisation of 1- and 2-year-old pine and spruce to produce trees of different sizes and measured the effect on the number and size of resin ducts and the amount of resin they contained. All of these variables tended to increase with stem diameter, indicating a positive relationship between resin-based defence and growth of 1- and 2-year-old trees. In pine, however, the mass of resin flowing from severed ducts was much lower relative to duct area in 1- than in 2-year-old trees, suggesting that the older trees allocated a higher proportion of the carbon budget to resin synthesis. Resin-based defence in 1-year-old pines appears to be both positively related to growth and resource limited. In spruce, resin production was generally lower, and age-related differences were not observed, suggesting that resin-based defence is less important in this species. Bio-assays of 2-year-old trees with the pine weevil, Hylobius abietis, emphasised the importance of resin as a defence against this bark feeding insect. Nitrogen fertilisation had a limited influence on resistance expression. One-year-old trees remained susceptible because of their small size, low resin production and limited response to fertilisation. The strong growth response of 2-year-old trees to fertilisation increased resin-based defence, but most spruce trees remained susceptible, while most pines were resistant at all levels of fertilisation.     

Cold-regulated proteins with potent antifreeze and cryoprotective activities in spruces (Picea spp.)

Antifreeze proteins (AFPs) were obtained from intercellular spaces of spruce needles Picea abies (L.) Karst. and Picea pungens Engelm. by vacuum infiltration with ascorbic acid, followed by centrifugation to recover the infiltrate. As shown by sodium dodecyl sulphate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS–PAGE), apoplastic proteins are accumulated in these spruce species as a group of 5–9 polypeptide bands. These proteins have a molecular mass of 7–80 kDa. The spruce AFPs have the ability to modify the growth of ice and thermal hysteresis, TH, caused by these AFPs was close to 2.0 °C at a concentration of 400 μg/ml. The antifreeze activity of proteins from these winter-hardy coniferous species showed a positive correlation with the concentration of proteins after cold acclimation of needle tissues. Apoplastic proteins from winter spruce needles exhibited antifreeze activity, whereas no such activity was observed in extracts from summer needles. When we examined the possible role of spruce AFPs in cryoprotection, we found that lactate dehydrogenase, LDH, activity was higher after freezing in the presence of AFPs compared with bovine serum albumin. Amino-terminal sequence comparisons indicated that a 27-kDa protein from both P. abies and P. pungens was similar to some pathogenesis-related proteins namely chitinases, also from conifer species. These results show that spruces produce AFPs that are secreted into the apoplast of needles. The accumulation of AFPs in extracellular spaces caused by seasonal cold acclimation during winter indicates that these proteins may play a role in the acquisition of freezing tolerance of needle cells in coniferous species.