Resprouting of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Echinacea angustifolia</Emphasis> Augments Sustainability of Wild Medicinal Plant Populations

Resprouting of Echinacea angustifolia Augments Sustainability of Wild Medicinal Plant Populations. Overharvest of wild Echinacea species root has been a significant concern to the herbal industry. Harvesters of wild Echinacea angustifolia showed us that even after harvesting the top 15 to 20 cm of root, some plants resprout. We marked locations of harvested plants at sites in Kansas and Montana and reexamined them two years later to see if they resprouted from remaining root reserves. Approximately 50% of the roots resprouted at both Kansas and Montana sampling sites, despite droughty weather conditions in Montana. The length of root harvested significantly affected the ability of the plant to resprout. Those plants that were more shallowly harvested and had less root length removed were more likely to resprout. These data indicate that echinacea stands can recover over time from intensive harvest if periods of nonharvest occur. Our echinacea harvest study emphasizes that the entire biology of medicinal plants must be considered when evaluating their conservation status.     

Simple sequence repeat analyses of interspecific hybrids and MAALs of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Oryza </Emphasis><Emphasis Type="Italic">officinalis</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Oryza sativa</Emphasis>

Wild rice is a valuable resource for the genetic improvement of cultivated rice (Oryza sativa L., AA genome). Molecular markers are important tools for monitoring gene introgression from wild rice into cultivated rice. In this study, Simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were used to analyze interspecific hybrids of O. sativa-O. officinalis (CC genome), the backcrossing progenies and the parent plants. Results showed that most of the SSR primers (335 out of 396, 84.6%) developed in cultivated rice successfully amplified products from DNA samples of wild rice O. officinalis. The polymorphism ratio of SSR bands between O. sativa and O. officinalis was as high as 93.9%, indicating differences between the two species with respect to SSRs. When the SSR markers were applied in the interspecific hybrids, only a portion of SSR primers amplified O. officinalis-specific bands in the F(1) hybrid (52.5%), BC(1) (52.5%), and MAALs (37.0%); a number of the bands disappeared. Of the 124 SSR loci that detected officinalis-specific bands in MAAL plants, 96 (77.4%) showed synteny between the A and C-genomes, and 20 (16.1%) showed duplication in the C-genome. Sequencing analysis revealed that indels, substitution and duplication contribute to the diversity of SSR loci between the genomes of O. sativa and O. officinalis.     

Early Holocene cultivation before domestication in northern Syria

Charred plant remains from the sites of Tell Qaramel, Jerf el Ahmar, Dja’de and Tell ‘Abr situated in northern Syria and dated to the tenth and ninth millennia cal b.c. demonstrate that a wide variety of wild pulses, cereals, fruits and nuts was exploited. Five lines of evidence suggest that cultivation was practised at three of the sites. (1) Wild einkorn, wild rye and lentils occur outside their natural habitats. (2) The founder crops barley, emmer and single-grained einkorn appear at different times. (3) An assemblage of weeds of cultivation was identified. (4) There is a gradual decrease in gathered plants such as small seeded grasses and Polygonum/Rumex. (5) Barley grains increase in breadth and thickness. Morphological domestication did not become established, perhaps because seed stock was regularly collected from wild stands. Charred rodent droppings indicate large-scale grain storage.     

A semiparametric response surface model for assessing drug interaction

Summary .   When multiple drugs are administered simultaneously, investigators are often interested in assessing whether the drug combinations are synergistic, additive, or antagonistic. Existing response surface models are not adequate to capture the complex patterns of drug interactions. We propose a two-component semiparametric response surface model with a parametric function to describe the additive effect of a combination dose and a nonparametric function to capture the departure from the additive effect. The nonparametric function is estimated using the technique developed in thin plate splines, and the pointwise bootstrap confidence interval for this function is constructed. The proposed semiparametric model offers an effective way of formulating the additive effect while allowing the flexibility of modeling a departure from additivity. Example and simulations are given to illustrate that the proposed model provides an excellent estimation for different patterns of interactions between two drugs.     

Genetic variability and population structure in Cypriot chukar partridges (Alectoris chukar cypriotes) as determined by microsatellite analysis

For the first time, microsatellite loci were used to study the genetic structure in Alectoris chukar cypriotes. Four of the ten tested microsatellite loci were found to be polymorphic in 33 individuals from four regions of Cyprus. The differentiation test between all the pairs of samples gave non-differentiation exact P values in every case (P>0.05). The posterior probability distribution on the number of source populations indicated only one population (P=0.977); also, a high Bayes factor value (130.020) was obtained. Posterior co-assignment probabilities (measures of similarity) for all pairs of individuals ranged from 0.984 to 1. The global F_IS value was not found to be significant. A recent bottleneck of the Cypriot total partridge population is suggested and this is supported by a significant Wilcoxon test (P=0.031) under the Infinite Alleles Model (IAM) and shifted mode in the alleles frequencies distribution. The results suggest that all the individuals studied belong to only one randomly mating (panmictic) population, with low genetic variation and evidence of recent effective population size reduction (genetic bottleneck). A big hunting pressure exists on the island and about 200,000 captive-bred birds are released every year; these individuals are descendant from a small number of eggs collected in a small area of Cyprus in 1986 and this founder effect could explain the existence of a bottleneck and the low genetic variability.     

栽培稻与其野生近缘种的可交配性研究

通过人工授粉方法研究栽培稻与二倍体和四倍体野生稻之间的可交配性.以栽培稻为对照,用光学显微镜观察不同野生稻花粉在同一栽培种柱头上的萌发生长情况.结果表明,在栽培稻柱头上普通野生稻(AA)花粉萌发最好,与对照萌发情况相近.药用野生稻(CC)萌发差,表现为柱头上花粉附着量少,开始萌发时间迟,萌发量少,花粉管扭曲、缠绕、伸长慢等.四倍体野生稻未观察到有萌发现象.说明普通野生稻与栽培稻亲缘关系近,可交配性好;药用野生稻与栽培稻可交配性差;四倍体野生稻与栽培稻可交配性极差.由此推断,转基因水稻与普通野生稻通过花粉途径发生基因漂移的可能性很大,而与药用野生稻和其他基因组野生稻发生基因漂移的可能性很小.     

黑龙江省通河乌龙狩猎场野猪冬季食性的初步研究

野生动物食性的研究,在野生动物保护和管理方面具有重要的基础理论意义。野猪（Sus scrofa）是一种经济价值较高的有蹄类动物。国内对野猪食性的报道,仅见综述性献（巫露平,1980;李振营和罗泽殉,1983;杨伯然,1984）,野猪食性方面的研究尚未多见;国外对野猪食性的研究主要集中在食物组成的定量分析和食物营养质量的评价（Eriksson and Petrov,1995;Foumier-chambrillon et al．,1995;朝日念,1985）。因此,作从2000～2001年,分别在黑龙江省通河乌龙狩猎场收集粪样,利用粪便显微组织学分析方法并结合野外掘食痕迹对野猪冬季食性进行了初步研究。     

浙江中部地区野榧的调查

简述了浙江中部地区被称为"野榧"的植物,并非指一种植物,而是三尖杉、南方红豆杉、粗榧和野生榧树等几种植物.同时介绍了它们的叶与果实的主要区别;指出这些重要野生植物资源应加以保护.     

野生条件下扬子鳄的吼叫规律

20 0 3年在安徽扬子鳄自然保护区对扬子鳄的吼叫规律进行了为期一年的专题研究。在监测中 ,记录了吼叫日期、吼叫时间、吼叫数和天气情况。扬子鳄在每年的 3月开始吼叫 ,11月停止吼叫 ;扬子鳄的吼叫数在不同的月份差异极显著 (χ2 检验 :χ2 =4 4 8 2 9,df=8,P <0 0 1) ,其中 6月扬子鳄吼叫最为频繁 ,其吼叫数占全年的 2 6 0 % ;繁殖期间 (6— 9月 )扬子鳄吼叫数明显高于非繁殖期 (Mann WhitneyU检验 :U =2 0 ,P <0 0 5 ) ;在每天的不同时间扬子鳄的吼叫数呈极显著差异 (χ2 =2 33 18,df =17,P <0 0 1) ,存在明显的吼叫高峰 ,白天吼叫多于晚上 (U =12 5 ,P <0 0 5 ) ;天气的变化对吼叫没有影响。分析表明 ,扬子鳄的吼叫与其繁殖行为关系紧密 ,吼叫的主要目的是为了吸引异性 ,同时有保护领域的功能。     

山西珍稀野生花卉种质资源与利用

本文论述了山西珍稀野生花卉种质资源的种类、观赏特性和应用前景,并进一步分析了其生态特点和开发利用途径,为今后山西珍稀野生花卉的研究和开发利用提参考.