Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) fingerprinting combined with complex network analysis as a forecasting tool for tracing the origin and genetic lineage of Arabica specialty coffees.

Due to the globalization of coffee trade, ensuring the safety and traceability of coffee has become a critical challenge, prompting global authorities to implement new traceability systems to enhance quality identification and protect consumers from fraud. Aroma is a crucial parameter in the evaluation and differentiation of coffees, influenced by factors such as genetics, origin, post harvesting process, roast level, and brewing method. This paper provides, for the first time, a comprehensive overview of the volatile fingerprints of specialty coffees, categorized by their respective quality levels.

Azolla mediated alterations in grain yield and quality in Rice.

Rice is one of the most important cereal crops worldwide. To boost its production in a sustainable manner, co-cultivation with Azolla species is often used to supplement its nitrogen (N) demands. However, beyond N nutrition, the physiological and developmental effects of azolla on rice remain unclear.

Understanding interdisciplinary perspectives of plant intelligence: Is it a matter of science, language, or subjectivity?

Background: Evidence suggests that plants can behave intelligently by exhibiting the ability to learn, make associations between environmental cues, engage in complex decisions about resource acquisition, memorize, and adapt in flexible ways. However, plant intelligence is a disputed concept in the scientific community. Reasons for lack of consensus can be traced back to the history of Western philosophy, interpretation of terminology, and due to plants lacking neurons and a central nervous system.

Relationship between Leachate Pollution Index and growth response of two willow and poplar hybrids: Implications for phyto-treatment applications.

Phytoremediation is a potentially suitable technique for the reclamation of toxic landfill leachate (LL) by decreasing its volume through water uptake and improving its composition by uptake, accumulation and amelioration of pollutants. We investigated the use of two parameters, the LL concentration and the Leachate Pollution Index (LPI), a method used to determine the phytotoxicity potential of a leachate source based on a weighted sum of its components, to set the best LL dilution to apply when poplar clone 'Orion' and willow clone 'Levante' are selected for phytoremediation. Cuttings were watered with five LL concentrations ranging from 0 to 100%.

Modelling botanical biofiltration of indoor air streams contaminated by volatile organic compounds.

Botanical filtration is a biological-based treatment method suitable for removing hazardous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from air streams, based on forcing an air flow through a porous substrate and foliage of a living botanical compartment. The pathways and removal mechanisms during VOC bioremediation have been largely investigated; however, their mathematical representation is well established only for the non-botanical components of the system. In this study, we evaluated the applicability of such a modelling scheme to systems which include a botanical compartment.

Willow and poplar for the phyto-treatment of landfill leachate in Mediterranean climate.

Phytotechnological approaches using living plants are currently being proposed to address a wide range of environmental purposes including the treatment of landfill leachate (LL). Despite their popularity, few studies have investigated this possibility under actual Mediterranean conditions using fast-growing trees. This research reports the results of a two-year project where poplar and willow grown in mesocosm were tested for their ability to withstand and remove specific pollutants from different [Low: 7% (1st year) and 15% (2nd year); High: 15% (1st year) and 30% (2nd year)] amounts of LL.

Salt acclimation process: a comparison between a sensitive and a tolerant Olea europaea cultivar.

Saline soils are highly heterogeneous in time and space, and this is a critical factor influencing plant physiology and productivity. Temporal changes in soil salinity can alter plant responses to salinity, and pre-treating plants with low NaCl concentrations has been found to substantially increase salt tolerance in different species in a process called acclimation. However, it still remains unclear whether this process is common to all plants or is only expressed in certain genotypes.

Cell-Type-Specific H+-ATPase Activity in Root Tissues Enables K+ Retention and Mediates Acclimation of Barley (Hordeum vulgare) to Salinity Stress.

While the importance of cell type specificity in plant adaptive responses is widely accepted, only a limited number of studies have addressed this issue at the functional level. We have combined electrophysiological, imaging, and biochemical techniques to reveal the physiological mechanisms conferring higher sensitivity of apical root cells to salinity in barley (Hordeum vulgare). We show that salinity application to the root apex arrests root growth in a highly tissue- and treatment-specific manner.

Acclimation improves salt stress tolerance in Zea mays plants.

Plants exposure to low level salinity activates an array of processes leading to an improvement of plant stress tolerance. Although the beneficial effect of acclimation was demonstrated in many herbaceous species, underlying mechanisms behind this phenomenon remain poorly understood. In the present study we have addressed this issue by investigating ionic mechanisms underlying the process of plant acclimation to salinity stress in Zea mays.

Networks of plants: how to measure similarity in vegetable species.

Despite the common misconception of nearly static organisms, plants do interact continuously with the environment and with each other. It is fair to assume that during their evolution they developed particular features to overcome similar problems and to exploit possibilities from environment. In this paper we introduce various quantitative measures based on recent advancements in complex network theory that allow to measure the effective similarities of various species.

Developing and validating a high-throughput assay for salinity tissue tolerance in wheat and barley.

Leaf tissue tolerance was strongly and positively correlated with overall salt tolerance in barley, but not in wheat where the inability of sensitive varieties to exclude Na(+) is compensated by their better ability to handle Na(+) accumulated in the shoot via tissue tolerance mechanisms. A new high-throughput assay was developed to use the excised leaves to eliminate the confounding contribution of sodium exclusion mechanisms and evaluate genetic variability in salinity tissue tolerance in a large number of wheat (Triticum aestivum and Triticum turgidum ssp. durum) and barley (Hordeum vulgare) accessions.

Morphologic and Aerodynamic Considerations Regarding the Plumed Seeds of Tragopogon pratensis and Their Implications for Seed Dispersal.

Tragopogon pratensis is a small herbaceous plant that uses wind as the dispersal vector for its seeds. The seeds are attached to parachutes that increase the aerodynamic drag force and increase the total distance travelled. Our hypothesis is that evolution has carefully tuned the air permeability of the seeds to operate in the most convenient fluid dynamic regime.

Linking salinity stress tolerance with tissue-specific Na(+) sequestration in wheat roots.

Salinity stress tolerance is a physiologically complex trait that is conferred by the large array of interacting mechanisms. Among these, vacuolar Na(+) sequestration has always been considered as one of the key components differentiating between sensitive and tolerant species and genotypes. However, vacuolar Na(+) sequestration has been rarely considered in the context of the tissue-specific expression and regulation of appropriate transporters contributing to Na(+) removal from the cytosol.

The electrical network of maize root apex is gravity dependent.

Investigations carried out on maize roots under microgravity and hypergravity revealed that gravity conditions have strong effects on the network of plant electrical activity. Both the duration of action potentials (APs) and their propagation velocities were significantly affected by gravity. Similarly to what was reported for animals, increased gravity forces speed-up APs and enhance synchronized electrical events also in plants.

Oxidative stress and NO signalling in the root apex as an early response to changes in gravity conditions.

Oxygen influx showed an asymmetry in the transition zone of the root apex when roots were placed horizontally on ground. The influx increased only in the upper side, while no changes were detected in the division and in the elongation zone. Nitric oxide (NO) was also monitored after gravistimulation, revealing a sudden burst only in the transition zone.

Gravity affects the closure of the traps in Dionaea muscipula.

Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula Ellis) is a carnivorous plant known for its ability to capture insects thanks to the fast snapping of its traps. This fast movement has been long studied and it is triggered by the mechanical stimulation of hairs, located in the middle of the leaves. Here we present detailed experiments on the effect of microgravity on trap closure recorded for the first time during a parabolic flight campaign.

PTR-TOF-MS analysis of volatile compounds in olive fruits.

Background: Volatile compounds of Cellina di Nardò and Ogliarola Barese, two typical Italian olive varieties, have been characterised at different ripening stages. Proton transfer reaction-time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (PTR-TOF-MS) was used for the first time on these fruits with the aim of characterising the volatile profile and, in the case of Ogliarola, the changes which may occur during the maturation process.

Results: PTR-TOF-MS does not involve any sample pre-treatment, and allows high-resolution measurements, large spectra and small fragmentation of the volatiles.

Biomimetics on seed dispersal: survey and insights for space exploration.

Seeds provide the vital genetic link and dispersal agent between successive generations of plants. Without seed dispersal as a means of reproduction, many plants would quickly die out. Because plants lack any sort of mobility and remain in the same spot for their entire lives, they rely on seed dispersal to transport their offspring throughout the environment.

On the mechanism underlying photosynthetic limitation upon trigger hair irritation in the carnivorous plant Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula Ellis).

Mechanical stimulation of trigger hairs on the adaxial surface of the trap of Dionaea muscipula leads to the generation of action potentials and to rapid leaf movement. After rapid closure secures the prey, the struggle against the trigger hairs results in generation of further action potentials which inhibit photosynthesis. A detailed analysis of chlorophyll a fluorescence kinetics and gas exchange measurements in response to generation of action potentials in irritated D.

Specificity of polyamine effects on NaCl-induced ion flux kinetics and salt stress amelioration in plants.

Polyamine (PA) levels in plants increase considerably under saline conditions. Because such an increase is believed to be beneficial for stress resistance, exogenous application of PAs has often been advocated as a means of ameliorating the detrimental effects of salinity. Results, however, are rather controversial, ranging from a significant amelioration to being ineffective or even toxic.