Lack of neighbor perception in soft wheat increases weed-induced yield losses.

Weeds are one of the major constraints for wheat productivity, causing significant yield losses worldwide. While chemical control is the most used practice to overcome weed damage, its efficacy is challenged by increasing weed resistance to most used herbicides, which is an expanding phenomenon caused by herbicide overuse/misuse. Modern wheat varieties are less able to perceive the presence of weeds than old varieties and are therefore less competitive against them and require chemical control to ensure adequate yields.

Spatial Modeling of Douglas-Fir Plantations in Italy After 120 Years of Experimentation.

This study aims to identify the ecological factors that drive the survival of Douglas-fir ( [Mirb.] Franco) in Italy, using data from old-growth experimental stands. A record of 124 Douglas-fir plantations was compiled from a literature review and ground survey, including 98 Douglas-fir stands established in the early 20th century.

Determination of Differential Alternative Splicing Under Stress Conditions.

Alternative splicing (AS) is an important mechanism contributing to stress-induced regulation of gene expression and proteome diversity. Massive sequencing technologies allow the identification of transcripts generated via stress-responsive AS, potentially important for adaptation to stress conditions. Several bioinformatics tools have been developed to identify differentially expressed alternative splicing events/transcripts from RNA-sequencing results.

Smart selection of soil microbes for resilient and sustainable viticulture.

The grapevine industry is of high economic importance in several countries worldwide. Its growing market demand led to an acceleration of the entire production processes, implying increasing use of water resources at the expense of environmental water balance and the hydrological cycle. Furthermore, in recent decades climate change and the consequent expansion of drought have further compromised water availability, making current agricultural systems even more fragile from ecological and economical perspectives.

How Temperatures May Affect the Synthesis of Fatty Acids during Olive Fruit Ripening: Genes at Work in the Field.

A major concern for olive cultivation in many extra-Mediterranean regions is the adaptation of recently introduced cultivars to environmental conditions different from those prevailing in the original area, such as the Mediterranean basin. Some of these cultivars can easily adapt their physiological and biochemical parameters in new agro-environments, whereas others show unbalanced values of oleic acid content. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of the thermal regime during oil synthesis on the expression of fatty acid desaturase genes and on the unsaturated fatty acid contents at the field level.

Is carbonic anhydrase inhibition useful as a complementary therapy of Covid-19 infection?

The ongoing Covid-19 is a contagious disease, and it is characterised by different symptoms such as fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Rising concerns about Covid-19 have severely affected the healthcare system in all countries as the Covid-19 outbreak has developed at a rapid rate all around the globe. Intriguing, a clinically used drug, acetazolamide (a specific inhibitor of carbonic anhydrase, CA, EC 4.

Imprints of selection in peripheral and ecologically marginal central-eastern European Scots pine populations.

Knowledge of the molecular mechanisms underlying the stress response in plants is essential to understand evolutionary processes that result in long-term persistence of populations. Populations inhabiting marginal ecological conditions at the distribution range periphery may have preserved imprints of natural selection that have shaped functional genetic variation of the species. Our aim was to evaluate the extent of selection processes in the extremely fragmented, peripheral and isolated populations of Scots pine in central-eastern Europe.

Probabilistic Provenance Detection and Management Pathways for (Mirb.) Franco in Italy Using Climatic Analogues.

The introduction of Douglas-fir [ (Mirb.) Franco] in Europe has been one of the most important and extensive silvicultural experiments since the 1850s. This success was mainly supported by the species' wide genome and phenotypic plasticity even if the genetic origin of seeds used for plantations is nowadays often unknown.

Evaluating the efficiency of enzyme accelerated CO capture: chemical kinetics modelling for interpreting measurement results.

In this paper, the efficiency of the carbonic anhydrase (CA) enzyme in accelerating the hydration of CO is evaluated using a measurement system which consists of a vessel in which a gaseous flow of mixtures of nitrogen and CO is bubbled into water or water solutions containing a known quantity of CA enzyme. The pH value of the solution and the CO concentration at the measurement system gas exhaust are continuously monitored. The measured CO level allows for assessing the quantity of CO, which, subtracted from the gaseous phase, is dissolved into the liquid phase and/or hydrated to bicarbonate.

ClimateEU, scale-free climate normals, historical time series, and future projections for Europe.

Interpolated climate data have become essential for regional or local climate change impact assessments and the development of climate change adaptation strategies. Here, we contribute an accessible, comprehensive database of interpolated climate data for Europe that includes monthly, annual, decadal, and 30-year normal climate data for the last 119 years (1901 to 2019) as well as multi-model CMIP5 climate change projections for the 21 century. The database also includes variables relevant for ecological research and infrastructure planning, comprising more than 20,000 climate grids that can be queried with a provided ClimateEU software package.

EST-SNP Study of L. Uncovers Functional Polymorphisms between Cultivated and Wild Olives.

Background: The species includes cultivated varieties (subsp. var. ), wild plants (subsp.

Characterization and validation of olive FAD and SAD gene families: expression analysis in different tissues and during fruit development.

Stearoyl-ACP desaturases (SADs) and fatty acid desaturases (FADs) play a critical role in plant lipid metabolism and also affect oil fatty acid composition introducing double bonds into the hydrocarbon chains to produce unsaturated fatty acids. In the present study, the genomic sequences of three SAD and three FAD candidate genes were characterized in olive and their expression was evaluated in different plant tissues. OeSAD genes corresponded to olive SAD1 and SAD2 and to a newly identified OeSAD4, sharing the conserved protein structure with other plant species.

Re.Ger.O.P.: An Integrated Project for the Recovery of Ancient and Rare Olive Germplasm.

The olive tree is one of the most important economic, cultural, and environmental resources for Italy, in particular for the Apulian region, where it shows a wide diversity. The increasing attention to the continuous loss of plant genetic diversity due to social, economic and climatic changes, has favored a renewed interest in strategies aimed at the recovery and conservation of these genetic resources. In the frame of a project for the valorization of the olive Apulian biodiversity (Re.

Genetic Mapping of the Incompatibility Locus in Olive and Development of a Linked Sequence-Tagged Site Marker.

The genetic control of self-incompatibility (SI) has been recently disclosed in olive. Inter-varietal crossing confirmed the presence of only two incompatibility groups (G1 and G2), suggesting a simple Mendelian inheritance of the trait. A double digest restriction associated DNA (ddRAD) sequencing of a biparental population segregating for incompatibility groups has been performed and high-density linkage maps were constructed in order to map the SI locus and identify gene candidates and linked markers.

Plasticity of fruit and oil traits in olive among different environments.

Olive is a long-living perennial species with a wide geographical distribution, showing a large genetic and phenotypic variation in its growing area. There is an urgent need to uncover how olive phenotypic traits and plasticity can change regardless of the genetic background. A two-year study was conducted, based on the analysis of fruit and oil traits of 113 cultivars from five germplasm collections established in Mediterranean Basin countries and Argentina.

Physiological, epigenetic and genetic regulation in some olive cultivars under salt stress.

Cultivated olive, a typical fruit crop species of the semi-arid regions, could successfully face the new scenarios driven by the climate change through the selection of tolerant varieties to salt and drought stresses. In the present work, multidisciplinary approaches, including physiological, epigenetic and genetic studies, have been applied to clarify the salt tolerance mechanisms in olive. Four varieties (Koroneiki, Royal de Cazorla, Arbequina and Picual) and a related form (O.

Usefulness of a New Large Set of High Throughput EST-SNP Markers as a Tool for Olive Germplasm Collection Management.

Germplasm collections are basic tools for conservation, characterization, and efficient use of olive genetic resources. The identification of the olive cultivars maintained in the collections is an important ongoing task which has been performed by both, morphological and molecular markers. In the present study, based on the sequencing results of previous genomic projects, a new set of 1,043 EST-SNP markers has been identified.

Controlling for genetic identity of varieties, pollen contamination and stigma receptivity is essential to characterize the self-incompatibility system of L.

Bervillé et al. express concern about the existence of the diallelic self-incompatibility (DSI) system in , mainly because our model does not account for results from previous studies from their group that claimed to have documented asymmetry of the incompatibility response in reciprocal crosses. In this answer to their comment, we present original results based on reciprocal stigma tests that contradict conclusions from these studies.

Genome-wide association mapping reveals a rich genetic architecture of stripe rust resistance loci in emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccum).

SNP-based genome scanning in worldwide domesticated emmer germplasm showed high genetic diversity, rapid linkage disequilibrium decay and 51 loci for stripe rust resistance, a large proportion of which were novel. Cultivated emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccum), one of the oldest domesticated crops in the world, is a potentially rich reservoir of variation for improvement of resistance/tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses in wheat.

The eastern part of the Fertile Crescent concealed an unexpected route of olive (Olea europaea L.) differentiation.

Background And Aims: Olive is considered a native plant of the eastern side of the Mediterranean basin, from where it should have spread westward along the Mediterranean shores, while little is known about its diffusion in the eastern direction.

Methods: Genetic diversity levels and population genetic structure of a wide set of olive ecotypes and varieties collected from several provinces of Iran, representing a high percentage of the entire olive resources present in the area, was screened with 49 chloroplast and ten nuclear simple sequence repeat markers, and coupled with archaeo-botanical and historical data on Mediterranean olive varieties. Approximate Bayesian Computation was applied to define the demographic history of olives including Iranian germplasm, and species distribution modelling was performed to understand the impact of the Late Quaternary on olive distribution.

A magnificent enzyme superfamily: carbonic anhydrases, their purification and characterization.

In this paper, we reviewed the purification and characterization methods of the α-carbonic anhydrase (CA, EC 4.2.1.

Olive fruits infested with olive fly larvae respond with an ethylene burst and the emission of specific volatiles.

Olive fly (Bactrocera oleae R.) is the most harmful insect pest of olive (Olea europaea L.) which strongly affects fruits and oil production.

High genetic diversity detected in olives beyond the boundaries of the Mediterranean Sea.

Background: Olive trees (Olea europaea subsp. europaea var. europaea) naturally grow in areas spanning the Mediterranean basin and towards the East, including the Middle East.