Extremely thin but very robust:Surprising cryptogam trait combinations at the end of the leaf economics spectrum

Leaf economics spectrum(LES)describes the fundamental trade-offs between leaf structural,chemical,and physiological investments.Generally,structurally robust thick leaves with high leaf dry mass per unit area(LMA)exhibit lower photosynthetic capacity per dry mass(Amass).Paradoxically,“soft and thinleaved”mosses and spikemosses have very low Amass,but due to minute-size foliage elements,their LMA and its components,leaf thickness(LT)and density(LD),have not been systematically estimated.Here,we characterized LES and associated traits in cryptogams in unprecedented details,covering five evolutionarily different lineages.We found that mosses and spikemosses had the lowest LMA and LT values ever measured for terrestrial plants.Across a broad range of species from different lineages,Amass and LD were negatively correlated.In contrast,Amass was only related to LMA when LMA was greater than 14 g cm^(-2).In fact,low Amass reflected high LD and cell wall thickness in the studied cryptogams.We conclude that evolutionarily old plant lineages attained poorly differentiated,ultrathin mesophyll by increasing LD.Across plant lineages,LD,not LMA,is the trait that represents the trade-off between leaf robustness and physiology in the LES.

Structural Traits,Structural Indices and Body Weight Prediction of Arsi Cows

Structural measurements are indicators of animal performance,productivity and carcass characteristics.This study was conducted with the objectives of assessing structural measurements,developing body weight prediction and structural indices for cows of Arsi breed.The cows were purchased from highland and lowland agro-ecologies of Arsi and East Shoa zones of Oromia regional state,Ethiopia and kept in Adami Tulu Agricultural Research Center(ATARC)for the breed development purpose.Totally 222 cows were included in the structural traits measurement.Thirty four young heifers were also considered in the study.Twenty two structural traits were considered during observational survey.The structural index was calculated from the phenotypically correlated linear measurements.Structural traits were analyzed by T-test of SPSS version twenty four.The observed average values of height at wither,chest depth,heart girth,body length,pelvic width,cannon bone circumferences of the cows were 107,55.62,141.06,117.82,31.41 and 13.58cm,respectively.Heart girth(0.82),flank girth(0.73),hook circumferences(0.67),chest depth(0.65)and height at rump(0.64)were highly correlated(P<0.01)to body weight of the cows.Regression analysis indicated that hearth girth had the highest coefficient of determination for body weight of the cows and heifers.Accordingly,the simple linear equations were developed to predict the body weight of cows and heifers.Body weight of Arsi cow(y)=-221.005+3.1(heart girth)and Body weight of Arsi heifer(y)=-188.452+2.75(heart girth).Based on this,the measuring chart tape can be developed to estimate the body weight of Arsi cows and heifers at field condition where there is no access to weighing scales.

High-throughput phenotyping by applying digital morphometrics and fluorescence induction curves in seeds to identifying variations:A case study of Annona(Annonaceae)species

Differences in physical and structural characteristics of seeds may indicate variability within and between plant populations.In the present study,we performed a close characterization of dimension,shape,and tegument delayed chlorophyll fluorescence in seeds obtained from three species of the genus Annona(Annonaceae),i.e.,Annona coriacea,A.montana,A.squamosa.Results showed that studied seeds may be sorted as scalene ellipsoids expressing low values for the seed sphericity.The morphological estimates suggested differences in seed shape for all species.A high correlation was observed between surface area and volume(r^2>99%)for all the three species suggesting that in addition to structural shape.In addition,we also observed very high positive correlations(Rho=1.000,p<0.001)between surface area and arithmetic mean diameterof the seeds for all species.The first principal component(PCA1)of elliptical Fourier descriptors explained most of the variations in morphological structure of the seeds in the three species.Additionally,a less intense tegument delayed chlorophyll fluorescence was observed for A.montana while the highest intensity was recorded for A.squamosa,revealing the potential use of fluorescence spectroscopy in discrimination at the species level by analyzing the frequency domain by means of Fourier Transform spectra as well as the relationship time-frequency of chlorophyll fluorescence.