Common bean SNP alleles and candidate genes affecting photosynthesis under contrasting water regimes

Water deficit is a major worldwide constraint to common bean(Phaseolus vulgaris L.)production,being photosynthesis one of the most affected physiological processes.To gain insights into the genetic basis of the photosynthetic response of common bean under water-limited conditions,a collection of 158 Portuguese accessions was grown under both well-watered and water-deficit regimes.Leaf gas-exchange parameters were measured and photosynthetic pigments quantified.The same collection was genotyped using SNP arrays,and SNP-trait associations tested considering a linear mixed model accounting for the genetic relatedness among accessions.A total of 133 SNP-trait associations were identified for net CO 2 assimilation rate,transpiration rate,stomatal conductance,and chlorophylls a and b,carotenes,and xanthophyll contents.Ninety of these associations were detected under water-deficit and 43 under well-watered conditions,with only two associations common to both treatments.Identified candidate genes revealed that stomatal regulation,protein translocation across membranes,redox mechanisms,hormone,and osmotic stress signaling were the most relevant processes involved in common bean response to water-limited conditions.These candidates are now preferential targets for common bean water-deficit-tolerance breeding.Additionally,new sources of water-deficit tolerance of Andean,Mesoamerican,and admixed origin were detected as accessions valuable for breeding,and not yet explored.

Plant Breeding for Harmony between Modern Agriculture Production and the Environment

The world population is estimated to be 9.2 billion in 2050. To sufficiently feed these people, the total food production will have to increase 60% - 70%. Climate models predict that warmer tem-peratures and increases in the frequency and duration of drought during the present century will have negative impact on agricultural productivity. These new global challenges require a more complex integrated agricultural and breeding agenda that focuses on livelihood improvement coupled with agro-ecosystem resilience, eco-efficiency and sustainability rather than just on crop productivity gains. Intensifying sustainability agro-ecosystems by producing more food with lower inputs, adapting agriculture to climate change, conserving agro-biodiversity through its use, and making markets to work for the small farmers are needed to address the main issues of our time. Plant breeding has played a vital role in the successful development of modern agriculture. Development of new cultivars will be required while reducing the impact of agriculture on the environment and maintaining sufficient production. Conventional plant breeding will remain the backbone of crop improvement strategies. Genetic engineering has the potential to address some of the most challenging biotic constraints faced by farmers, which are not easily addressed through conventional plant breeding alone. Protective measures and laws, especially patenting, must be moderated to eliminate coverage so broad that it stifles innovation. They must be made less restrictive to encourage research and free flow of materials and information. Small farmers have an important role in conserving and using crop biodiversity. Public sector breeding must remain vigorous, especially in areas where the private sector does not function. This will often require benevolent public/private partnerships as well as government support. Active and positive connections between the private and public breeding sectors and large-scale gene banks are required to avoid a possible conflict involving breeders’ rights, gene preservation and erosion. Plant breeding can be a powerful tool to bring “harmony” between agriculture and the environment, but partnerships and cooperation are needed to make this a reality.

Assessing a novel modelling approach with high resolution UAV imagery for monitoring health status in priority riparian forests

Background:Black alder(Alnus glutinosa)forests are in severe decline across their area of distribution due to a disease caused by the soil-borne pathogenic Phytophthora alni species complex(class Oomycetes),“alder Phytopththora”.Mapping of the different types of damages caused by the disease is challenging in high density ecosystems in which spectral variability is high due to canopy heterogeneity.Data obtained by unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)may be particularly useful for such tasks due to the high resolution,flexibility of acquisition and cost efficiency of this type of data.In this study,A.glutinosa decline was assessed by considering four categories of tree health status in the field:asymptomatic,dead and defoliation above and below a 50% threshold.A combination of multispectral Parrot Sequoia and UAV unmanned aerial vehicles-red green blue(RGB)data were analysed using classical random forest(RF)and a simple and robust three-step logistic modelling approaches to identify the most important forest health indicators while adhering to the principle of parsimony.A total of 34 remote sensing variables were considered,including a set of vegetation indices,texture features from the normalized difference vegetation index(NDVI)and a digital surface model(DSM),topographic and digital aerial photogrammetry-derived structural data from the DSM at crown level.Results:The four categories identified by the RF yielded an overall accuracy of 67%,while aggregation of the legend to three classes(asymptomatic,defoliated,dead)and to two classes(alive,dead)improved the overall accuracy to 72% and 91% respectively.On the other hand,the confusion matrix,computed from the three logistic models by using the leave-out cross-validation method yielded overall accuracies of 75%,80% and 94% for four-,three-and two-level classifications,respectively.Discussion:The study findings provide forest managers with an alternative robust classification method for the rapid,effective assessment of areas affected and non-affected by the disease,thus enabling them to identify hotspots for conservation and plan control and restoration measures aimed at preserving black alder forests.

Species-specific,pan-European diameter increment models based on data of 2.3 million trees

Background: Over the last decades, many forest simulators have been developed for the forests of individual European countries. The underlying growth models are usually based on national datasets of varying size, obtained from National Forest Inventories or from long-term research plots. Many of these models include country-and location-specific predictors, such as site quality indices that may aggregate climate, soil properties and topography effects. Consequently, it is not sensible to compare such models among countries, and it is often impossible to apply models outside the region or country they were developed for. However, there is a clear need for more generically applicable but still locally accurate and climate sensitive simulators at the European scale, which requires the development of models that are applicable across the European continent. The purpose of this study is to develop tree diameter increment models that are applicable at the European scale, but still locally accurate. We compiled and used a dataset of diameter increment observations of over 2.3 million trees from 10 National Forest Inventories in Europe and a set of 99 potential explanatory variables covering forest structure, weather, climate, soil and nutrient deposition.Results: Diameter increment models are presented for 20 species/species groups. Selection of explanatory variables was done using a combination of forward and backward selection methods. The explained variance ranged from10% to 53% depending on the species. Variables related to forest structure(basal area of the stand and relative size of the tree) contributed most to the explained variance, but environmental variables were important to account for spatial patterns. The type of environmental variables included differed greatly among species.Conclusions: The presented diameter increment models are the first of their kind that are applicable at the European scale. This is an important step towards the development of a new generation of forest development simulators that can be applied at the European scale, but that are sensitive to variations in growing conditions and applicable to a wider range of management systems than before. This allows European scale but detailed analyses concerning topics like CO2 sequestration, wood mobilisation, long term impact of management, etc.

云南咖啡锈菌小种鉴定

为明确云南咖啡锈菌小种类型,采用国际通用的19个咖啡锈菌生理小种鉴定寄主,利用人工接种鉴定的方法,对采自云南咖啡主产区12县(市)的51份咖啡锈菌进行鉴定,鉴定出9个小种,分别为VIII(v2,3,5)、XXXIII(v5,7 or v5,7,9)、XXXIV(v2,5,7 or v2,5,7,9)、XXXVII(v2,5,6,7,9)、XLI(v2,5,8)、XLII(v2,5,7,8 or v2,5,7,8,9)、New race(v2,5,6,7)、New race(v1,2,5,7 or v1,2,5,7,9)、New race(v1,5,7 or v1,5,7,9),这9个小种均为国内首次鉴定,其中小种XXXIII、XXXIV、New race(v2,5,6,7)、New race(v1,5,7 or v1,5,7,9)、New race(v1,2,5,7 or v1,2,5,7,9)、XLI和XLII均侵染Catimor7963,小种XXXVII侵染CatimorT5175。

聚丙烯酸盐对重金属污染矿区本地植株生长和土壤性质的影响

采用半野外试验研究了聚丙烯酸盐对自然条件下矿区重金属污染土壤性质和矿区本地植株生长的影响。研究表明,0.4%的聚丙烯酸盐明显促进了4种污染矿区本地植物的生长,总生物量在两轮生长中分别是对照处理的1.8倍和2.3倍。不同植株对不同生长季节反映不同,其中Briza maxima(B.maxima)在春夏季节生长好于秋冬季节,但生物量不高,无法提供大面积覆盖。而Chaetopogon fasciculatus(C.fasciculatus)和Spergularia purpurea(S.purpurea)因其在秋冬季节生长明显好于春夏季节,尽管在春夏季节由于干旱而大量死亡,仍然可以大面积覆盖土壤,所以可尝试用于矿区土壤的植被固定。聚丙烯酸盐的应用显著改善了土壤脱氢酶、磷酸酶、蔗糖苷酶、蛋白酶、脲酶以及纤维素酶的活性。研究同时发现,不同种类植株的生长与土壤pH及土壤酶活性存在显著的相关关系,其中,土壤pH和C.fasciculatus的生长与土壤中蛋白酶和纤维素酶的活性正相关(r>0.60),而Briza maxima的生长与蔗糖酶的活性正相关(r=0.82)。

葡萄牙直接防控松材线虫的措施(英文)

由松材线虫引发的松萎蔫病在葡萄牙发生于1999年,此后防治该病的措施主要是热处理、用溴甲烷熏蒸、砍伐和焚烧感病树木。最近发布了一系列的官方文件,以确保这些措施对松木、包装木和其他松木材料的处理效果,且已经有公司注册按照文件要求进行处理。最近欧盟对这些防治措施和药剂进行评价,主要考查它们对人类健康和环境的影响,所得结果是原来市场上流通的1 219种药剂产品中仅有340种获得批准在欧盟市场上流通。其中溴甲烷被标记为"高度危险",仅能用于检疫和运输前对木材或木制品的处理;硫酰氟被标记为"暂时未定",可以暂时替代溴甲烷;阿维菌素、甲氨基阿维菌素苯甲酸和美贝霉素被认为是有效防治松材线虫病的药物,允许用于树干注射;阿维菌素和美贝霉素已经被批准使用,而甲氨基阿维菌素苯甲酸则被标记为"暂时未定",可以限时使用。

Nutritional and Health Benefits of Carrots and Their Seed Extracts

Carrot is a root vegetable with carotenoids, flavonoids, polyacetylenes, vitamins, and minerals, all of which possess numerous nutritional and health benefits. Besides lending truth to the old adage that carrots are good for eyes, carotenoids, polyphenols and vitamins present in carrot act as antioxidants, anticarcinogens, and immunoenhancers. Anti-diabetic, cholesterol and cardiovascular disease lowering, anti-hypertensive, hepatoprotective, renoprotective, and wound healing benefits of carrot have also been reported. The cardio- and hepatoprotective, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic effects of carrot seed extracts are also noteworthy. All are discussed in this review article.

Nutritional Quality and Health Benefits of Vegetables:A Review

Vegetables are considered essential for well-balanced diets since they supply vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, and phytochemicals. Each vegetable group contains an unique combination and amount of these phytonutriceuticals, which distinguishes them from other groups and vegetables whithin their own group. In the daily diet vegetables have been strongly associated with improvement of gastrointestinal health, good vision, and reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, chronic diseases such as diabetes, and some forms of cancer. Some phytochemicals of vegetables are strong antioxidants and are thought to reduce the risk of chronic disease by protecting against free radical damage, by modifying metabolic activation and detoxification of carcinogens, or even by influencing processes that alter the course of tumor cells. All the vegetables may offer protection to humans against chronic diseases. Nutrition is both a quantity and a quality issue, and vegetables in all their many forms ensure an adequate intake of most vitamins and nutrients, dietary fibers, and phytochemicals which can bring a much-needed measure of balance back to diets contributing to solve many of these nutrition problems. The promotion of healthy vegetable products has coincided with a surging consumer interested in the healthy functionality of food. Because each vegetable contains a unique combination of phytonutriceuticals, a great diversity of vegetables should be eaten to ensure that individual’s diet includes a combination of phytonutriceuticals and to get all the health benefits. This article make a review and discusses the nutritional quality and health benefits of the major groups of vegetables. More interdisciplinary work is required that involves nutritional and food scientists as well as others from biomedical fields to ascertain the thrue function of specific phytonutriceuticals.

Nutritional Quality and Effect on Disease Prevention of Vegetables

Vegetables have remarkable nutritional and health benefits. There are good reasons to include vegetables in human diet since they are enriched in bioactive compounds and by this reason they may help reduce the risk of some diseases. In this paper it was analyzed the nutrition quality and effect on disease prevention of vegetables. Each vegetable family and each vegetable contain a unique combination of bioactive compounds. The health benefit of vegetables should not be linked to one type of vegetable. It is presented some experimental research evidences that vegetables exert anti-oxidative, anti-carcinogenic, anti-diabetic and cardiovascular disease lowering effects. The mechanism by which vegetable bioactive compounds decrease the risk of some of these diseases is complex and sometimes unknown.

Advances in Transgenic Vegetable and Fruit Breeding

Vegetables and fruits are grown worldwide and play an important role in human diets because they provide vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, and phytochemicals. Vegetables and fruits are also associated with improvement of gastrointestinal health, good vision, and reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, chronic diseases such as diabetes, and some forms of cancer. Vegetable and fruit production suffers from many biotic stresses caused by pathogens, pests, and weeds and requires high amounts of plant protection products per hectare. United States vegetables farmers are benefiting from growing transgenic squash cultivars resistant to Zucchini yellow mosaic virus, Watermelon mosaic virus, and Cucumber mosaic virus, which were deregulated and commercialized since 1996. Bt-sweet corn has also proven effective for control of some lepidopteran species and continues to be accepted in the fresh market in the USA, and Bt-fresh-market sweet corn hybrids are released almost every year. Likewise, transgenic Bt-eggplant bred to reduce pesticide use is now grown by farmers in Bangladesh. Transgenic papaya cultivars carrying the coat-protein gene provide effective protection against Papaya ring spot virus elsewhere. The transgenic “Honey Sweet” plum cultivar provides an interesting germplasm source for Plum pox virus control. Enhanced host plant resistance to Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum, which causes the devastating banana Xanthomonas wilt in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, was achieved by plant genetic engineering. There are other vegetable and fruit crops in the pipeline that have been genetically modified to enhance their host plant resistance to insects and plant pathogens, to show herbicide tolerance, and to improve features such as slow ripening that extends the shelf-life of the produce. Consumers could benefit further from eating more nutritious transgenic vegetables and fruits. Transgenic plant breeding therefore provides genetically enhanced seed embedded technology that contributes to integrated pest management in horticulture by reducing pesticide sprays as well as improving food safety by minimizing pesticide residues. Furthermore, herbicide-tolerant transgenic crops can help reducing plough in fields, thereby saving fuel because of less tractor use, which also protects the structure of the soil by reducing its erosion. Transgenic vegetable and fruit crops could make important contributions to sustainable vegetable production and for more nutritious and healthy food. Countries vary, however, in their market standards of acceptance of transgenic crops. Biotechnology products will be successful if clear advantages and safety are demonstrated to both growers and consumers.

Guiding strategies for breeding vegetable cultivars

Vegetables are considered essential for well-balanced diets. The production and marketing of vegetables crops are undergoing continuous change globally. This is mainly due to the growing demands of consumers for safe and healthy vegetables, increased urbanisation of societies, and the growth in scale and influence of supermarkets chains. Horticultural science can respond to many of these challenges through research, breeding and innovation that can seek to gain more efficient methods of crop production, refined post-harvest storage and handling methods, newer and higher value vegetable cultivars and demonstration of their health benefits. Vegetable breeding has to address and satisfy the needs of both the consumer and the producer. Innovation in vegetable breeding depends on specific knowledge, the development and application of new technologies, access to genetic resources, and capital to utilise them. The driving force behind this innovation is acquiring or increasing market share. Access to technology, as well as biodiversity, is essential for the development of new vegetable cultivars. A few multinational corporations, whose vast economic power has effectively marginalized the role of public sector breeding as well as local, small/medium-scale seed companies, dominate the global vegetable seed trade. For most vegetable crops, only a few multinational seed corporations are controlling large part of the world market. This situation makes a growing part of the global vegetable supply dependent on a few seed providers. The multinational seed corporations ensued from merging some small or medium vegetable breeding programs to reduce costs. There may be fewer vegetable breeders in the future and growers will rely on seeds with a narrow genetic base. In order to meet future needs of vegetable breeders it is important that educational programs incorporate rapidly changing new technologies with classical content and methods. Active and positive connections between the private and public breeding sectors and large-scale gene banks are required to avoid a possible conflict involving breeders’ rights, gene preservation and erosion. Horticulturists will need to develop cultural practices and vegetable breeders to breed vegetables for a multifunctional horticulture (diversity, health promotion, post-harvest, year round suply, etc.) and to cope with harsher climate conditions and lower inputs than they have come to expect. Improved production systems that can cope with climate extremes must allow vegetables to produce under high temperatures, greater drought stress, increased soil salinity, and periodic flooding. This will involve a combination of improved vegetable cultivars and modified production systems.

Is There an Absolute Scale for Speed?

Except for the speed of photons in vacuum, all speeds are relative. Could we develop an absolute scale for speed in which relative values for speed may be arbitrarily positioned and compared in absolute terms? The currently accepted definition for the meter as the distance covered by photons in vacuum during 1/299,792,458 s, and the view that the greater a material particle is accelerated towards c, the greater time dilation and length contraction will be, suggest that anything disturbing one of the four spacetime dimensions may affect the other three as well. One hypothetical experiment, one real experiment performed in the 1970s, and one experiment from a different field of science are discussed to propose that both time and velocity are only partially relative. In the first experiment, person A is standing still on the Earth’s surface, and person B is onboard a train passing by person A at the constant speed of 60 km/h (as measured by person B on the train’s speedometer). Persons A and B define two distinct inertial frames of reference, which correspond to two different spacetime conditions and which are therefore characterized by comparatively different lengths of the meter and durations of the second, as predicted by the Lorentz factor. Therefore, if person B onboard the train measures the train’s speed relative to person A as 60 km/h, a simple calculation will show that person A will perceive the train passing by at 59.99999999999981455834 km/h. If we consider the speed of photons in vacuum (c = 299,792,458 m/s) as a universal reference, and if we consider that the greater a material particle is accelerated towards c, the greater time dilation and length contraction will be, then person C, occupying an independent, distinct inertial frame of reference, will be unable to determine persons A and B’s absolute speeds, but may infer which one is moving at a speed closer to c by comparing, with his own meter and second, the durations of the second and the lengths of the meter experienced by persons A and B. The relativity of time may not be complete due to the bias that derives from the limit imposed on spacetime by c and the Lorentz factor, causing relativity to be partial. The second and third experiments further help understand this partiality.

Transgenic Vegetable Breeding for Nutritional Quality and Health Benefits

Vegetables are essential for well-balanced diets. About 3 billion people in the world are malnourished due to imbalanced diets. Vegetables can contribute to the prevention of malnutrition disorders. Genetic engineering enables vegetable breeders to incorporate desired transgenes into elite cultivars, thereby improving their value considerably. It further offers unique opportunities for improving nutritional quality and bringing other health benefits. Many vegetable crops have been genetically modified to improve traits such as higher nutritional status or better flavour, and to reduce bitterness or anti-nutritional factors. Transgenic vegetables can be also used for vaccine delivery. Consumers could benefit further from eating more nutritious transgenic vegetables, e.g. an increase of crop carotenoids by metabolic sink manipulation through genetic engineering appears feasible in some vegetables. Genetically engineering carrots containing increase Ca levels may boost Ca uptake, thereby reducing the incidence of Ca deficiencies such as osteoporosis. Fortified transgenic lettuce with zinc will overcome the deficiency of this micronutrient that severely impairs organ function. Folates deficiency, which is regarded as a global health problem, can also be overcomed with transgenic tomatoes with folate levels that provide a complete adult daily requirement. Transgenic lettuce with improved tocopherol and resveratrol composition may prevent coronary disease and arteriosclerosis and can contribute to cancer chemopreventative activity. Food safety and health benefits can also be enhanced through transgenic approaches, e.g. rural African resource-poor consumers will benefit eating cyanide-free cultivars of cassava. Biotechnology-derived vegetable crops will succed if clear advantages and safety are demonstrated to both growers and consumers.

The Biotechnological and Seafood Potential of Stichopus regalis

Sea cucumbers are highly used not only for the production of the bêche-de-mer, but also recent studies have been showing the high potential of these marine invertebrates on the pharmaceutical industry, as they are rich in bioactive compounds with important functions. Stichopus regalis extracts (1 mg·mL-1) were used in antioxidant, antimicrobial and antitumor assays. The lipid profile was also evaluated. No significant antioxidant activity was detected in both methanolic and dichloromethane extracts. The methanolic fraction showed the highest antimicrobial potential against Candida albicans with an IC50 of 475.4 μg·mL-1. In the antitumor assays, the dichloromethane fraction showed a high potential for both cell lines, as revealed by the MTT method. The total fat content was 3.63% ± 0.11% and the fatty acid profile revealed the highest amount in C16:0 (9.43% ± 0.77%), C18:0 (12.43% ± 0.83%), C18:1 ω7 (5.63% ± 0.33%), EPA (12.49% ± 0.15%), DHA (7.35% ± 0.02%), ARA (19.29% ± 0.14%) and a ω3/ω6 ratio of 1.078. These findings led us to suggest the potential use of S. regalis as a new source of bioactive compounds with pharmacological potential and its nutritional benefits for human health.

Adaptation to Long-Term Rainfall Variability for Robusta Coffee Cultivation in Brazilian Southeast

Coffee is one of the world most traded agricultural commodities. Currently, a lot of attention has been on Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora Pierre ex A. Froehner) because it seems to evidence a greater tolerance to extreme climatic events than Arabica coffee (C. arabica L.). Despite this, only a few works have been developed aimed at discriminating the climatic vulnerability in regions which prioritize robust coffee production. The aim of this work was to analyze historical climatic variables in space and time for the characterization of climatic vulnerability of micro-regions, in search of mitigation and adaptation, which might support the improvement of production systems of C. canephora coffee trees. The case study was carried out for one of the largest production regions of Robusta coffee of the world, in Brazil, geographically located between the 39°38' and 41°50' West longitude meridians and the 17°52' and 21°19' South latitude parallels. The vulnerability was characterized by the spatial and temporal variation of rainfall and rainfall seasonal pattern (based on 30 years of historical data), elements of climatic water balance, elevation and area planted with Robusta coffee. The choice of mitigation and adaptation were based on widely validated criteria. Overall, the results show that the vulnerability of Robusta coffee is related to low index of rainfall, the rainfall seasonability and the water deficiency. In the studied region, there is approximately 42% of some type of water vulnerability during the year, with a severe to medium scale;this vulnerability is very pronounced in regions farther away from the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, since for a year approximately 92% of them are water deficient. In addition, the data show that this distance from the ocean implies a reduction of 75% in the phases of water surplus not only. The strategies of greater potential for adaptation and mitigation are related to the planting of improved genotypes, utilization of polycultures systems, increasing plant density, the implementation of irrigation systems and the management of spontaneous plants.

Comparative Transcriptomic Profiling of Vitis vinifera Under High Light Using a Custom-Made Array and the Affymetrix GeneChip

Understanding abiotic stress responses is one of the most important issues in plant research nowadays. Abiotic stress, including excess light, can promote the onset of oxidative stress through the accumulation of reactive oxygen species. Oxidative stress also arises when in vitro propagated plants are exposed to high light upon transfer to ex vitro. To determine whether the underlying pathways activated at the transfer of in vitro grapevine to ex vitro conditions reflect the processes occurring upon light stress, we used Vitis vinifera Affymetrix GeneChip （VvGA） and a custom array of genes responsive to light stress （LSCA） detected by real-time reverse transcriptase PCR （qRT-PCR）. When gene-expression profiles were compared, ＇protein metabolism and modification＇, ＇signaling＇, and ＇anti-oxidative＂ genes were more represented in LSCA, while, in VvGA, ＇cell wall metabolism＇ and ＇secondary metabolism＇ were the categories in which gene expression varied more significantly. The above functional categories confirm previous studies involving other types of abiotic stresses, enhancing the common attributes of abiotic stress defense pathways. The LSCA analysis of our experimental system detected strong response of heat shock genes, particularly the protein rescuing mechanism involving the cooperation of two ATP-dependent chaperone systems, Hsp100 and Hsp70, which showed an unusually late response during the recovery period, of extreme relevance to remove non-functional, potentially harmful polypeptides arising from misfolding, denaturation, or aggregation brought about by stress. The success of LSCA also proves the feasibility of a custommade qRT-PCR approach, particularly for species for which no GeneChip is available and for researchers dealing with a specific and focused problem.

Predicting the aquatic risk of realistic pesticide mixtures to species assemblages in Portuguese river basins

Although pesticide regulatory tools are mainly based on individual substances, aquatic ecosystems are usually exposed to multiple pesticides from their use on the variety of crops within the catchment of a river. This study estimated the impact of measured pesticide mixtures in surface waters from 2002 and 2008 within three important Portuguese river basins（＇Mondego＇, ＇Sado＇ and ＇Tejo＇） on primary producers, arthropods and fish by toxic pressure calculation. Species sensitivity distributions（SSDs）, in combination with mixture toxicity models, were applied. Considering the differences in the responses of the taxonomic groups as well as in the pesticide exposures that these organisms experience, variable acute multi-substance potentially affected fractions（ms PAFs） were obtained. The median msP AF for primary producers and arthropods in surface waters of all river basins exceeded 5%, the cut-off value used in the prospective SSD approach for deriving individual environmental quality standards. A ranking procedure identified various photosystem II inhibiting herbicides, with oxadiazon having the relatively largest toxic effects on primary producers, while the organophosphorus insecticides, chlorfenvinphos and chlorpyrifos, and the organochloride endosulfan had the largest effects on arthropods and fish, respectively. These results ensure compliance with European legislation with regard to ecological risk assessment and management of pesticides in surface waters.

Experimental evidence for heritable reproductive time in 2 allochronic populations of pine processionary moth

Phenology allows organisms to overcome seasonally variable conditions through life-cycle adjustment. Changes in phenology can drastically modify the evolutionary tra- jectory of a population, while a shift in the reproductive time may cause allochronic differentiation. The hypothesis of heritable reproductive time was experimentally tested, by studying a unique population of the pine processionary moth Thaumetopoeapityocampa （Den. ＆ Schiff.） which has a shifted phenology, and however co-occurs with the typical population following the classical life cycle. When populations of both types were reared under controlled conditions, the reproductive time was maintained asynchronous, as ob- served in the field. The shifted population was manipulated in the laboratory to reproduce later than usual, yet the offspring emerged in the next year at the expected dates thus ＂com- ing back＂ to the usual cycle. Hybrids from crosses performed between the 2 populations showed an intermediate phenology. From the emergence times of parents and offspring, a high heritability of the reproductive time （h = 0.76） was observed. The offspring ob- tained from each type of cross was genetically characterized using microsatellite markers. Bayesian clustering analysis confirmed that hybrids can he successfully identified and separated from the parental genetic classes by genotyping. Findings support the hypothesis that, for this particular population, incipient allochronic speciation is due to a heritable shift in the reproductive time that further causes assortative mating and might eventually cause ecological adaptation/maladaptation in response to environmental changes.

Colletotrichum species and complexes:geographic distribution,host range and conservation status

The taxonomy of the genus Colletotrichum has undergone tremendous changes over the last decade,with over 200 species being currently recognised and species complexes being informally used to cluster those species.Many of these species are important plant pathogens,some rather polyphagous and others host-specific,but several occur seldomly and some may in fact be ecologically endangered.Based mainly on literature from the past decade,in this work we review the occurrence,geographic distribution and host spectrum of currently recognised Colletotrichum species under phylogenetic,pathologi-cal/agronomic and ecological perspectives,providing a list arranged by Colletotrichum species and species complexes.A total of 257 species are listed and grouped into 15 species complexes.In this work we have recorded 1353 unique host species-Colletotrichum species association records from 720 hosts,with the Fabaceae as the family with higher number of hosts(52 host species)but with the Rosaceae as the family with the highest number of host species-Colletotrichum species association records(118 association records).According to occurrence data,88 species are common in nature,128 were considered as data deficient and 41 are threatened,some of which are likely extinct from nature and preserved only in cul-ture collections.Several species are relevant plant pathogens,in some cases geographically confined and thus of potential quarantine relevance.Based on the major changes that occurred on Colletotrichum taxonomy over the last decade,this work provides a comprehensive overview of occurrence data of Colletotrichum species,compiling host range and geographical distribution,with relevance for plant pathology and conservation mycology.The current taxonomic framework in Colle-totrichum is revealing numerous species but poses challenges to the employment of standard criteria for the evaluation of biological conservation of these fungi.We advocate that conservation mycology and taxonomy should find common routes simultaneously enabling the correct delimitation of species of Colletotrichum and the implementation of feasible criteria for the evaluation of conservation.The employment of new technologies,such whole genome sequencing(WGS),will help and support the description of new species and to gain a better understanding of the genetic bases of speciation processes.