The impact of dehydration rate on the production and cellular location of reactive oxygen species in an aquatic moss.
† Background and Aims The aquatic moss Fontinalis antipyretica requires a slow rate of dehydration to survive a desiccation event. The present work examined whether differences in the dehydration rate resulted in corresponding differences in the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and therefore in the amount of cell damage. † Methods Intracellular ROS production by the aquatic moss was assessed with confocal laser microscopy and the ROS-specific chemical probe 2,7-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate. The production of hydrogen peroxide was also quantified and its cellular location was assessed. † Key Results The rehydration of slowly dried cells was associated with lower ROS produc…
Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover
Made available in DSpace on 2022-04-28T19:52:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2022-03-18 Urbanization transforms environments in ways that alter biological evolution. We examined whether urban environmental change drives parallel evolution by sampling 110,019 white clover plants from 6169 populations in 160 cities globally. Plants were assayed for a Mendelian antiherbivore defense that also affects tolerance to abiotic stressors. Urban-rural gradients were associated with the evolution of clines in defense in 47% of cities throughout the world. Variation in the strength of clines was explained by environmental changes in drought stress and vegetation cover that varied am…
Dehydration rate determines the degree of membrane damage and desiccation tolerance in bryophytes.
Desiccation tolerant (DT) organisms are able to withstand an extended loss of body water and rapidly resume metabolism upon rehydration. This ability, however, is strongly dependent on a slow dehydration rate. Fast dehydration affects membrane integrity leading to intracellular solute leakage upon rehydration and thereby impairs metabolism recovery. We test the hypothesis that the increased cell membrane damage and membrane permeability observed under fast dehydration, compared with slow dehydration, is related to an increase in lipid peroxidation. Our results reject this hypothesis because following rehydration lipid peroxidation remains unaltered, a fact that could be due to the high incr…