Search results for "Mass"
showing 10 items of 9693 documents
Biomass and volume modeling in Olea europaea L. cv "Leccino"
2017
Key message: This work demonstrates that the Olive tree, which is managed and pruned as a fruit tree, can be treated as a forest tree using allometric equations, to estimate both biomass production and volumes. Abstract: The Olive tree (Olea europaea L.) is an evergreen tree that can grow and accumulate a relatively high amount of dry matter, even in dry environmental conditions common in the Mediterranean basin and typical of traditional rain-fed agriculture. The objective of this research was to develop a tool to predict woody biomass and tree component volume for the olive tree, to be used for different agricultural and environmental purposes. The study was carried out in six olive grove…
Mapping a ‘cryptic kingdom’: Performance of lidar derived environmental variables in modelling the occurrence of forest fungi
2016
Abstract Fungi are crucial to forest ecosystem function and provide important provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural ecosystem services. As major contributors to biomass decomposition, fungi are important to forest biogeochemical cycling and maintenance of vertebrate animal diversity. Many forest plant species live in a symbiotic relationship with a fungal partner that helps a host plant to acquire nutrients and water. In addition, edible fungi are recreationally as well as economically valuable. However, most fungi live in very cryptic locations (e.g. in soils and interior plant tissues) and are only visible when their ephemeral fruiting bodies are produced, making fungal occur…
Tropical Andean forests are highly susceptible to nutrient inputs--rapid effects of experimental N and P addition to an Ecuadorian montane forest.
2012
Tropical regions are facing increasing atmospheric inputs of nutrients, which will have unknown consequences for the structure and functioning of these systems. Here, we show that Neotropical montane rainforests respond rapidly to moderate additions of N (50 kg ha -1 yr -1) and P (10 kg ha -1 yr -1). Monitoring of nutrient fluxes demonstrated that the majority of added nutrients remained in the system, in either soil or vegetation. N and P additions led to not only an increase in foliar N and P concentrations, but also altered soil microbial biomass, standing fine root biomass, stem growth, and litterfall. The different effects suggest that trees are primarily limited by P, whereas some pro…
The interplay betweenPinus sylvestris, its root hemiparasite,Melampyrum pratense, and ectomycorrhizal fungi: Influences on plant growth and reproduct…
2000
Despite the extensive literature on mutual interactions between plants and mycorrhizal fungi, and host plants and parasitic plants, little is known about the outcomes of interactions when the three...
Imidazolium Based Ionic Liquids: A Promising Green Solvent for Water Hyacinth Biomass Deconstruction.
2018
Water hyacinth (WH) is a troublesome aquatic weed of natural and artificial water bodies of India and other tropical countries and causing severe ecological problems. The WH biomass is low in lignin content and contains high amount of cellulose and hemicellulose, making it suitable material for conversion into liquid fuels for energy production. This study highlighted that, how different imidazolium based ionic liquids (ILs) [1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide, [Cnmim]Br (n = 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10)] with tunable properties can be employed for the degradation of WH biomass. Different characterizations techniques, such as XRD, FT-IR, SEM, and DSC are used to unravel the interplay between ILs an…
Floral scent in a sexually deceptive Ophrys orchid: from headspace collections to solvent extractions
2018
Sexually deceptive orchid flowers use visual, tactile and olfactory cues of female insects in order to attract males of one or a few closely related species as pollinators. Ophrys L. is the most species-rich genus of sexually deceptive orchids in the Mediterranean Basin. Despite Ophrys pollinated by Andrena male bees use alkanes and mainly alkenes with specific double-bond positions as key signals that trigger pseudocopulatory behavior, some volatile organic compounds (VOCs) with low molecular weight were found as long-range attractants non-eliciting copulatory behavior. Since floral scents in Ophrys have been extensively studied by solvent extractions here we aimed to understand which flor…
Medicinal mushrooms: Valuable biological resources of high exploitation potential
2017
Higher Basidiomycetes and Ascomycetes mushrooms possess various immunological and anticancer properties. They also offer important health benefits and exhibit a broad spectrum of pharmacological activities including antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, cytotoxic, immunomodulating, anti-inflammatory, antioxidative, antiallergic, antidepressive, antihyperlipidemic, antidiabetic, digestive, hepatoprotective, neuroprotective, nephroprotective, osteoprotective, and hypotensive activities. This minireview summarizes the perspectives, recent advances, and major challenges of medicinal mushrooms with reference to their nutraceutical properties and dietary value, the production of mushroom biomass …
Recombinant laccase from Pediococcus acidilactici CECT 5930 with ability to degrade tyramine
2017
Biogenic amines degradation by bacterial laccases is little known, so we have cloned and heterologously expressed, in E. coli, a new laccase from Pediococcus acidilactici CECT 5930 (Lpa5930), a lactic acid bacterium commonly found in foods able to degrade tyramine. The recombinant enzyme has been characterized by physical and biochemical assays. Here we report the optimization of expression and purification procedures of this laccase. DNA encoding sequence of laccase from P. acidilactici was amplified by PCR and cloned into the expression plasmid pET28a for induction by isopropyl-β-D-thiogalactoipyranoside. Protein expression was performed in E. coli BL21(DE3) harboring pGro7 plasmid expres…
Mycorrhizal symbiosis primes the accumulation of antiherbivore compounds and enhances herbivore mortality in tomato
2021
Abstract Plant association with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can increase their ability to overcome multiple stresses, but their impact on plant interactions with herbivorous insects is controversial. Here we show higher mortality of the leaf-chewer Spodoptera exigua when fed on tomato plants colonized by the AMF Funneliformis mosseae, evidencing mycorrhiza-induced resistance. In search of the underlying mechanisms, an untargeted metabolomic analysis through ultra-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) was performed. The results showed that mycorrhizal symbiosis had a very limited impact on the leaf metabolome in the absence of stress, but significantly m…
Strategies to Mitigate the Salt Stress Effects on Photosynthetic Apparatus and Productivity of Crop Plants
2018
Soil salinization represents one of the major limiting factors of future increase in crop production through the expansion or maintaining of cultivation area in the future. High salt levels in soils or irrigation water represent major environmental concerns for agriculture in semiarid and arid zones. Recent advances in research provide great opportunities to develop effective strategies to improve crop salt tolerance and yield in different environments affected by the soil salinity. It was clearly demonstrated that plants employ both the common adaptative responses and the specific reactions to salt stress. The review of research results presented here may be helpful to understand the physi…