Search results for "Mod"
showing 10 items of 39605 documents
Guano-Derived Nutrient Subsidies Drive Food Web Structure in Coastal Ponds.
2016
A stable isotope study was carried out seasonally in three coastal ponds (Marinello system, Italy) affected by different gull guano input to investigate the effect of nutrient subsidies on food web structure and dynamics. A marked 15N enrichment occurred in the pond receiving the highest guano input, indicating that gull-derived fertilization (guanotrophication) had a strong localised effect and flowed across trophic levels. The main food web response to guanotrophication was an overall erosion of the benthic pathway in favour of the planktonic. Subsidized primary consumers, mostly deposit feeders, switched their diet according to organic matter source availability. Secondary consumers and,…
Gene regulation in parthenocarpic tomato fruit.
2009
Parthenocarpy is potentially a desirable trait for many commercially grown fruits if undesirable changes to structure, flavour, or nutrition can be avoided. Parthenocarpic transgenic tomato plants (cv MicroTom) were obtained by the regulation of genes for auxin synthesis (iaaM) or responsiveness (rolB) driven by DefH9 or the INNER NO OUTER (INO) promoter from Arabidopsis thaliana. Fruits at a breaker stage were analysed at a transcriptomic and metabolomic level using microarrays, real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and a Pegasus III TOF (time of flight) mass spectrometer. Although differences were observed in the shape of fully ripe fruits, no clear correlatio…
Risk of predation makes foragers less choosy about their food.
2017
18 pages; International audience; Animals foraging in the wild have to balance speed of decision making and accuracy of assessment of a food item's quality. If resource quality is important for maximizing fitness, then the duration of decision making may be in conflict with other crucial and time consuming tasks, such as anti-predator behaviours or competition monitoring. Individuals facing the risk of predation and/or competition should adjust the duration of decision making and, as a consequence, their level of choosiness for resources. When exposed to predation, the forager could either maintain its level of choosiness for food items but accept a reduction in the amount of food items con…
Emergence and growth of hybrids between Brassica napus and Raphanus raphanistrum.
2003
Summary • Risk assessment studies of transgenic crops have recently brought evidence of a low spontaneous hybridization frequency of Brassica napus with Raphanus raphanistrum. The fate of the first generation hybrids is crucial to determine the initial rate of spread of transgenes. • This work aims to compare the fitness components of parents and F1 hybrids at the first step of the life cycle. The ability to emerge, establish seedling, cover the soil and develop adult plant was examined in controlled and field conditions, alone or in competition. • The F1 hybrids showed a lower seedling emergence, a significant delay of emergence, and a lower survival than for both parents. Rosette diameter…
S-nitrosylation: An emerging post-translational protein modification in plants
2011
International audience; Increasing evidences support the assumption that nitric oxide (NO) acts as a physiological mediator in plants. Understanding its pleiotropic effects requires a deep analysis of the molecular mechanisms underlying its mode of action. In the recent years, efforts have been made in the identification of plant proteins modified by NO at the post-translational level, notably by S-nitrosylation. This reversible process involves the formation of a covalent bond between NO and reactive cysteine residues. This research has now born fruits and numerous proteins regulated by S-nitrosylation have been identified and characterized. This review describes the basic principle of S-n…
Nuclear rDNA instability in in vitro-generated plants is amplified after sexual reproduction with conspecific wild individuals
2016
Using micropropagation through tissue culture has become the most used approach worldwide for mass production for the conservation of endangered species. However, the screening of somaclonal variations generated using in vitro culture is usually restricted to the first generation of micropropagated plants, when they have not yet been released in the field. Accordingly, the fate of genetically modified regenerants after sexual reproduction is usually not assessed and changes in the genetic structures of species are unknown. In this work, we assess the cytogenetic stability of two rDNA gene families in the offspring of experimental crosses between accessions generated after in vitro culture a…
The shoot concept of the flower: Still up to date?
2016
Abstract The shoot concept of the flower suggests that flowers correspond to vegetative short-shoots except the fact that their lateral appendages are floral and not vegetative leaves. However, in view of the different properties of vegetative and flower meristems, this concept should be questioned. Differential meristem activity resulting in tubes, hypanthia and inferior ovaries, continuous meristem expansion providing space for stamen fascicles and additional structures and the process of (repeated) fractionation using a given space completely, are characteristics of flower meristems hardly explainable with the shoot concept. Linking instead flower development with recent findings in mole…
Impact of host nutritional status on infection dynamics and parasite virulence in a bird-malaria system.
2014
10 pages; International audience; Host resources can drive the optimal parasite exploitation strategy by offering a good or a poor environment to pathogens. Hosts living in resource-rich habitats might offer a favourable environment to developing parasites because they provide a wealth of resources. However, hosts living in resource-rich habitats might afford a higher investment into costly immune defences providing an effective barrier against infection. Understanding how parasites can adapt to hosts living in habitats of different quality is a major challenge in the light of the current human-driven environmental changes. We studied the role of nutritional resources as a source of phenoty…
Antagonistic effects of a Mhc class I allele on malaria-infected house sparrows.
2008
8 pages; International audience; Genes of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (Mhc) play a fundamental role during the immune response because MHC molecules expressed on cell surface allow the recognition and presentation of antigenic peptides to T-lymphocytes. Although Mhc alleles have been found to correlate with pathogen resistance in several host-parasite systems, several studies have also reported associations between Mhc alleles and an accrued infection risk or an accelerated disease progression. The existence of these susceptibility alleles is puzzling, as the cost generated by the infection should rapidly eliminate them from the population. Here, we show that susceptibility alleles…
Sensitive measure of prevalence and parasitaemia of haemosporidia from European blackbird (Turdus merula) populations: value of PCR-RFLP and quantita…
2006
8 pages; International audience; Haemosporidian parasites are common in birds in which they act as an important selective pressure. While most studies so far have focused on the effect of their prevalence on host life-history traits, no study has measured the effect of parasitaemia. We developed molecular methods to detect, identify and quantify haemosporidia in 2 natural populations of the Blackbird Turdus merula. Three different parasite genotypes were found - 1 Haemoproteus and 2 Plasmodium. A PCR-RFLP screening revealed that only approximately 3% of blackbirds were free of parasites, compared to the 34% of uninfected birds estimated by blood smear screening. A quantitative PCR (q-PCR) a…