Search results for "Pun"
showing 10 items of 1409 documents
Values and challenges in the assessment of coprophilous fungi according to the IUCN Red List criteria: the case study of Poronia punctata (Xylariales…
2020
Coprophilous fungi are specialized microorganisms, playing key roles in ecosystems and in several other contexts, whose protection requires more substantial efforts. This paper aims to highlight and discuss valuable and critical aspects faced during the process of the threat status assessment of Poronia punctata, providing inspirations for future conservation actions.
Effect of addition of Opuntia ficus-indica mucilage on the biological leavening, physical, nutritional, antioxidant and sensory aspects of bread
2019
The addition of active compounds to enhance the functional properties of foods is a quite common practice. Recently, bread became one of the target foods to incorporate functional ingredients such as those deriving from Opuntia spp. So far, only Opuntia ficus-indica cladodes in powder has been tested. The addition of fresh O. ficus-indica mucilage (in substitution to water) did not influence the biological leavening of the doughs. The resulting breads showed a biological role of the cactus mucilage, because their antioxidant activity was higher than that of control wheat bread. The sensory analysis indicated a general appreciation of the breads enriched with O. ficus-indica mucilage by the …
2020
Elucidating the diets of insect predators is important in basic and applied ecology, such as for improving the effectiveness of conservation biological control measures to promote natural enemies of crop pests. Here, we investigated the aphid diet of two common aphid predators in Central European agroecosystems, the native Coccinella septempunctata (Linnaeus) and the invasive Harmonia axyridis (Pallas; Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) by means of high throughput sequencing (HTS). For acquiring insights into diets of mobile flying insects at landscape scale minimizing trapping bias is important, which imposes methodological challenges for HTS. We therefore assessed the suitability of three field s…
Influence of an evoked pleasant consumption context on consumers’ hedonic evaluation for minimally processed cactus pear (Opuntia ficus-indica) fruit
2016
Awareness of the need to consider a consumption context when measuring the consumer's hedonic evaluation of a food product led researchers to investigate differences among responses given by consumers in different contexts. Previous studies measured the effects of evoking a consumption context, by using photographs or a written scenario, on hedonic evaluations of consumers for food products. This study investigated the influence of evoking a consumption context on hedonic evaluation of minimally processed cactus pear (Opuntia ficus-indica) fruit, using pictures and memories of pleasant personal experiences. A hedonic scale method for measuring food preferences was used. Hedonic evaluation o…
Isolating, characterising and identifying a Cry1Ac resistance mutation in field populations of Helicoverpa punctigera
2018
AbstractTransgenic cotton expressing insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) has been grown in Australia for over 20 years and resistance remains the biggest threat. The native moth, Helicoverpa punctigera is a significant pest of cotton. A genotype causing resistance to Cry1Ac in H. punctigera was isolated from the field and a homozygous line established. The phenotype is recessive and homozygous individuals possess 113 fold resistance to Cry1Ac. Individuals that carry Cry1Ac resistance genes are rare in Australia with a frequency of 0.033 being detected in field populations. RNAseq, RT-PCR and DNA sequencing reveals a single nucleotide polymorphism at a splice site in the c…
2017
Both effective population size and life history may influence the efficacy of purifying selection, but it remains unclear if the environment affects the accumulation of weakly deleterious nonsynonymous polymorphisms. We hypothesize that the reduced energetic cost of osmoregulation in brackish water habitat may cause relaxation of selective constraints at mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) genes. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed 57 complete mitochondrial genomes of Pungitius pungitius collected from brackish and freshwater habitats. Based on inter- and intraspecific comparisons, we estimated that 84% and 68% of the nonsynonymous polymorphisms in the freshwater and brackish …
Divergent parasite infections in sympatric cichlid species in Lake Victoria
2018
Parasitism has been proposed as a factor in host speciation, as an agent affecting coexistence of host species in species-rich communities and as a driver of post-speciation diversification. Young adaptive radiations of closely related host species of varying ecological and genomic differentiation provide interesting opportunities to explore interactions between patterns of parasitism, divergence and coexistence of sympatric host species. Here, we explored patterns in ectoparasitism in a community of 16 fully sympatric cichlid species at Makobe Island in Lake Victoria, a model system of vertebrate adaptive radiation. We asked whether host niche, host abundance or host genetic differentiatio…
Cannibalism facilitates gigantism in a nine-spined stickleback (Pungitius pungitius) population
2016
Cannibalism is a taxonomically widespread phenomenon that can fundamentally affect the structure and stability of aquatic communities, including the emergence of a bimodal size distribution (“dwarfs” and “giants”) in fish populations. Emergence of giants could also be driven or facilitated by parasites that divert host resources from reproduction to growth. We studied the trophic ecology of giant nine-spined sticklebacks (Pungitius pungitius) in a Finnish pond to evaluate the hypotheses that gigantism in this population would be facilitated by cannibalism and/or parasitic infections by Schistocephalus pungitii cestode. Stomach content analyses revealed an initial ontogenetic dietary shift f…
Modelling nonlinear dynamics of Crassulacean acid metabolism productivity and water use for global predictions
2021
Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) crops are important agricultural commodities in water-limited environments across the globe, yet modeling of CAM productivity lacks the sophistication of widely used C3 and C4 crop models, in part due to the complex responses of the CAM cycle to environmental conditions. This work builds on recent advances in CAM modeling to provide a framework for estimating CAM biomass yield and water use efficiency from basic principles. These advances, which integrate the CAM circadian rhythm with established models of carbon fixation, stomatal conductance, and the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum, are coupled to models of light attenuation, plant respiration, and bioma…
Phytotoxic Metabolites Isolated from Neufusicoccum batangarum, the Causal Agent of the Scabby Canker of Cactus Pear (Opuntia ficus-indica L.)
2020
Six phytotoxins were obtained from the culture filtrates of the ascomycete Neofusicoccum batangarum, the causal agent of the scabby canker of cactus pear (Opuntia ficus-indica L.) in minor Sicily islands. The phytotoxins were identified as (&minus