Search results for "Vera"
showing 10 items of 5860 documents
Forage silica and water content control dental surface texture in guinea pigs and provide implications for dietary reconstruction.
2019
Significance Ingesta leave characteristic wear features on the tooth surface, which enable us to reconstruct the diet of extant and fossil vertebrates. However, whether dental wear is caused by internal (phytoliths) or external (mineral dust) silicate abrasives is controversially debated in paleoanthropology and biology. To assess this, we fed guinea pigs plant forages of increasing silica content (lucerne < grass < bamboo) without any external abrasives, both in fresh and dried state. Abrasiveness and enamel surface wear increased with higher forage phytolith content. Additionally, water loss altered plant material properties. Dental wear of fresh grass feeding was similar to lucerne brows…
Colonization of Plant Roots by Pseudomonads and AM Fungi: A Dynamic Phenomenon, Affecting Plant Growth and Health
2008
Because of their enormously large range of plant hosts and role in plant nutrition, arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi represent an extraordinarily fascinating field of study. Plant growth promotion effects by AM fungi were described as early as 1900 (Sthal 1900) and several data obtained in the second half of the last century support the idea that these microrganisms can act as biocontrol agents (BCA). The extent of root colonization is variable in different plants and under different environmental conditions (Giovannetti and Hepper 1985). Some effects of AM colonization on plants have been reported to be dependent on the degree of root colonization, while others have not. Root exudation an…
Plant defense responses induced by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi
2002
Plants in their environment daily face many organisms such as fungi, bacteria, mycoplasms, viruses, nematodes, etc. Many of them are potential pathogens; in fact thousands of microorganisms are known to cause plant diseases. Despite this large number of deleterious microorganisms, most of the plants are resistant to their attack since they have developed effective mechanisms to protect themselves.
Effects of species and soil-nitrogen availability on root system architecture traits - study on a set of weed and crop species
2017
Better managing crop : weed competition in cropping systems while reducing both nitrogen and herbicide inputs is a real challenge that requires a better understanding of crop and weed root architecture in relation to soil-nitrogen availability. An original approach was used which considered the parameters of a simulation model of root architecture as traits to analyse (a) the interspecific diversity of root system architecture, and (b) its response to soil-nitrogen availability. Two greenhouse experiments were conducted using three crop and nine weed species grown at two contrasted concentrations of soil-nitrogen availability. Plant traits were measured to characterise both overall plant gr…
Microencapsulation of healthier oils to enhance the physicochemical and nutritional properties of deer pâté
2020
The influence of pork backfat substitution by microencapsulated healthier oils on physicochemical and nutritional properties of deer pate was assessed. Four different treatments were elaborated: control with 100% of pork backfat and the other ones with 50% of pork backfat was replaced by microencapsulated oils (tigernut, chia and linseed oils). These fat replacements were accompanied by a significant (P lt 0.001) decrease in fat and cholesterol contents. The inclusion of vegetable oils resulted in a significant (P lt 0.001) modification of colour parameters, being tigernut batches which presented the highest redness and yellowness values. Moreover, softer textures were observed in reformula…
The Bonobo-DialiumPositive Interactions: Seed Dispersal Mutualism
2013
A positive interaction is any interaction between individuals of the same or different species (mutualism) that provides a benefit to both partners such as increased fitness. Here we focus on seed dispersal mutualism between an animal (bonobo, Pan paniscus) and a plant (velvet tamarind trees, Dialium spp.). In the LuiKotale rainforest southwest of Salonga National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo, seven species of the genus Dialium account for 29.3% of all trees. Dialium is thus the dominant genus in this forest. Dialium fruits make up a large proportion of the diet of a habituated bonobo community in this forest. During the 6 months of the fruiting season, more than half of the bonobos' …
Aspartic Proteinase from Barley Seeds is Related to Animal Cathepsin D
1991
In contrast to the well-characterized mammalian aspartic proteinases, plant aspartic proteinases have received little attention so far. Aspartic proteinase activity has been detected, for example, in resting seeds of scots pine (Salmia et al., 1978), soybean (Bond & Bowles, 1983), barley and wheat (Morris et al., 1985) as well as in leaves of orange (Garcia-Martinez & Moreno, 1986) and barley (Kervinen et al., 1990). Aspartic proteinases have been purified from the seeds of rice (Doi et al., 1980), cucumber, squash (Polanowski et al 1985) and wheat (Dunaevsky et al., 1989) as well as from the leaves of tomato (Rodrigo et al., 1989). The plant aspartic proteinases have been reported to enhan…
Net ammonification as influenced by plant diversity in experimental grasslands
2012
Abstract Previous plant diversity experiments have mainly reported positive correlations between diversity and N mineralization. We tested whether this relationship can be explained by plant diversity-induced changes i) in the quantity or quality of organic matter or ii) in microclimatic conditions of central European grassland mixtures. We measured ex-situ net ammonification in a laboratory incubation of aboveground plant material and soil sampled in differently diverse plant mixtures. Secondly, in-situ net ammonification was assessed in a field incubation with mineralization cores containing standardized material in four treatments: soil only (control), and soil mixed with field-fresh pla…
Soil feedback on plant growth in a sub-arctic grassland as a result of repeated defoliation
2008
In the long term, defoliation of plants can be hypothesized to decrease plant carbon supply to soil decomposers and thus decrease decomposer abundance and nutrient mineralization in the soil. To test whether defoliation creates changes in soil that can feedback to plant growth, we collected soil from sub-arctic grassland plots that had been either defoliated or non-defoliated for three years and followed the growth of different plant species combinations in these soils in greenhouse conditions. Plant N acquisition and plant growth were lower in the soil collected from the defoliated field plots than in the soil collected from the non-defoliated plots. This response did not depend on the spe…
Phylogenomics Identifies an Ancestral Burst of Gene Duplications Predating the Diversification of Aphidomorpha
2019
Aphids (Aphidoidea) are a diverse group of hemipteran insects that feed on plant phloem sap. A common finding in studies of aphid genomes is the presence of a large number of duplicated genes. However, when these duplications occurred remains unclear, partly due to the high relatedness of sequenced species. To better understand the origin of aphid duplications we sequenced and assembled the genome of Cinara cedri, an early branching lineage (Lachninae) of the Aphididae family. We performed a phylogenomic comparison of this genome with 20 other sequenced genomes, including the available genomes of five other aphids, along with the transcriptomes of two species belonging to Adelgidae (a close…