Search results for "plant anatomy"
showing 10 items of 26 documents
Expectation or Sensorial Reality? An Empirical Investigation of the Biodynamic Calendar for Wine Drinkers.
2017
International audience; The study's aim was to investigate a central tenet of biodynamic philosophy as applied to wine tasting, namely that wines taste different in systematic ways on days determined by the lunar cycle. Nineteen New Zealand wine professionals tasted blind 12 Pinot noir wines at times determined within the biodynamic calendar for wine drinkers as being favourable (Fruit day) and unfavourable (Root day) for wine tasting. Tasters rated each wine four times, twice on a Fruit day and twice on a Root day, using 20 experimenter-provided descriptors. Wine descriptors spanned a range of varietal-relevant aroma, taste, and mouthfeel characteristics, and were selected with the aim of …
Olfactory attraction of the hornet Vespa velutina to honeybee colony odors and pheromones.
2014
19 pages; International audience; Since the beginning of the last century, the number of biological invasions has continuously increased worldwide. Due to their environmental and economical consequences, invasive species are now a major concern. Social wasps are particularly efficient invaders because of their distinctive biology and behavior. Among them, the yellow-legged hornet, Vespa velutina, is a keen hunter of domestic honeybees. Its recent introduction to Europe may induce important beekeeping, pollination, and biodiversity problems. Hornets use olfactory cues for the long-range detection of food sources, in this case the location of honeybee colonies, but the exact nature of these c…
Polish is quantitatively different on quartzite flakes used on different worked materials.
2020
Metrology has been successfully used in the last decade to quantify use-wear on stone tools. Such techniques have been mostly applied to fine-grained rocks (chert), while studies on coarse-grained raw materials have been relatively infrequent. In this study, confocal microscopy was employed to investigate polished surfaces on a coarse-grained lithology, quartzite. Wear originating from contact with five different worked materials were classified in a data-driven approach using machine learning. Two different classifiers, a decision tree and a support-vector machine, were used to assign the different textures to a worked material based on a selected number of parameters (Mean density of furr…
Flowers and inflorescences of the seagrassPosidonia(Posidoniaceae, Alismatales)
2012
Premise of the study: The predominantly aquatic order Alismatales displays a highly variable fl ower groundplan associated with a diverse range of developmental patterns. We present the fi rst detailed description of fl ower anatomy and development in Posidonia , the sole genus of the seagrass family Posidoniaceae. Existing accounts provide confl icting interpretations of fl oral and infl orescence structure, so this investigation is important in clarifying morphological evolution within this early-divergent monocot order. • Methods: We investigated two species of Posidonia using light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Our observations are interpreted in the framework of a recent…
Essential oil of Cyphostemma juttae (Vitaceae): Chemical composition and antitumor mechanism in triple negative breast cancer cells
2019
The genus Cyphostemma (Planch.) Alston (Vitaceae) includes about 150 species distrib- uted in eastern and southern Africa and Madagascar. Some species are used in traditional medicine and their biological activities, including antiproliferative effects against cancer cell lines, have been demonstrated. To date no investigations on Cyphostemma essential oils have been carried out. Essential oils, which play important roles in plant defenses have been demonstrated to be active in the treatment of several human diseases and to enhance bioavability of other drugs. The aim of this paper was to identify the chemical composition of the essential oil of the leaves of Cyphostemma juttae (Dinter &…
Transmission modes affect the population structure of potato virus Y in potato.
2020
Transmission is a crucial part of a viral life cycle and transmission mode can have an important impact on virus biology. It was demonstrated that transmission mode can influence the virulence and evolution of a virus; however, few empirical data are available to describe the direct underlying changes in virus population structure dynamics within the host. Potato virus Y (PVY) is an RNA virus and one of the most damaging pathogens of potato. It comprises several genetically variable strains that are transmitted between plants via different transmission modes. To investigate how transmission modes affect the within-plant viral population structure, we have used a deep sequencing approach to …
Allium albanicum (Amaryllidaceae), a new species from Balkans and its relationships with A. meteoricum Heldr. & Hausskn. ex Halácsy
2019
A new species, Alliumalbanicum, is described and illustrated from Albania (Balkan Peninsula). It grows on serpentines or limestone in open rocky stands with a scattered distribution, mainly in mountain locations. Previously, the populations of this geophyte were attributed to A.meteoricum Heldr. & Hausskn. ex Halácsy, described from a few localities of North and Central Greece. These two species indeed show close relationships, chiefly regarding some features of the spathe valves, inflorescence and floral parts. They also share the same diploid chromosome number 2n =16 and similar karyotype, while seed testa micro-sculptures and leaf anatomy reveal remarkable differences. There are …
Aminopropyltransferases involved in polyamine biosynthesis localize preferentially in the nucleus of plant cells
2012
Plant aminopropyltransferases consist of a group of enzymes that transfer aminopropyl groups derived from decarboxylated S-adenosyl-methionine (dcAdoMet or dcSAM) to propylamine acceptors to produce polyamines, ubiquitous metabolites with positive charge at physiological pH. Spermidine synthase (SPDS) uses putrescine as amino acceptor to form spermidine, whereas spermine synthase (SPMS) and thermospermine synthase (TSPMS) use spermidine as acceptor to synthesize the isomers spermine and thermospermine respectively. In previous work it was shown that both SPDS1 and SPDS2 can physically interact with SPMS although no data concerning the subcellular localization was reported. Here we study the…
Coastal Evolution in a Mediterranean Microtidal Zone: Mid to Late Holocene Natural Dynamics and Human Management of the Castellò Lagoon, NE Spain
2016
We present a palaeoenvironmental study of the Castelló lagoon (NE Spain), an important archive for understanding long-term interactions between dynamic littoral ecosystems and human management. Combining geochemistry, mineralogy, ostracods, diatoms, pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, charcoal and archaeo-historical datasets we reconstruct: 1) the transition of the lagoon from a marine to a marginal environment between ~3150 cal BC to the 17th century AD; 2) fluctuations in salinity; and 3) natural and anthropogenic forces contributing to these changes. From the Late Neolithic to the Medieval period the lagoon ecosystem was driven by changing marine influence and the land was mainly exploited …
What do leaf anatomy and micromorphology tell us about the psammophilous Pancratium maritimum (Amaryllidaceae) in response to sand dune conditions?
2015
Abstract The present study aimed at verifying the morphological variation in leaf traits among different populations of Pancratium maritimum (sea daffodil) and the correlation between leaf diversity and climate conditions at different sites. Eleven populations of P. maritimum from Mediterranean coastal sand dunes were investigated with respect to leaf surface micro-morphology, leaf anatomy, and vascular pattern. Morphometric analysis was based on 29 quantitative foliar parameters. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), principal component analysis (PCA), discriminant function analysis (DFA), and clustering by Ward’s method were used for the statistical evaluation. Results revealed a rather u…