Plant-environment interactions (Hoboken, N.J.)最新文献

Over millions of years of interactions, plants have developed complex defense mechanisms to counteract diverse insect herbivory strategies. These defenses encompass morphological, biochemical, and molecular adaptations that mitigate the impacts of herbivore attacks. Physical barriers, such as spines, trichomes, and cuticle layers, deter herbivores, while biochemical defenses include the production of secondary metabolites and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The initial step in the plant's defense involves sensing mechanical damage and chemical cues, including herbivore oral secretions and herbivore-induced VOCs. This triggers changes in plasma membrane potential driven by ion fluxes across plant cell membranes, activating complex signal transduction pathways. Key hormonal mediators, such as jasmonic acid, salicylic acid, and ethylene, orchestrate downstream defense responses, including VOC release and secondary metabolites biosynthesis. This review provides a comprehensive analysis of plant responses to herbivory, emphasizing early and late defense mechanisms, encompassing physical barriers, signal transduction cascades, secondary metabolites synthesis, phytohormone signaling, and epigenetic regulation.

In Senegal, the average rice consumed is 100 kg per capita per year. The objective was to evaluate and select the well-adapted high-yielding lines in Ndiaye and Fanaye growth conditions in Senegal River Valley. One hundred and twelve advanced lines were evaluated in consecutive wet and dry seasons at AfricaRice Fanaye and Ndiaye sites challenged by drought and high temperatures. Unlike Fanaye, Ndiaye faces severe water scarcity and extreme heat. An alpha-lattice design was used with three replications. The number of tillers and plant height at 30 days after sowing, plant height at maturity, days to 50% heading, and grain yield; physiological: leaves chlorophyll content at 50% heading stage, yield grain, thousand grain weight, and number of panicles per plant were recorded to evaluate the increasing of rice productivity. Results showed significant variation among the advanced lines and the test "Kruskal-Wallis medians" was used for the mean comparison for the five descriptors during growth and development stages. Path analysis revealed that Ndiaye's harsh conditions negatively impacted NT30, PH30, PHmat, PNP, Dmat, and GY, with negative effects on NT30 (ρ = -0.63), PH30 (ρ = -0.67), and PNP (ρ = -0.15). However, SH (ρ = 0.71) and TGW (ρ = 0.37) had positive direct effects. Cluster analysis generated four groups showing the characteristics of 112 advanced lines. Most of the advanced lines were outperforming local elite varieties. The lines WAC 18-WAT15-3-1, WAC 18-WAT65-1-1, WAC 13-WAT32-2-1, and WAB 2150-TGR1-WAT3-1 produced the highest yields for Ndiaye, with 4752, 5589, 5589, 5644, and 6943 kg/ha. For Fanaye, the best genotypes were IR 09 N523, CT18919-4-2-2-2SR-1P, CT18494-4-4-3-3-1SR, WAB 2125-WACB-1-TGR1-WAT1-1, and CT19541-13-3-1-2P-3P, with 8824, 8984, 9014, 9639, and 8496 kg/ha, respectively. The authors recommend that these lines be released or used as donors in breeding programs, and further studies can consider stability analysis using the best adapted varieties.

As a result of climate change, global temperatures are increasing, and water scarcity is on the rise. Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr] is one of the most important crops in the world due to its importance as food and feed. One of the major limiting factors for soybean production is drought, which can cause up to 80% reduction in yield. Therefore, growers and plant breeders are turning to soybean accessions that demonstrate better water use efficiency (WUE). However, in addition to drought, insect herbivory by soybean looper (Chrysodeixis includens, SBL) and fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda, FAW) can also reduce soybean yield by feeding on foliar and floral organs. Using soybean accessions that differ in their wilting speed, we examined the relationship between physiological traits associated with WUE, and how they affect both herbivore and host plant growth and development. Results showed that both fast- and slow-wilting genotypes displayed strong overcompensation in terms of growth and development, but slow-wilting genotypes produced higher-quality pods and seeds. Regardless of treatment effects, FAW fed at a significantly higher rate than SBL despite being less specialized to feed on soybeans. While fast-wilting plants produced more pods than slow-wilting plants regardless of treatment, slow-wilting plants produced heavier pods with larger and heavier seeds. Collectively, we show that despite fast-wilting plants overcompensating in pod production and growth traits, slow-wilting plants may still be better fit through seed functions.

The emergence of East Asian spring ephemerals and the unique ecosystem can be attributed primarily to vicariance, brought about by the Quaternary rifting of the Okinawa Trough, the formation of the East China Sea, and the isolation of the island chains of Ryukyu, Japan, and Taiwan from the Asian continent. The northern forests of Japan, dominated by Fagus crenata and the associated Quercus crispula, present a captivating display of spring-flowering ephemerals, including Erythronium japonicum, Viola bissetii, Anemone pseudoaltaica, and Corydalis fukuharae. Among these, Asarum is also considered part of the spring ephemerals. Our primary focus for phylogenetic analyses, which included constructing a haplotype network using PopART version 1.7 and molecular dating with BEAST v1.10.4, was on the genus Asarum. In the BEAST analysis, we set the Quaternary geological event calibration at 1.55 ± 0.15 Ma and applied pre-Quaternary fossil calibrations. When we input 1.55 Ma into BEAST, the analysis suggested that spring ephemerals underwent a simultaneous splitting and diversification event around that time, approximately 1.55 Ma, during the Quaternary period. The differentiation of these species is more likely a result of adaptive radiation rather than vicariance, particularly given their partially sympatric distribution and occurrence across islands. This radiation likely originated from the most recent common ancestor of the ingroup species of spring ephemerals and can be seen as a response to significant environmental changes associated with the formation of the East China Sea around 1.55 Ma. Notably, species such as Asarum megacalyx and Fagus crenata exhibit adaptations to heavy snowfall, further supporting this idea. The spring ephemerals in beech or oak forests in North America and Europe may have radiated and diversified as a result of Quaternary global climatic changes.

Hunger remains a prevalent issue worldwide, and with a changing climate, it is expected to become an even greater problem that our food systems are not adapted to. There is therefore a need to investigate strategies to fortify our foods and food systems. Underutilized crops are farmed regionally, are often adapted to stresses, including droughts, and have great nutritional profiles, potentially being key for food security. One of these crops, Lablab purpureus L Sweet, or lablab, is a legume grown for humans or as fodder and shows remarkable drought tolerance. Understanding of lablab's molecular responses to drought and drought's effects on its nutritional qualities is limited and affects breeding potential. Using transcriptomics at three time points, changes in gene expression in response to drought were investigated in wild and domesticated lablab. The effect of drought on the elemental profile of lablab leaves was investigated using ionomics to assess drought's impact on nutritional quality. Differences in drought response between wild and domesticated lablab accessions were revealed, which were mainly due to differences in the expression of genes related to phosphorus metabolic response, cell wall organization, and cellular signaling. The leaves of wild and domesticated lablab accessions differed significantly in their elemental concentrations, with wild accessions having higher protein, zinc, and iron concentrations. Drought affected the concentration of some elements, with potential implications for the use of lablab under different environments. Overall, this study is an important first step in understanding drought response in lablab with implications for breeding and improvement of drought-tolerant lablab.

Humans have a long-standing relationship with the natural world, particularly in how they engage with plants-referred to as people-plant relationships. While plants naturally live outdoors, people have been including them inside built environments for centuries. Although the benefits of indoor plants are well documented in research, there is limited exploration of individuals' subjective relationships with their indoor plants. To address this gap, we examined the perceived benefits of owning indoor plants and how people describe their relationships with them through open-ended qualitative survey items. Data were collected from 115 indoor plant owners in Australia, and the qualitative responses were analyzed using a combination of thematic analysis and qualitative segmentation. On average, participants owned 15 indoor plants and in total participants identified 11 benefits. The most common being decorative and aesthetic value, improved air quality, and calming effects. Participants fell into one of four types of relationships with their indoor plants: highly connected, engaged, limited engagement, and no relationship. This qualitative segmentation approach allowed us to achieve a key goal of exploratory qualitative research-providing new insights to inform future quantitative studies. Given that we found that not all indoor plant-people relationships are equal, and that people have varying levels of connection to their plants, future research should explore these relationship types using quantitative methods.

Sesame cultivation was until recently restricted to the northwestern part of Benin. The yield is relatively low, as there are no improved varieties introduced and widely adopted so far. This study aimed to assess the molecular diversity, genetic differentiation, and the agronomic performance of a collection of local cultivars and introduced lines of sesame from China. The agronomic evaluation was conducted across eight environments during the 2020 cropping season using 14 descriptors on 19 accessions, including 6 introduced lines arranged in a randomized complete bloc design. Twelve simple sequence repeat markers were used to assess the molecular diversity. The analysis of variance showed significant variation among accessions for all the traits, except the number of lodges per capsule. Principal component analysis (PCA) followed by hierarchical clustering indicated that the accessions could be classified into three groups. The first group included accessions from China with the local accession SI09, characterized by early flowering and low seed yields (on average 380.13 kg ha^-1). The second group included late flowering accessions and intermediate seed yield (on average 548.68 kg ha^-1). The third group included higher yielding accessions (on average 715.7 kg ha^-1). The PCA identified key traits such as days to 50% emergence, days to 50% flowering, collar diameter, plant height, number of branches, and seed yield as the most discriminative among accessions for agromorphological characterization. The SSR markers were polymorphic, with polymorphic information content values between 0.17 and 0.92. A total of 62 alleles were detected, with each locus exhibiting 2 to 15 alleles. The gene diversity ranged from 0.18 to 0.92, with an average value of 0.55. Cluster analysis based on the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean revealed that accessions were grouped in three clusters, with the coefficients of similarity/dissimilarity ranging between 0.60 and 0.92. Most of the Chinese lines were clustered together, except accession Y01. This study provided useful knowledge about local sesame cultivars in Benin and their similarities and differences with the lines introduced from China, therefore contributing to the advancement of the sesame-breeding program in the country.

This study examined the growth parameters of both glyphosate-susceptible and glyphosate-resistant biotypes of Amaranthus palmeri, designated as GA2005 and GA2017, respectively. A two-year microplot field study was conducted to assess their growth characteristics. Scheduled destructive harvests on named harvest days (HD) were conducted to collect measurements for further calculation of net assimilation rate (NAR; g m^-2 day^-1), specific leaf area (SLA), leaf weight ratio (LWR), stem-to-leaf ratio (SLR), leaf area index (LAI), leaf area ratio (LAR; cm² g^-1), leaf area duration (LAD; days), relative growth rate (RGR; g.g^-1 day^-1) and plant volume (m³). In addition, stem diameter, number of leaves, and Chlorophyll content (μmol m²) were determined. The main objective was to identify growth parameters that differentiate biotypes along the plant life cycle. While certain growth parameters showed no variation among biotypes, differences in leaf area index (LAI) over HD and chlorophyll content and leaf area duration (LAD) were observed as the main effects. Glyphosate-resistant biotypes exhibited higher LAD and chlorophyll content, potentially conferring a competitive advantage, especially in heavily used glyphosate environments. The study highlights the complexity of intraspecific genetic differentiation, adaptation, and environmental factors affecting A. palmeri. It may offer insights into biotype distinction and resistance spread while advancing our comprehension of species adaptation and growth strategies for enhanced control.

Mitchella repens (partridgeberry; family Rubiaceae) is a creeping, understory plant native to eastern North America. The twinned, tubular flowers of this distylous plant are bright white and produce volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Partridgeberry has intermorph incompatibility and thus requires pollinators to move pollen from one morph to the other. Despite partridgeberry being a common member of forest communities, little is known about its pollination syndrome. Using headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis the floral VOCs were identified, with the four predominant molecules being α-pinene, camphene, D-limonene, and verbenone. The VOC profile contained 27 molecules consisting mostly of monoterpenes. Two independent sample t-tests confirmed that each morph produced statistically similar floral VOC profiles (p > 0.1). Additionally, two of the predominant VOC molecules, α-pinene and D-limonene, were measured throughout the 5-day flowering cycle. Simple linear regressions of these compound levels versus days after flowering (DAF) confirmed that α-pinene and D-limonene both decreased with flower age. Insect visits were observed to correlate with α-pinene and D-limonene concentrations, peaking at 1-2 DAF and then declining through 5 DAF.

Rice is the most important staple crop in Nepal, playing a critical role in both the economy and food security. This study analyzes the trends in rice cultivation, production, imports, and exports from fiscal years 2011/2012 to 2021/2022 and also presents population data from the initial and final years. Over the study period, the area of rice cultivation declined by 0.81% annually, while the production grew by 1.5% per year, and the yield improved at a rate of 1.97% per year. Trend analysis indicated no significant changes in cultivation area or production, but a significant positive trend was observed in the yield. Rice import showed a significant annual increase of 5.61% in price value and 12.80% in quantity, while exports also grew by 1.95% in quantity and 2.39% in value. However, exports remain negligible compared to imports. Nepal's rice self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) has declined by 1.15% annually, falling from 92.72% in 2011/2012 to 82.01% in 2021/2022 while its import dependency ratio (IDR) has increased by 5.89% annually. These trends suggest that Nepal is becoming increasingly vulnerable in terms of rice food security. Population dynamics based on two census records revealed a notable 14% rise in the foreign population. This situation underscores the urgent need for policy interventions to address the decline in rice self-sufficiency, labor shortages, and growing import dependency, ensuring sustainable rice production and food security in Nepal.