Temporally selective modification of the tomato rhizosphere and root microbiome by a dacitic tuff breccia (volcanic ash) containing minerals and trace elements.

Food crops are grown with fertilizers containing nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (macronutrients), along with magnesium, calcium, boron, and zinc (micronutrients) at different ratios during their cultivation. Soil and plant associated microbes have been implicated to promote plant growth, stress tolerance, and productivity. However, the high degree of variability across agricultural environments makes it difficult to assess the possible influences of nutrient fertilizers on these microbial communities. Uncovering the underlying mechanisms could lead us to achieving consistently improved food quality and productivity with minimal environmental impacts. For this purpose, we tested a commercially available fertilizer (surface-mined 38-million-year-old volcanic ash deposit AZOMITE®), applied as a supplement to the normal fertilizer program to tomato plants grown in the greenhouse. We examined its impact on the composition of below-ground microbial communities, focusing on those members we identified as "core taxa" that were enriched in the rhizosphere and root endosphere compared to bulk soil, and appeared above their predicted neutral distribution levels in control and treated samples. This analysis revealed that Azomite had little effect on soil or rhizosphere microbial composition overall, but it had a significant, temporally selective influence on the rhizosphere and root associated core taxa. Changes in the composition of the core taxa were correlated to associated functional pathway enrichment of carbohydrate metabolism over shorter chain carbon metabolism, suggesting a conversion of available microbial nutrient source within the roots. This finding exemplifies how the nutrient environment can specifically alter the functional capacity of root-associated bacterial taxa, with potential to improve crop productivity.

The SNARE Protein CfVam7 Is Required for Growth, Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Response, and Pathogenicity of Colletotrichum fructicola

The tea-oil tree Camellia oleifera is native to China and is cultivated in many parts of southern China. This plant has been grown for over 2,000 years, mainly for its high-quality cooking oil. Anthracnose is the main disease of tea-oil tree and results in a huge loss annually. Colletotrichum fructicola is a major pathogen causing anthracnose on tea-oil tree. In a previous study, we characterized that the bZIP transcription factor CfHac1 controlled the development and pathogenicity of C. fructicola. Here, we identified and characterized the function of CfVAM7 gene, which was significantly downregulated at the transcriptional level in the ΔCfhac1 strain under dithiothreitol stress. Targeted gene deletion revealed that CfVam7 is important in growth, pathogenicity, and responses to endoplasmic reticulum-related stresses. Further analysis revealed that CfVam7 is required for appressorium formation and homotypic vacuole fusion, which are important for fungal pathogen invasion. Cytological examinations revealed that CfVam7 is localized to vacuole membranes in the hyphal stage. The Phox homology (PX) and SNARE domains of CfVam7 were indispensable for normal cellular localization and biological function. Taken together, our results suggested that CfVam7-mediated vacuole membrane fusion promotes growth, stress response, and pathogenicity of C. fructicola.

Metabolism-mediated mechanisms underpin the differential stomatal speediness regulation among ferns and angiosperms

Recent results suggest that metabolism-mediated stomatal closure mechanisms are important to regulate differentially the stomatal speediness between ferns and angiosperms. However, evidence directly linking mesophyll metabolism and the slower stomatal conductance (gs) in ferns is missing. Here we investigated the effect of exogenous application of abscisic acid (ABA), sucrose and mannitol on gs kinetics and carried out a metabolic fingerprinting analysis of ferns and angiosperms leaves harvested throughout a diel course. Ferns stomata did not respond to ABA in the time period analysed. No differences in the relative decrease in gs was observed between ferns and the angiosperm following provision of sucrose or mannitol. However, ferns have slower gs responses to these compounds than angiosperms. Metabolomics analysis highlights that ferns have higher accumulation of secondary rather than primary metabolites throughout the diel course, with the opposite being observed in angiosperms. Our results indicate that metabolism-mediated stomatal closure mechanism is conserved among ferns and angiosperms and that the slower stomatal closure in ferns is associated to a reduced capacity to respond to mesophyll-derived sucrose and to a higher carbon allocation toward secondary metabolism, which likely modulates both photosynthesis-stomatal movements and growth-stress tolerance trade-offs.

Untangling competition between epitaxial strain and growth stress through examination of variations in local oxidation

Understanding oxide formation during corrosion of high-performance alloys in harsh environments is of great fundamental and industrial interest and provides a potential route for reducing the significant annual cost of corrosion globally. However, corrosion mechanisms involve multiple length scales, requiring a multitude of advanced experimental procedures. Here, we use correlated high resolution electron microscopy techniques over a range of length scales, combined with crystallographic modelling to show that there is a clear competition between epitaxial strain and growth stress during oxidation. The degree to which these competing mechanisms operate is shown to depend on the orientation of the substrate grains leading to significant local variations in oxide microstructure and thus protectiveness, even across a single sample. This leads to the possibility of tailoring substrate crystallographic textures in order to promote gradual phase transformation and the development of stress driven, well-oriented protective oxides, and so to improving overall corrosion performance.

Adaptive Laboratory Evolution of Microalgae: A Review of the Regulation of Growth, Stress Resistance, Metabolic Processes, and Biodegradation of Pollutants

Adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) experiments are a serviceable method for the industrial utilization of the microalgae, which can improve the phenotype, performance, and stability of microalgae to obtain strains containing beneficial mutations. In this article, we reviewed the research into the microalgae ALE test and assessed the improvement of microalgae growth, tolerance, metabolism, and substrate utilization by ALE. In addition, the principles of ALE and the key factors of experimental design, as well as the issues and drawbacks of the microalgae ALE method were discussed. In general, improving the efficiency of ALE and verifying the stability of ALE resulting strains are the primary problems that need to be solved in future research, making it a promising method for the application of microalgae biotechnology.

Factors that determine the professional longevity of researchers

The study aims to assess the characteristics of health, psychological status, lifestyle, social and living conditions as factors affecting the professional success of researchers. We used content analysis of literary data and the method of expert assessments. The factors that have a high impact on the professional success of researchers include age, quality of life, premature aging, cognitive load and activity, emotional status, physical inactivity. Among the average significant factors are job satisfaction, childbearing, educational growth, stress resistance, career growth, work on the household farm, medical responsibility, material security, corporate and family health-saving environment, lifestyle, personal qualities, psycho-psychological, information and energy loads, emotional stress, academic title, intellectual activity cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, alternation of physical and mental work (change of mono-load to complex). It is necessary to study further the factors that determine the success of the professional activity of researchers. There is a significant number of problems and many negative aspects associated with scientific training. According to the agreed opinion of experts, there are priority ranking places by such problems as in the first place - a decrease in cognitive functions; in the second place - a reduction in the effectiveness of scientific activity and premature aging; in the third place - the presence of low medical responsibility; in the fourth place - a frequent decrease in physical activity; in the fifth-place - emotional burnout, the fact of low material security, the formation of violations of psychological characteristics, premature termination of scientific activity. The factors that have a high impact on the professional success of researchers include age, quality of life, premature aging, cognitive load and activity, emotional status, physical inactivity. Among the average significant factors are job satisfaction, childbearing, educational growth, stress resistance, career growth, work on the household farm, medical responsibility, material security, corporate and family health-saving environment, lifestyle, personal qualities, psycho-psychological, information and energy loads, emotional stress, academic title, intellectual activity cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, alternation of physical and mental work (change of mono-load to complex).