Many studies have focused on soil nutrient heterogeneity and islands of fertility in arid ecosystems. However, few have been conducted on an oasis-desert transitional zone where there is a vegetation pattern changing from shrubs to annual herbs. The goal of the present study was to understand vegetation and soil nutrient heterogenity along an oasis-desert transitional zone in northwestern China. Three replicated sampling belts were selected at 200 m intervals along the transitional zone. Twenty-one quadrats (10 × 10 m) at 50 m intervals were located along each sampling belt. The vegetation cover was estimated through the quadrats, where both the soil under the canopy and the open soil were sampled simultaneously. The dominated shrub was Haloxylon ammodendron in the areas close to the oasis and Nitraria tangutorum dominated the areas close to the desert. In general, along the transitional zone the vegetation cover decreased within 660 m, increased above 660 m and decreased again above 1 020 m (close to the desert). The soil nutrients (organic matter, total N, NO3− and NH4+) showed significant differences along the zone. The soil nutrients except the soil NH4+ under the canopy were higher than those in open soil, confirming "islands of fertility" or nutrient enrichment. Only a slight downward trend of the level of "islands of fertility" for soil organic matter appeared in the area within 900 m. Soil organic matter both under canopy and in interspace showed a positive correlation with the total vegetation cover, however, there was no significant correlation between the other soil nutrients and the total vegetation cover. We also analyzed the relationship between the shrubs and annuals and the soil nutrients along the zone. Similarly, there was no significant correlation between them, except soil organic matter with the annuals. The results implied that annual plants played an important role in soil nutrient enrichment in arid ecosystem.

Plant endophytes are among the most important resources of biologically active metabolites. Twenty-three endophyte strains residing in Trachelospermum jasminoides were cultivated in vitro with the cultures assayed for the fibrinolytic substance production. As a result, the culture of Verticillium sp. Tj33 was shown to be the most active. A fibrinolytic enzyme designated as verticase was subsequently purified from the supernatant of Verticillium sp. culture broth by a combination of DEAE-52, Sephadex G-75 and hydrophobic column chromatographies. Verticase, with its molecular mass of 31 kDa and pI of 8.5, was demonstrated to be homogeneous by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and isoelectric focusing electrophoresis. Verticase is an enzyme that hydrolyzes fibrin directly without activation of plaminogen. It was stable in a broad pH range from 4 through to 11 with the optimal reaction pH value and temperature shown to be around 9–10 and 50–60 °C, respectively. The fibrinolytic activity of verticase was severely inhibited by phenylmethylsulfony fluoride, indicating that verticase was a serine protease.

Seed dynamics is an important part of stand dynamics in forest ecosystems. In this paper, 26 gaps were randomly selected to study the influence of gaps on the spatial and temporal patterns of seed rains in a tropical montane rainforest of Hainan Island, South China. Three zones for each gap, including outside gap zone (Non-gap), transitional gap zone (EG-CG), and central gap zone (CG), were designed, and four seed traps (each 1m × 1m in size) were placed in each zone. Seed rains were collected by these traps every 10 days from June 2001 to May 2002. Seed rain varied greatly with season and generally exhibited a pattern of unimodal change during the study period: seed abundance and species richness were both greater in the wet season than in the dry season. Gaps significantly influenced the temporal patterns of both species richness and density of seed rains. Gaps had no significant influences on the spatial distribution patterns of seed rain species richness, but significantly affected the spatial distribution pattern of seed rain densities. Among the three different zones of gaps, the outside gap zone generally received more seeds inputs than the two other gap zones.

Forest biomass plays a key role in the global carbon cycle. In the present study, a general allometric model was derived to predict the relationships among the stem biomass MS, aboveground biomass MA and total biomass MT, based on previously developed scaling relationships for leaf, stem and root standing biomass. The model predicted complex scaling exponents for MT and/or MA with respect to MS. Because annual biomass accumulation in the stem, root and branch far exceeded the annual increase in standing leaf biomass, we can predict that MT MA MS as a simple result of the model. Although slight variations existed in different phyletic affiliations (i.e. conifers versus angiosperms), empirical results using Model Type II (reduced major axis) regression supported the model's predictions. The predictive formulas among stem, aboveground and total biomass were obtained using Model Type I (ordinary least squares) regression to estimate forest biomass. Given the low mean percentage prediction errors for aboveground (and total biomass) based on the stem biomass, the results provided a reasonable method to estimate the biomass of forests at the individual level, which was insensitive to the variation in local environmental conditions (e.g. precipitation, temperature, etc.).

Defense response genes in higher plant species are involved in a variety of signal transduction pathways and biochemical reactions to counterattack invading pathogens. In this study, a total of 366 non-redundant defense response gene homologs (DRHs), including 124 unigenes/expressed sequence tags, 226 tentative consensuses, and 16 DRH contigs have been identified by mining the Maize Genetics and Genomics and The Institute for Genomic Research maize databases using 35 essential defense response genes. Of 366 DRHs, 202 are mapped to 152 loci across ten maize chromosomes via both the genetic and in silico mapping approaches. The mapped DRHs seem to cluster together rather than be evenly distributed along the maize genome. Approximately half of these DHRs are located in regions harboring either major resistance genes or quantitative trait loci (QTL). Therefore, this comprehensive DRH linkage map will provide reference sequences to identify either positional candidate genes for resistance genes and/or QTLs or to develop makers for fine-mapping and marker-assisted selection of resistance genes and/or QTLs.

Salinity is an important limiting environmental factor for rapeseed production worldwide. In this study, we assessed the extent and pattern of DNA damages caused by salt stress in rapeseed plants. Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis revealed dose-related increases in sequence alterations in plantlets exposed to 10–1 000 mmol/L sodium chloride. In addition, individual plantlets exposed to the same salt concentration showed different AFLP and selected region amplified polymorphism banding patterns. These observations suggested that DNA mutation in response to salt stress was random in the genome and the effect was dose-dependant. DNA methylation changes in response to salt stress were also evaluated by methylation sensitive amplified polymorphism (MSAP). Three types of MSAP bands were recovered. Type I bands were observed with both isoschizomers Hpa II and Msp I, while type II and type III bands were observed only with Hpa II and Msp I, respectively. Extensive changes in types of MSAP bands after NaCl treatments were observed, including appearance and disappearance of type I, II and III bands, as well as exchanges between either type I and type II or type I and type III bands. An increase of 0.2–17.6% cytosine methylated CCGG sites were detected in plantlets exposed to 10–200 mmol/L salt compared to the control, and these changes included both de novo methylation and demethylation events. Nine methylation related fragments were also recovered and sequenced, and one sharing a high sequence homology with the ethylene responsive element binding factor was identified. These results demonstrated clear DNA genetic and epigenetic alterations in plantlets as a response to salt stress, and these changes may suggest a mechanism for plants adaptation under salt stress.

Two new alkamides, 8,11-dihydroxy-dodeca-2E,4E,9E-triensaureisobutylamid (Compound 1) and 7-hydroxy-trideca-2E,8E-dien-10,12-diynoic acid isobutylamide (Compound 2), as well as eight known compounds were isolated from the whole plants of Spilanthes callimorpha. The structures of the alkamides were characterized on the basis of their spectral data.

A new neolignan (7'E)-2',4,8-trihydroxy-3-methoxy-2,4'-epoxy-8,5'-neolign-7'-en-7-one (1) was isolated from the whole plants of Penthorum chinense Pursh, along with lupeol (2), betulinic acid (3), glyceryl monopalmitate (4), β-sitosterol (5), palmitic acid (6), ursolic acid (7), 2β,3β,23-trihydroxy-urs-12-ene-28-oic acid (8), glyceryl monolaurate (9), scopoletin (10), (–)syringaresinol (11), 9,9'-O-diferuloyl-(–)-secoisolariciresionl (12), pinocembrin (13), apigenin (14), kaempferol (15), luteolin (16), β-daucosterol (17), quercetin (18), 1-O-(β-D-glucopyranosyl)-(2S, 2'R, 3R,4E,8E)-2-(2'-hydroxyhexadecanoylamino)-4,8-octdecadiene-1,3-diol (19), gallic acid (20), pinocembrin-7-O-β-D-glucoside (21), and quercetin-3-O-β-D-glucoside (22). The structures of these compounds were elucidated on the basis of chemical and spectral evidence.

A new triterpenoid, 11α-O-trans-p-coumaroyltaraxerol (1), along with 11 known triterpenoids, taraxerone (2), taraxerol (3), 2α,3β,23,24-tetrahydroxyolean-12-en-28-oic acid (4), oleanolic acid (5), β-amyrin (6), 3β,23-dihydroxylursan-12-en-28-oic acid (7), 2α,3β-dihydroxyursan-12-en-28-oic acid (8), 2α,3β,23-trihydroxyursan-12-en-28-oic acid (9), 2α,3β,24-trihydroxyursan-12-en-28-oic acid (10), ursolic acid (11), and 3-O-acetylursolic acid (12), was isolated from Craibiodendron henryi W. W. Smith (Ericaceae). The structures of these compounds were elucidated on the basis of spectral evidence. Antioxidant activity and vasodilator effect of compound 1 were assessed.

Haynaldia villosa possesses a lot of important agronomic traits and has been a powerful gene resource for wheat improvement. However, only several wheat–H. villosa translocation lines have been reported so far. In this study, we attempted to develop an efficient method for inducing wheat–H. villosa chromosomal translocations. Triticum durum-Haynaldia villosa amphiploid pollen treated with 1 200 rad 60Co-γ-rays was pollinated to Triticum aestivum cv. ‘Chinese Spring’. Ninety-eight intergeneric translocated chromosomes between T. durum and H. villosa were detected by genomic in situ hybridization in 44 of 61 M1 plants, indicating a translocation occurrence frequency of 72.1%; much higher than ever reported. There were 26, 62 and 10 translocated chromosomes involving whole arm translocations, terminal translocations, and intercarlary translocations, respectively. Of the total 108 breakage-fusion events, 79 involved interstitial regions and 29 involved centric regions. The ratio of small segment terminal translocations (W·W-V) was much higher than that of large segment terminal translocations (W-V·V). All of the M1 plants were self-sterile, and their backcross progeny was all obtained with ‘Chinese Spring’ as pollen donors. Transmission analysis showed that most of the translocations were transmittable. This study provides a new strategy for rapid mass production of wheat-alien chromosomal translocations, especially terminal translocations that will be more significant for wheat improvement.

Senescence is the process of programmed degradation. The G2 line of pea exhibits apical senescence-delaying phenotype under short-day (SD) conditions, but the mechanism regulating the apical senescence is still largely unknown. Gibberellin (GA) was proved to be able to delay this apical senescence phenotype in G2 pea grown under long-day (LD) conditions. Here we show that the initiation of cell death signals in the terminal floral meristem was involved in the regulation of apical senescence in pea plants. SD signals prevented the formation of the cell death region in the apical mersitem. Moreover, GA3 treatment could effectively inhibit the occurrence of cell death-mediated apical senescence in LD-grown apical buds. Therefore, our data suggest that the prevention of apical senescence in SD-grown G2 pea through GA3 treatment may be largely responsible for the regulation of occurrence of the DNA fragmentation in apical meristem.

Using genomic in situ hybridization with genomic DNA, high-order chromatin fibers were successfully exhibited under a light microscope through the cell cycle in barley, rice, maize and field bean. From the interphase to prophase and metaphase of mitosis, the fibers were basically similar. Each was estimated to be around 200 nm in diameter, but the strength of signals was not the same along the fiber length. Through the cell cycle a series of dynamic distribution changes occurred in the fibers. In the interphase, they were unraveled. At the early prophase they were arranged with parallel and mirror symmetry. During late-prophase and metaphase, the fibers were bundled and became different visible chromosomes. The parallel coiling and mirror symmetry structures were visible clearly until the metaphase. In anaphase they disappeared. During telophase, in peripheral regions of congregated chromosome group, borderlines of the chromosomes disappeared and the fibers were unraveled. This demonstrated that mitotic chromosomes are assembled and organized by parallel and adjacent coiling of the fibers and the fibers should be the highest order structure for DNA coiling.

Our previous experiment revealed that apex-removed plants have larger root systems but a lower K+-uptake rates than intact tobacco plants. Since the apex is not only a center of growth and metabolism, but also an important place of auxin synthesis and export, the aims of this study were to distinguish whether the apex demand or auxin synthesized in the apex regulates assimilate and nutrients partitioning within plant, and to explain the reason for the lower K+-uptake rate of the apex-removed plant. In comparison with the control plant, covering the shoot apex with a black transparent plastic bag reduced net increases in dry matter and nutrients; however, the distribution of the dry matter and nutrients between shoot and roots and nutrient-uptake rates were not changed. Removal of the shoot apex shifted the dry mass and nutrients distributions to roots, and reduced the rate of nutrient uptake. Application of 1-naphthylacetic acid (NAA) could partly replace the role of the removed apex, stimulated assimilate and nutrient deposition into the treated tissue, and enhanced the reduced plasma membrane ATPase activity of roots to the control level. However, treatment of the apex-removed plants with NAA could not rescue the reduced nutrient uptake rate and the shifted assimilates and nutrients partitioning caused by excision of the apex. Higher nutrient uptake rate of the intact plants could not be explained by root growth parameters, such as total root surface area and number of root tips. The results from the present study indicate that strong apex demand determined assimilates and nutrients partitioning and nutrient-uptake rate in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) plants.