lafK contributes the regulation of swarming motility of Pseudomonas plecoglossicida and bacterial-host interaction.

Flagella-mediated swarming motility plays a crucial role in facilitating the rapid colonization and dissemination of bacterial within the host. The swarming motility of Pseudomonas plecoglossicida is intricately associated with its lateral flagella, and notably, the lateral flagella system of P. plecoglossicida encompasses a transcriptional regulator known as LafK.

Mistletoes have higher hydraulic safety but lower efficiency in xylem traits than their hosts.

Both mistletoes and their hosts are challenged by increasing drought, highlighting the necessity of understanding their comparative hydraulic properties. The high transpiration of mistletoes requires efficient water transport, while high xylem tensions demand strong embolism resistance, representing a hydraulic paradox. This study, conducted across four environments with different aridity indices in Yunnan, China, examined the xylem traits of 119 mistletoe-host species pairs.

Role of the Pseudomonas plecoglossicida fliL gene in immune response of infected hybrid groupers (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus ♀ × Epinephelus lanceolatus ♂).

, a gram-negative bacterium, is the main pathogen of visceral white-point disease in marine fish, responsible for substantial economic losses in the aquaculture industry. The FliL protein, involved in torque production of the bacterial flagella motor, is essential for the pathogenicity of a variety of bacteria. In the current study, the gene deletion strain (Δ), gene complement strain (C-Δ), and wild-type strain (NZBD9) were compared to explore the influence of the gene on pathogenicity and its role in host immune response.

Effects of lianas on forest biogeochemistry during their lives and afterlives.

Climate change and other anthropogenic disturbances are increasing liana abundance and biomass in many tropical and subtropical forests. While the effects of living lianas on species diversity, ecosystem carbon, and nutrient dynamics are receiving increasing attention, the role of dead lianas in forest ecosystems has been little studied and is poorly understood. Trees and lianas coexist as the major woody components of forests worldwide, but they have very different ecological strategies, with lianas relying on trees for mechanical support.

Linkages among stem xylem transport, biomechanics, and storage in lianas and trees across three contrasting environments.

Premise: Stem xylem transports water and nutrients, mechanically supports aboveground tissues, and stores water and nonstructural carbohydrates. These three functions are associated with three types of cells-vessel, fiber, and parenchyma, respectively.

Methods: We measured stem theoretical hydraulic conductivity (K), modulus of elasticity (MOE), tissue water content, starch, soluble sugars, cellulose, and xylem anatomical traits in 15 liana and 16 tree species across three contrasting sites in Southwest China.

Convergent relationships between flower economics and hydraulic traits across aquatic and terrestrial herbaceous plants.

Maintaining open flowers is critical for successful pollination and depends on long-term water and carbon balance. Yet the relationship between how flower hydraulic traits are coordinated in different habitats is poorly understood. Here, we hypothesize that the coordination and trade-offs between floral hydraulics and economics traits are independent of environmental conditions.

Hydraulic traits and photosynthesis are coordinated with trunk sapwood capacitance in tropical tree species.

Water stored in trunk sapwood is vital for the canopy to maintain its physiological function under high transpiration demands. Little is known regarding the anatomical properties that contribute to the hydraulic capacitance of tree trunks and whether trunk capacitance is correlated with the hydraulic and gas exchange traits of canopy branches. We examined sapwood capacitance, xylem anatomical characteristics of tree trunks, embolism resistance, the minimal xylem water potential of canopy branches, leaf photosynthesis and stomatal conductance in 22 species from a tropical seasonal rainforest and savanna.

Pseudomonas plecoglossicida fliP gene affects the immune response of Epinephelus fuscoguttatus ♀×Epinephelus lanceolatus ♂ to infection.

Pseudomonas plecoglossicida is a pathogen that causes visceral white spot disease in a variety of teleosts. The protein encoded by fliP gene is involved in the assembly of bacterial flagella, which plays a vital role in bacterial pathogenicity. However, the roles of the fliP gene on the host immune response remain unclear.

Can leaf drought tolerance predict species abundance and its changes in tropical-subtropical forests?

Climate change has resulted in an increase in drought severity in the species-rich tropical and subtropical forests of southern China. Exploring the spatiotemporal relationship between drought-tolerance trait and tree abundance provides a means to elucidate the impact of droughts on community assembly and dynamics. In this study, we measured the leaf turgor loss point (πtlp) for 399 tree species from three tropical forest plots and three subtropical forest plots.

Vessel dimorphism and wood traits in lianas and trees among three contrasting environments.

Premise: Determining how xylem vessel diameters vary among plants and across environments gives insights into different water-use strategies among species and ultimately their distributions. Here, we tested the vessel dimorphism hypothesis that the simultaneous occurrence of many narrow and a few wide vessels gives lianas an advantage over trees in seasonally dry environments.

Methods: We measured the diameters of 13,958 vessels from 15 liana species and 10,430 vessels from 16 tree species in a tropical seasonal rainforest, savanna, and subtropical evergreen broadleaved forest.

Physiological response and photosynthetic recovery to an extreme drought: Evidence from plants in a dry-hot valley savanna of Southwest China.

The frequency of extreme drought events has been rising worldwide, but due to its unpredictability, how plants will respond remains poorly understood. Here, we aimed to characterize how the hydraulics and photosynthesis of savanna plants respond to extreme drought, and tested whether they can subsequently recover photosynthesis after drought. There was an extreme drought in 2019 in Southwest (SW) China.

You are what you eat: nutrient and water relations between mistletoes and hosts.

Mistletoes play important roles in biogeochemical cycles. Although many studies have compared nutrient concentrations between mistletoes and their hosts, no general patterns have been found and the nutrient uptake mechanisms in mistletoes have not been fully resolved. To address the water and nutrient relations in mistletoes compared with their hosts, we measured 11 nutrient elements, two isotope ratios and two leaf morphological traits for 11 mistletoe and 104 host species from four sites across a large environmental gradient in southwest China.

The complete chloroplast genome of Lam. (Fabaceae): a versatile tropical medicinal plant.

Lam. (1783), a versatile medicinal plant, belongs to the family Fabaceae (subfamily Cercidoideae). In this study, we analyzed the complete chloroplast genome to facilitate its use in genetic research.

Convergence in phosphorus constraints to photosynthesis in forests around the world.

Tropical forests take up more carbon (C) from the atmosphere per annum by photosynthesis than any other type of vegetation. Phosphorus (P) limitations to C uptake are paramount for tropical and subtropical forests around the globe. Yet the generality of photosynthesis-P relationships underlying these limitations are in question, and hence are not represented well in terrestrial biosphere models.

Sources and consequences of mismatch between leaf disc and whole-leaf leaf mass per area (LMA).

Premise: Leaf mass per area (LMA), which is an important functional trait in leaf economic spectrum and plant growth analysis, is measured from leaf discs or whole leaves. Differences between the measurement methods may lead to large differences in the estimates of LMA values.

Methods: We examined to what extent estimates of LMA based on whole leaves match those based on discs using 334 woody species from a wide range of biomes (tropics, subtropics, savanna, and temperate), whether the relationship varied by leaf morphology (tissue density, leaf area, leaf thickness), punch size (0.

Function of the rpoD gene in Pseudomonas plecoglossicida pathogenicity and Epinephelus coioides immune response.

Pseudomonas plecoglossicida is a Gram-negative pathogenic bacterium that causes visceral white spot disease in several marine fish species, resulting in high mortality and financial loss. Based on previous RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) results, rpoD gene expression is significantly up-regulated in P. plecoglossicida during infection, indicating that rpoD may contribute to bacterial pathogenicity.

Leaf trait association in relation to herbivore defense, drought resistance, and economics in a tropical invasive plant.

Premise: Exploring how functional traits vary and covary is important to understand plant responses to environmental change. However, we have limited understanding of the ways multiple functional traits vary and covary within invasive species.

Methods: We measured 12 leaf traits of an invasive plant Chromolaena odorata, associated with plant or leaf economics, herbivore defense, and drought resistance on 10 introduced populations from Asia and 12 native populations from South and Central America, selected across a broad range of climatic conditions, and grown in a common garden.

Cavitation resistance of peduncle, petiole and stem is correlated with bordered pit dimensions in .

Variation in resistance of xylem to embolism among flowers, leaves, and stems strongly influences the survival and reproduction of plants. However, little is known about the vulnerability to xylem embolism under drought stress and their relationships to the anatomical traits of pits among reproductive and vegetative organs. In this study, we investigated the variation in xylem vulnerability to embolism in peduncles, petioles, and stems in a woody plant, .

Higher water and nutrient use efficiencies in savanna than in rainforest lianas result in no difference in photosynthesis.

Differences in traits between lianas and trees in tropical forests have been studied extensively; however, few have compared the ecological strategies of lianas from different habitats. Here, we measured 25 leaf and stem traits concerning leaf anatomy, morphology, physiology and stem hydraulics for 17 liana species from a tropical seasonal rainforest and for 19 liana species from a valley savanna in south-west China. We found that savanna lianas had higher vessel density, wood density and lower hydraulically weighted vessel diameter and theoretical hydraulic conductivity than tropical seasonal rainforest lianas.

Traits, strategies, and niches of liana species in a tropical seasonal rainforest.

Plant functional traits and strategies hold the promise to explain species distribution, but few studies have linked multiple traits to multiple niche dimensions (i.e., light, water, and nutrients).