Variation in Aquaporin and Physiological Responses Among Families Under Different Moisture Conditions.

A population of eight open pollinated families of was selected from sites varying in precipitation regimes and elevation to examine the possible role of aquaporins in adaptation to different moisture conditions. Five aquaporins encoding , , , , and were cloned and detailed structural analyses were conducted to provide essential information that can explain their biological and molecular function. All five PiconAQPs contained hydrophilic aromatic/arginine selective filters to facilitate the transport of water.

A molecular identification protocol for roots of boreal forest tree species.

Premise Of The Study: Roots play a key role in many ecological processes, yet our ability to identify species from bulk root samples is limited. Molecular tools may be used to identify species from root samples, but they have not yet been developed for most systems. Here we present a PCR-based method previously used to identify roots of grassland species, modified for use in boreal forests.