Evaluating Maize Hybrids for Yield, Stress Tolerance, and Carotenoid Content: Insights into Breeding for Climate Resilience.

To ensure food and feed security, modern maize hybrids must not only perform well under changing climate conditions but also consistently achieve higher and stable yields, exhibit maximum tolerance to stress factors, and produce high quality grains. In a study conducted in 2022 and 2023, 50 maize hybrids were developed from crosses of five elite (highly productive) inbred lines and ten lines possessing favorable genes for carotenoid content. These hybrids were tested under particularly unfavorable conditions for maize cultivation.

Sustainable Land Use Strengthens Microbial and Herbivore Controls in Soil Food Webs in Current and Future Climates.

Climate change and land-use intensification are threatening soil communities and ecosystem functions. Understanding the combined effects of climate change and land use is crucial for predicting future impacts on soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in agroecosystems. Here, we used a field experiment to quantify the combined effects of climate change (warming and altered precipitation patterns) and land use (agricultural type and management intensity) on soil food webs across nematodes, micro-, and macroarthropods.

Plant diversity enhances ecosystem multifunctionality via multitrophic diversity.

Ecosystem functioning depends on biodiversity at multiple trophic levels, yet relationships between multitrophic diversity and ecosystem multifunctionality have been poorly explored, with studies often focusing on individual trophic levels and functions and on specific ecosystem types. Here, we show that plant diversity can affect ecosystem functioning both directly and by affecting other trophic levels. Using data on 13 trophic groups and 13 ecosystem functions from two large biodiversity experiments-one representing temperate grasslands and the other subtropical forests-we found that plant diversity increases multifunctionality through elevated multitrophic diversity.

Artificial light at night (ALAN) causes shifts in soil communities and functions.

Artificial light at night (ALAN) is increasing worldwide, but its effects on the soil system have not yet been investigated. We tested the influence of experimental manipulation of ALAN on two taxa of soil communities (microorganisms and soil nematodes) and three aspects of soil functioning (soil basal respiration, soil microbial biomass and carbon use efficiency) over four and a half months in a highly controlled Ecotron facility. We show that during peak plant biomass, increasing ALAN reduced plant biomass and was also associated with decreased soil water content.

Ecosystem consequences of invertebrate decline.

Human activities cause substantial changes in biodiversity. Despite ongoing concern about the implications of invertebrate decline, few empirical studies have examined the ecosystem consequences of invertebrate biomass loss. Here, we test the responses of six ecosystem services informed by 30 above- and belowground ecosystem variables to three levels of aboveground (i.

Integrating demography and distribution modeling for the iconic Colm. in the Romanian Carpathians.

Both climate change and human exploitation are major threats to plant life in mountain environments. One species that may be particularly sensitive to both of these stressors is the iconic alpine flower edelweiss (m Colm.).

Climate change and land use induce functional shifts in soil nematode communities.

Land-use intensification represents one major threat to the diversity and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. In the face of concurrent climate change, concerns are growing about the ability of intensively managed agroecosystems to ensure stable food provisioning, as they may be particularly vulnerable to climate extreme-induced harvest losses and pest outbreaks. Extensively managed systems, in contrast, were shown to mitigate climate change based on plant diversity-mediated effects, such as higher functional redundancy or asynchrony of species.

Effects of plant functional group removal on structure and function of soil communities across contrasting ecosystems.

Loss of plant diversity has an impact on ecosystems worldwide, but we lack a mechanistic understanding of how this loss may influence below-ground biota and ecosystem functions across contrasting ecosystems in the long term. We used the longest running biodiversity manipulation experiment across contrasting ecosystems in existence to explore the below-ground consequences of 19 years of plant functional group removals for each of 30 contrasting forested lake islands in northern Sweden. We found that, against expectations, the effects of plant removals on the communities of key groups of soil organisms (bacteria, fungi and nematodes), and organic matter quality and soil ecosystem functioning (decomposition and microbial activity) were relatively similar among islands that varied greatly in productivity and soil fertility.

The effects of drought and nutrient addition on soil organisms vary across taxonomic groups, but are constant across seasons.

Anthropogenic global change alters the activity and functional composition of soil communities that are responsible for crucial ecosystem functions and services. Two of the most pervasive global change drivers are drought and nutrient enrichment. However, the responses of soil organisms to interacting global change drivers remain widely unknown.

Warming alters the energetic structure and function but not resilience of soil food webs.

Climate warming is predicted to alter the structure, stability, and functioning of food webs1-5. Yet, despite the importance of soil food webs for energy and nutrient turnover in terrestrial ecosystems, warming effects on these food webs-particularly in combination with other global change drivers-are largely unknown. Here, we present results from two complementary field experiments testing the interactive effects of warming with forest canopy disturbance and drought on energy fluxes in boreal-temperate ecotonal forest soil food webs.

Plant species richness sustains higher trophic levels of soil nematode communities after consecutive environmental perturbations.

The magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events are predicted to increase in the future due to ongoing climate change. In particular, floods and droughts resulting from climate change are thought to alter the ecosystem functions and stability. However, knowledge of the effects of these weather events on soil fauna is scarce, although they are key towards functioning of terrestrial ecosystems.

Rapid single-cell detection and identification of pathogens by using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy.

For the successful treatment of infections, real-time analysis and enhanced multiplex capacity, sensitivity and cost-effectiveness of the developed detection method are critical. In this work, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) was employed with the final aim of identification and discrimination of pathogenic bacteria, based on their detected SERS fingerprint at the single-cell level. Several genera of bacteria that are found in most of the isolated infections in bacteraemia were successfully identified in less than 5 minutes without the use of antibodies or other specific receptors.

Cyanobacteria Affect Fitness and Genetic Structure of Experimental Daphnia Populations.

Zooplankton communities can be strongly affected by cyanobacterial blooms, especially species of genus Daphnia, which are key-species in lake ecosystems. Here, we explored the effect of microcystin/nonmicrocystin (MC/non-MC) producing cyanobacteria in the diet of experimental Daphnia galeata populations composed of eight genotypes. We used D.

Patterns of relative magnitudes of soil energy channels and their relationships with environmental factors in different ecosystems in Romania.

The percentage compositions of soil herbivorous, bacterivorous and fungivorous nematodes in forests, grasslands and scrubs in Romania was analysed. Percentages of nematode abundance, biomass and metabolic footprint methods were used to evaluate the patterns and relative size of herbivory, bacterial- and fungal-mediated channels in organic and mineral soil horizons. Patterns and magnitudes of herbivore, bacterivore and fungivore energy pathways differed for a given ecosystem type and soil depth according to the method used.