Getting it right: suppression and leveraging of noise in robust decision-making.

Noise is a ubiquitous feature for all organisms growing in nature. Noise (defined here as stochastic variation) in the availability of nutrients, water and light profoundly impacts their growth and development. Not only is noise present as an external factor but cellular processes themselves are noisy.

Evolutionary radiation of the Eurasian Pinus species under pervasive gene flow.

Evolutionary radiation, a pivotal aspect of macroevolution, offers valuable insights into evolutionary processes. The genus Pinus is the largest genus in conifers with 90% of the extant species emerged in the Miocene, which signifies a case of rapid diversification. Despite this remarkable history, our understanding of the mechanisms driving radiation within this expansive genus has remained limited.

Fungal-Bacterial Combinations in Plant Health under Stress: Physiological and Biochemical Characteristics of the Filamentous Fungus and the Actinobacterium sp. ISTPL4 under In Vitro Arsenic Stress.

Fungal-bacterial combinations have a significant role in increasing and improving plant health under various stress conditions. Metabolites secreted by fungi and bacteria play an important role in this process. Our study emphasizes the significance of secondary metabolites secreted by the fungus alone and by an actinobacterium sp.

S basic leucine zipper transcription factors shape plant architecture by controlling C/N partitioning to apical and lateral organs.

Plants tightly control growth of their lateral organs, which led to the concept of apical dominance. However, outgrowth of the dormant lateral primordia is sensitive to the plant's nutritional status, resulting in an immense plasticity in plant architecture. While the impact of hormonal regulation on apical dominance is well characterized, the prime importance of sugar signaling to unleash lateral organ formation has just recently emerged.

Scots pine - panmixia and the elusive signal of genetic adaptation.

Scots pine is the foundation species of diverse forested ecosystems across Eurasia and displays remarkable ecological breadth, occurring in environments ranging from temperate rainforests to arid tundra margins. Such expansive distributions can be favored by various demographic and adaptive processes and the interactions between them. To understand the impact of neutral and selective forces on genetic structure in Scots pine, we conducted range-wide population genetic analyses on 2321 trees from 202 populations using genotyping-by-sequencing, reconstructed the recent demography of the species and examined signals of genetic adaptation.

Toward uncovering an operating system in plant organs.

Molecular motifs can explain information processing within single cells, while how assemblies of cells collectively achieve this remains less well understood. Plant fitness and survival depend upon robust and accurate decision-making in their decentralised multicellular organ systems. Mobile agents, including hormones, metabolites, and RNAs, have a central role in coordinating multicellular collective decision-making, yet mechanisms describing how cell-cell communication scales to organ-level transitions is poorly understood.

In Vitro Propagation of the Blueberry 'Blue Suede™' ( hybrid) in Semi-Solid Medium and Temporary Immersion Bioreactors.

The production of blueberries for fresh and processed consumption is increasing globally and has more than doubled in the last decade. Blueberry is grown commercially across a variety of climates in over 30 countries. The major classes of plants utilized for the planting and breeding of new cultivars are highbush, lowbush, half-high, Rabbiteye, and Southern highbush.

Plant electrophysiology with conformable organic electronics: Deciphering the propagation of Venus flytrap action potentials.

Electrical signals in plants are mediators of long-distance signaling and correlate with plant movements and responses to stress. These signals are studied with single surface electrodes that cannot resolve signal propagation and integration, thus impeding their decoding and link to function. Here, we developed a conformable multielectrode array based on organic electronics for large-scale and high-resolution plant electrophysiology.

Inbreeding Effects on the Performance and Genomic Prediction for Polysomic Tetraploid Potato Offspring Grown at High Nordic Latitudes.

Inbreeding depression (ID) is caused by increased homozygosity in the offspring after selfing. Although the self-compatible, highly heterozygous, tetrasomic polyploid potato ( L.) suffers from ID, some argue that the potential genetic gains from using inbred lines in a sexual propagation system of potato are too large to be ignored.

Seiðr: Efficient calculation of robust ensemble gene networks.

Gene regulatory and gene co-expression networks are powerful research tools for identifying biological signal within high-dimensional gene expression data. In recent years, research has focused on addressing shortcomings of these techniques with regard to the low signal-to-noise ratio, non-linear interactions and dataset dependent biases of published methods. Furthermore, it has been shown that aggregating networks from multiple methods provides improved results.

Fluorogenic properties of 4-dimethylaminocinnamaldehyde (DMACA) enable high resolution imaging of cell-wall-bound proanthocyanidins in plant root tissues.

Proanthocyanidins (PAs) are polymeric phenolic compounds found in plants and used in many industrial applications. Despite strong evidence of herbivore and pathogen resistance-related properties of PAs, their function is not fully understood. Determining the location and dynamics of PAs in plant tissues and cellular compartments is crucial to understand their mode of action.

Complex genetic architecture underlying the plasticity of maize agronomic traits.

Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of a given genotype to produce multiple phenotypes in response to changing environmental conditions. Understanding the genetic basis of phenotypic plasticity and establishing a predictive model is highly relevant to future agriculture under a changing climate. Here we report findings on the genetic basis of phenotypic plasticity for 23 complex traits using a diverse maize population planted at five sites with distinct environmental conditions.

Stipagrostis pennata (Trin.) De Winter Artificial Seed Production and Seedlings Multiplication in Temporary Immersion Bioreactors.

This study was conducted to develop the protocol for artificial seed production of Stipagrostis pennata (Trin.) De Winter via somatic embryo encapsulation as well as test a temporary bioreactor system for germination and seedling growth. Embryogenic calli were encapsulated using sodium alginate and calcium chloride and then sowed in the Murashige and Skoog (MS) germination medium in in vitro cultures.

Metabolite Profiling of Paraquat Tolerant ()-A Mediator of Antioxidant Defence Mechanisms.

RADICAL-INDUCED CELL DEATH1 (RCD1) is an nuclear protein that is disrupted during oxidative stress. RCD1 is considered an important integrative node in development and stress responses, and the plants have several phenotypes and altered resistance to a variety of abiotic and biotic stresses. One of the phenotypes of is resistance to the herbicide paraquat, but the mechanisms behind it are unknown.

SeedTransNet: a directional translational network revealing regulatory patterns during seed maturation and germination.

Seed maturation is the developmental process that prepares the embryo for the desiccated waiting period before germination. It is associated with a series of physiological changes leading to the establishment of seed dormancy, seed longevity, and desiccation tolerance. We studied translational changes during seed maturation and observed a gradual reduction in global translation during seed maturation.

The calcium sensor CBL7 is required for Serendipita indica-induced growth stimulation in Arabidopsis thaliana, controlling defense against the endophyte and K homoeostasis in the symbiosis.

Calcium is an important second messenger in plants. The activation of Ca signalling cascades is critical in the activation of adaptive processes in response to environmental stimuli. Root colonization by the growth promoting endophyte Serendipita indica involves the increase of cytosolic Ca levels in Arabidopsis thaliana.

The Indole-3-Acetamide-Induced Transcription Factor MYB74 Decreases Plant Growth and Contributes to the Control of Osmotic Stress Responses.

The accumulation of the auxin precursor indole-3-acetamide (IAM) in the mutant has recently been reported to reduce plant growth and to trigger abiotic stress responses in . The observed response includes the induction of abscisic acid (ABA) biosynthesis through the promotion of expression. The mechanism by which plant growth is limited, however, remained largely unclear.

Laccaria bicolor pectin methylesterases are involved in ectomycorrhiza development with Populus tremula × Populus tremuloides.

The development of ectomycorrhizal (ECM) symbioses between soil fungi and tree roots requires modification of root cell walls. The pectin-mediated adhesion between adjacent root cells loosens to accommodate fungal hyphae in the Hartig net, facilitating nutrient exchange between partners. We investigated the role of fungal pectin modifying enzymes in Laccaria bicolor for ECM formation with Populus tremula × Populus tremuloides.

Effects of Magnesium, Pyrophosphate and Phosphonates on Pyrophosphorolytic Reaction of UDP-Glucose Pyrophosphorylase.

UDP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (UGPase) carries a freely reversible reaction, using glucose-1-P and UTP to produce UDP-glucose (UDPG) and pyrophosphate (PP), with UDPG being essential for glycosylation reactions in all organisms including, e.g., synthesis of sucrose, cellulose and glycoproteins.

Graph pangenome captures missing heritability and empowers tomato breeding.

Missing heritability in genome-wide association studies defines a major problem in genetic analyses of complex biological traits. The solution to this problem is to identify all causal genetic variants and to measure their individual contributions. Here we report a graph pangenome of tomato constructed by precisely cataloguing more than 19 million variants from 838 genomes, including 32 new reference-level genome assemblies.

Genetic diversity and background pollen contamination in Norway spruce and Scots pine seed orchard crops.

Seed orchards are the key link between tree breeding and production forest for conifer trees. In Sweden, Scots pine and Norway spruce seed orchards currently supply ca. 85% of seedlings used in annual reforestation.

Aspen Leaves as a "Chemical Landscape" for Fungal Endophyte Diversity-Effects of Nitrogen Addition.

Abiotic and biotic factors may shape the mycobiome communities in plants directly but also indirectly by modifying the quality of host plants as a substrate. We hypothesized that nitrogen fertilization (N) would determine the quality of aspen () leaves as a substrate for the endophytic fungi, and that by subjecting the plants to N, we could manipulate the concentrations of positive (nutritious) and negative (antifungal) chemicals in leaves, thus changing the internal "chemical landscape" for the fungi. We expected that this would lead to changes in the fungal community composition, in line with the predictions of heterogeneity-diversity relationship and resource availability hypotheses.

Temporary immersion bioreactor system for propagation by somatic embryogenesis of hybrid larch ( Henry).

Somatic embryogenesis (SE) has high potential for large-scale clonal propagation of conifers. Different types of bioreactor cultures have been tested for the conifer SE process where the temporary immersion bioreactors (TIBs) have proved to be useful across the different developmental steps of the SE process. In the present study the use of TIBs was tested for hybrid larch ( ×  Henry) The results showed two-fold increases in both fresh weight (FW) of pro-embryogenic masses (PEMs) and yield of cotyledonary embryos in the TIBs compared to solid medium in plates.

Perturbations in plant energy homeostasis prime lateral root initiation via SnRK1-bZIP63-ARF19 signaling.

Plants adjust their energy metabolism to continuous environmental fluctuations, resulting in a tremendous plasticity in their architecture. The regulatory circuits involved, however, remain largely unresolved. In , moderate perturbations in photosynthetic activity, administered by short-term low light exposure or unexpected darkness, lead to increased lateral root (LR) initiation.

The Plastid-Localized AtFtsHi3 Pseudo-Protease of Has an Impact on Plant Growth and Drought Tolerance.

While drought severely affects plant growth and crop production, the molecular mechanisms of the drought response of plants remain unclear. In this study, we demonstrated for the first time the effect of the pseudo-protease AtFtsHi3 of on overall plant growth and in drought tolerance. An knock-down mutant [] displayed a pale-green phenotype with lower photosynthetic efficiency and Darwinian fitness compared to wild type (Wt).