The Phenotypic Variation in Moso Bamboo and the Selection of Key Traits.

This research aimed to explore the diverse phenotypic characteristics of moso bamboo in China and pinpoint essential characteristics of moso bamboo. In this study, 63 grids were selected using the grid method to investigate 28 phenotypic traits of moso bamboo across the entire distribution area of China. The results suggest that the phenotypic traits of moso bamboo exhibit rich diversity, with coefficients of variation ranging from 5.87% to 36.57%. The phenotypic traits of moso bamboo showed varying degrees of correlation. A principal component analysis was used to identify seven main phenotypic trait indicators: diameter at breast height (DBH), leaf area (LA), leaf weight (LW), branch-to-leaf ratio (BLr), leaf moisture content (Lmc), wall-to-cavity ratio (WCr), and node length at breast height (LN), which accounted for 81.64% of the total information. A random forest model was used, which gave good results to validate the results. The average combined phenotypic trait value (D-value) of most germplasm was 0.563. The highest D-value was found in Wuyi 1 moso in Fujian (0.803), while the lowest D-value was observed in Pingle 2 moso in Guangxi (0.317). The clustering analysis of phenotypic traits classified China's moso bamboo germplasm into four groups. Group I had the highest D-value and is an important candidate germplasm for excellent germplasm screening.

Phenotypic characterization and seed viability test in ex-situ conserved Ethiopian cultivated barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) landraces.

BACKGROUND: Nowadays, most of the Ethiopian barley landraces had been lost from farmer's field and exclusively found ex-situ conserved at the Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute (EBI). Those ex-situ conserved are generally believed to be representative of the original population and possess high genetic diversity and important unique genes that are useful for tackling the various biotic and abiotic stresses in the face of the current climate change. Thus, this research was aimed at testing the performance of 150 ex-situ conserved landraces that had been collected from Arsi and Bale highlands, Southeastern Ethiopia. The landraces were tested at multiple test locations over two years (2021 and 2022). RESULTS: All the tested landraces showed a good germination rate regardless of their long storage duration. In addition, performance of all the qualitative traits revealed a varying frequency for each character state. For example, most of the accessions (51.3%) had six kernel row numbers (KRN). All the remaining accessions had two rows (28.7%) and irregular KRN with variable lateral florets (20%). Likewise, some of the quantitative traits considered showed a significant variation among the landraces. However, there observed a significant variation for all the interaction effects in some of the traits considered signifying the importance of considering environment effects while targeting genetic selection and improvement of ex-situ conserved germplasms. The phenotypic coefficients of variation (PCV) were considerably high to medium in most of the traits considered including seed yield per hectare (SYPH) but with no associated higher genotypic coefficients of variation (GCV). Moreover, all the traits showed a far greater phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) to that of genotypic coefficients of variation (GCV) once again suggesting the pronounced effect of environmental factors to the variation. This was far supported by the significantly higher absolute magnitudes in phenotypic correlation compared to their corresponding genotypic correlation in most of the traits. Low estimates of heritability and genetic advance observed in all the traits considered except seed yield per hectare indicate importance of the trait for selection in Ethiopian barley improvement programs. Clustering patterns of the accessions, in narrow sense, revealed the existence of low divergence among the samples. CONCLUSION: Ethiopian barley landraces are promising candidates for further yield improvement and conservation. However, further regular testing and screening should be conducted for the ex-situ conserved landraces because of the current erratic climate change. In addition, more robust molecular marker systems could be used to clearly reveal the extents of genetic diversity and to facilitate the breeding and conservation of Ethiopian barley landraces.

Characterization and comprehensive evaluation of phenotypic characters in wild Camellia oleifera germplasm for conservation and breeding.

Camellia oleifera Abel. is an economically important woody oil plant native to China. To explore the genetic diversity of wild C. oleifera phenotypic traits and effectively protect these germplasm resources, this study provides a thorough evaluation of the phenotypic variability of a cluster of 143 wild C. oleifera germplasm resources. A total of 41 characters, including leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds, and oil quality characters, were investigated based on the quantization of physical and chemical descriptors and digital image analysis. The findings revealed significant variations among the 41 characters with a high range of Shannon-Wiener indexes (H') from 0.07 to 2.19. The coefficient of variation (CV) among 32 quantitative characters ranged from 5.34% to 81.31%, with an average of 27.14%. High genetic diversity was also detected among the 143 germplasm. Based on the analysis of hierarchical clustering, 143 accessions were separated into six categories. All the individuals can be clearly distinguished from each other according to the result of the principal component analysis (PCA). The M-TOPSIS exhaustive evaluation method based on correlation and PCA analyses of 32 quantitative characters was applied for the 143 wild C. oleifera accessions, and the top 10 varieties were identified as YA53, YA13, YA40, YA34, YA57, YA19, YA33, YA41, DZ8, and YA7. This research optimized the germplasm evaluation system and perfected the statistical phenotypic traits for distinctness, uniformity, and stability (DUS) testing. Some top-notch germplasm sources were also screened for oil-tea Camellia breeding.

Optimized gamma radiation produces physiological and morphological changes that improve seed yield in wheat.

To study the effect of gamma radiation on various morphological and agronomic characters of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), seeds were subjected to different gamma radiation doses; and selected M5 and M6 generation lines were evaluated. The optimum doses to induce desirable changes in bread wheat were 100-200 Gy. Seed loss decreased while grain yield, yield components, fertile florets number, biological yield, plant height, harvest index and flag leaf area increased in all mutant lines. Shear strength increased in many lines. Selected mutant lines also showed reduced seed shattering that can greatly reduce seed loss at harvest. Some new phenotypic characters such as the appearance of bristles on the glume, important for drought tolerance, two spikelets at each rachis and more fertile florets at each spikelet. These can greatly increase yield, as seen in some mutant lines. Also, some physiological characteristics including photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, water use efficiency, and chlorophyll content improved in some mutant lines. About 95.8% of the total variation in grain yield was explained by three selected variables: flag leaf area, number of seeds per spike, and spike number per plant. Grain yield increased more than 45% in some mutant lines the highest ever reported using this approach to the genetic improvement of wheat. Wheat grain yield has increased 2.2 times in the last 50 years, which indicates that if mutagens are optimally used and the selection is carefully performed as described herein, it is possible to improve important economic traits, in a much shorter time. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12298-022-01225-0.

Nutritional Metabolites of Red Pigmented Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) Germplasm and Correlations with Selected Phenotypic Characters.

Lettuce is an important dietary source of bioactive phytochemicals. Screening and identification of the health beneficial metabolites and evaluating the relationships with phenotypic characters can help consumers adjust their preferences for lettuce plant types. Thus, we explored the major health-beneficial individual metabolites and antioxidant potential of 113 red pigmented lettuce leaf samples. A UV-Vis spectrophotometer and UPLC-DAD-QTOF/MS (TQ/MS) instruments were used for the identification and quantification of metabolites and antioxidant activity accordingly. The metabolites were quantified against their corresponding external standards. The contents of metabolites varied significantly among lettuce samples. Cyanidin 3-O-(6″-O-malonyl)glucoside (4.7~5013.6 µg/g DW), 2,3-di-O-caffeoyltartaric acid (337.1~19,957.2 µg/g DW), and quercetin 3-O-(6″-O-malonyl)glucoside (45.4~31,121.0 µg/g DW) were the most dominant in red pigmented lettuce samples among anthocyanins, hydroxycinnamoyl derivatives, and flavonols, respectively. Lettuces with dark and very dark red pigmented leaves, circular leaf shape, a strong degree of leaf undulation, and highly dense leaf incisions were found to have high levels of flavonoids and hydroxycinnamoyl derivatives. Principal component analysis was used to investigate similarities and/or differences between samples, and the partial least square discriminant analysis classified them into known groups. The key variables that contributed highly were determined. Our report provides critical data on the bioactive constituents of red pigmented lettuce to breeders developing varieties with enhanced bioactive compounds and to nutraceutical companies developing nutrient dense foods and pharmaceutical formulations.

Introducing Explorer of Taxon Concepts with a case study on spider measurement matrix building.

BACKGROUND: Taxonomic descriptions are traditionally composed in natural language and published in a format that cannot be directly used by computers. The Exploring Taxon Concepts (ETC) project has been developing a set of web-based software tools that convert morphological descriptions published in telegraphic style to character data that can be reused and repurposed. This paper introduces the first semi-automated pipeline, to our knowledge, that converts morphological descriptions into taxon-character matrices to support systematics and evolutionary biology research. We then demonstrate and evaluate the use of the ETC Input Creation - Text Capture - Matrix Generation pipeline to generate body part measurement matrices from a set of 188 spider morphological descriptions and report the findings. RESULTS: From the given set of spider taxonomic publications, two versions of input (original and normalized) were generated and used by the ETC Text Capture and ETC Matrix Generation tools. The tools produced two corresponding spider body part measurement matrices, and the matrix from the normalized input was found to be much more similar to a gold standard matrix hand-curated by the scientist co-authors. Special conventions utilized in the original descriptions (e.g., the omission of measurement units) were attributed to the lower performance of using the original input. The results show that simple normalization of the description text greatly increased the quality of the machine-generated matrix and reduced edit effort. The machine-generated matrix also helped identify issues in the gold standard matrix. CONCLUSIONS: ETC Text Capture and ETC Matrix Generation are low-barrier and effective tools for extracting measurement values from spider taxonomic descriptions and are more effective when the descriptions are self-contained. Special conventions that make the description text less self-contained challenge automated extraction of data from biodiversity descriptions and hinder the automated reuse of the published knowledge. The tools will be updated to support new requirements revealed in this case study.

Morphological and physiological comparison of taxa comprising the Sporothrix schenckii complex.

Based on recent molecular data, it has been suggested that Sporothrix globosa is the main causal agent of sporotrichosis in China. The objective of this study was to compare the morphology, growth characteristics, patterns of carbon source usage, and susceptibility to antifungal agents among Sporothrix strains. A total of 15 clinical strains confirmed to be S. globosa, from three different regions of China, and 11 ex-type strains from the CBS-KNAW biodiversity center were obtained. The elongated conidia of S. pallida, S. variecibatus, S. schenckii, and S. schenckii luriei were clearly different from the subglobose and globose conidia of S. globosa strains. S. schenckii is able to assimilate sucrose, raffinose, and ribitol. Susceptibility profiles of these Sporothrix species were evaluated by measuring minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs). Fluconazole, itraconazole, terbinafine, and amphotericin B showed good activity against most S. globosa clinical isolates from China. Potassium iodide also showed a low MIC against S. pallida, while fluconazole showed a high MIC for S. mexicana, S. humicola, S. globosa, S. schenckii, and S. inflata; these strains might be considered tolerant. The species showed differences in susceptibility to antifungal drugs and should therefore be properly identified during diagnosis prior to designing therapeutic strategies.

Comparative analysis of DNA polymorphisms and phylogenetic relationships among Syzygium cumini Skeels based on phenotypic characters and RAPD technique.

The Indian black berry (Syzygium cumini Skeels) has a great nutraceutical and medicinal properties. As in other fruit crops, the fruit characteristics are important attributes for differentiation were also determined for different accessions of S. cumini. The fruit weight, length, breadth, length: breadth ratio, pulp weight, pulp content, seed weight and pulp: seed ratio significantly varied in different accessions. Molecular characterization was carried out using PCR based RAPD technique. Out of 80 RAPD primers, only 18 primers produced stable polymorphisms that were used to examine the phylogenetic relationship. A sum of 207 loci were generated out of which 201 loci found polymorphic. The average genetic dissimilarity was 97 per cent among jamun accessions. The phylogenetic relationship was also determined by principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) that explained 46.95 per cent cumulative variance. The two-dimensional PCoA analysis showed grouping of the different accessions that were plotted into four sub-plots, representing clustering of accessions. The UPGMA (r = 0.967) and NJ (r = 0.987) dendrogram constructed based on the dissimilarity matrix revealed a good degree of fit with the cophenetic correlation value. The dendrogram grouped the accessions into three main clusters according to their eco-geographical regions which given useful insight into their phylogenetic relationships.

BOX-PCR-based identification of bacterial species belonging to Pseudomonas syringae: P. viridiflava group

The phenotypic characteristics and genetic fingerprints of a collection of 120 bacterial strains, belonging to Pseudomonas syringae sensu lato group, P. viridiflava and reference bacteria were evaluated, with the aim of species identification. The numerical analysis of 119 nutritional characteristics did not show patterns that would help with identification. Regarding the genetic fingerprinting, the results of the present study supported the observation that BOX-PCR seems to be able to identify bacterial strains at species level. After numerical analyses of the bar-codes, all pathovars belonging to each one of the nine described genomospecies were clustered together at a distance of 0.72, and could be separated at genomic species level. Two P. syringae strains of unknown pathovars (CFBP 3650 and CFBP 3662) and the three P. syringae pv. actinidiae strains were grouped in two extra clusters and might eventually constitute two new species. This genomic species clustering was particularly evident for genomospecies 4, which gathered P. syringae pvs. atropurpurea, coronafaciens, garçae, oryzae, porri, striafaciens, and zizaniae at a noticeably low distance.

DEVELOPMENT, FUNCTION, AND THE QUANTITATIVE GENETICS OF WING MELANIN PATTERN IN PIERIS BUTTERFLIES.

Do genetic correlations among phenotypic characters reflect developmental organization or functional coadaptation of the characters? We test these hypotheses for the wing melanin pattern of Pieris occidentalis butterflies, by comparing estimated genetic correlations among wing melanin characters with a priori predictions of the developmental organization and the functional (thermoregulatory) organization of melanin pattern. There were significant broad-sense heritabilities and significant genetic correlations for most melanin characters. Matrix correlation tests revealed significant agreement between the observed genetic correlations and both developmental and functional predictions in most cases; this occurred even when the overlap between developmental and functional predictions was eliminated. These results suggest that both developmental organization and functional coadaptation among melanin characters influence the genetic correlation structure of melanin pattern in this species. These results have two important implications for the evolution of melanin pattern in P. occidentalis and other butterflies: 1) most phenotypic variation in pattern may reflect variation among, rather than within, sets of developmentally homologous wing melanin characters; and 2) in a changing selective environment, genetic correlations may retard the disruption of functionally coupled melanin characters, thus affecting the evolutionary response to selection.