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Topic Review
Stem/Leaf Anatomy of Aragoa (Plantaginaceae)
Aragoa is a shrubby genus endemic to páramo in the northern Andes representing the sister group to Plantago and Limosella. Stem and leaf structure of Aragoa corrugatifolia were studied to clarify the evolutionary pathways and ecological significance of their anatomical traits. Aragoa and Plantago share a non-fascicular primary vascular system, rayless wood and secondary phloem, and anomocytic stomata. Aragoa is distinctive from most Plantaginaceae in the presence of cortical aerenchyma and of helical thickenings in vessels. Its procambium emerges in the primary meristem ring as a continuous cylinder. The view on the ring meristem and procambial strands as developmental stages in the formation of a primary vascular system is not relevant for Aragoa, and probably for other Plantaginaceae. The raylessness is synapomorphic for the crown clade of Plantaginaceae comprising Aragoa, Littorella, Plantago, Veronica, Picrorhiza, Wulfenia, and Veronicastrum. The loss of rays is thought to be predetermined by procambium rather than by the vascular cambium. The extremely narrow vessels with helical thickenings are presumably adaptive to hydric and thermic conditions of páramo. Cortical aerenchyma is thought to be a response to the local hypoxia caused by the water retained by ericoid leaves. Trichomes on juvenile leaves are expected to be the traits of considerable taxonomic importance. 
  • 1.1K
  • 04 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Seed Dormancy and Germination
Seed dormancy, defined as the inability of seeds to undergo germination under optimal conditions, played a crucial role in the evolution of flowering plants.
  • 1.1K
  • 19 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Epidemics: Indigenous and Introduced Crops
Virus disease pandemics and epidemics that occur in the world’s staple food crops pose a major threat to global food security, especially in developing countries with tropical or subtropical climates. Moreover, this threat is escalating rapidly due to increasing difficulties in controlling virus diseases as climate change accelerates and the need to feed the burgeoning global population escalates. One of the main causes of these pandemics and epidemics is the introduction to a new continent of food crops domesticated elsewhere, and their subsequent invasion by damaging virus diseases they never encountered before.
  • 1.1K
  • 16 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Multi-Omics Approaches for Drought Tolerance
Drought stress is considered a severe threat to crop production. It adversely affects the morpho-physiological, biochemical and molecular functions of the plants, especially in short duration crops like mungbean. Significant progress has been made towards enhancing climate resilience in legumes through classical and next-generation breeding coupled with omics approaches. Various defence mechanisms have been reported as key players in crop adaptation to drought stress. Many researchers have identified potential donors, QTLs/genes and candidate genes associated to drought tolerance-related traits. 
  • 1.1K
  • 23 Feb 2023
Topic Review
Coffee Silverskin
Coffee silverskin (CSS) is one of the main byproducts of coffee roasting and poses a potential risk to the environment if disposed of incorrectly. Each year in Italy, over 500,000 tonnes of green coffee are imported for roasting followed by consumption or export. This results in over 7500 tonnes of CSS produced each year which is typically disposed of as solid waste. Silverskin contains lignocellulose and can be used as a substitute for other raw materials to produce paper pulp. Both Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) were performed to compare the impact and cost of CSS paper production to conventional paper production using only virgin pulp. It was shown that the addition of CSS reduces the environmental impact of paper production by 10% and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 13% compared to conventional production with no cost increase (0.01% reduction with addition of CSS) for the producer.
  • 1.1K
  • 29 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Synthesis of Natural Disesquiterpenoids
Natural disesquiterpenoids represent a small group of secondary metabolites characterized by complex molecular scaffolds and interesting pharmacological profiles. The intriguing architectures and the interesting pharmacological profile of sesquiterpene dimers attracted the attention of synthetic chemists in the attempt to duplicate the efficiency and the selectivity of natural processes under laboratory conditions.
  • 1.0K
  • 24 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Brassinosteroids in Plants
Brassinosteroids (BRs) are known as the sixth type of plant hormone participating in various physiological and biochemical activities and play an irreplaceable role in plants. 
  • 1.0K
  • 07 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Nematicidal Activity of Essential Oils
Essential oils (EOs) can be a large source of new food-safe and healthy nematicidal products, due to their strong activity on crop pathogens and pests, including phytoparasitic nematodes, as well as to their low environmental persistence.
  • 1.0K
  • 13 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Brassinosteroid Hormones and Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Plants
Brassinosteroid hormones (BRs) multitask to smoothly regulate a broad spectrum of vital physiological processes in plants, such as cell division, cell expansion, differentiation, seed germination, xylem differentiation, reproductive development and light responses (photomorphogenesis and skotomorphogenesis). Their importance is inferred when visible abnormalities arise in plant phenotypes due to suboptimal or supraoptimal hormone levels. This group of steroidal hormones are major growth regulators, having pleiotropic effects and conferring abiotic stress resistance to plants. Numerous abiotic stresses are the cause of significant loss in agricultural yield globally. However, plants are well equipped with efficient stress combat machinery. Scavenging reactive oxygen species (ROS) is a unique mechanism to combat the deleterious effects of abiotic stresses.
  • 1.0K
  • 09 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Tissue-Specificity of Plant Circadian Clocks
The plant circadian clock has a pervasive influence on many aspects of plant biology and is proposed to function as a developmental manager. To do so, the circadian oscillator needs to be able to integrate a multiplicity of environmental signals and coordinate an extensive and diverse repertoire of endogenous rhythms accordingly. Recent studies on tissue-specific characteristics and spatial structure of the plant circadian clock suggest that such plasticity may be achieved through the function of distinct oscillators, which sense the environment locally and are then coordinated across the plant through both intercellular coupling and long-distance communication.
  • 1.0K
  • 31 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Windstorms on Forests in Tropical
Windstorm is one of the destructive natural disturbances, but the scale-link extent to which recurrent windstorms influenced forests ecosystems is poorly understood in a changing climate across regions. We reviewed the synergistic impacts of windstorms on forests and assessed research trends and methodological approaches from peer-reviewed articles published from 2000 to 2020 in tropical (TRF), subtropical (SUF), and temperate (TEF) forests/zones, based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Overall, the majority of the reviewed studies were conducted in TRF (i.e., 40%), intermediate in SUF (i.e., 34%), and the lowest in TEF (i.e., 26%). Among the four levels of biological organization, the species-population and community-ecosystem levels had the highest number of study cases, while the molecular-cellular-individual and landscape levels had the lowest study cases in all forest types. Most of the articles reviewed dealt largely on tree mortality/survival and regeneration/succession for TRF, tree mortality/survival and species composition/richness/diversity for SUF, and stem density, gap dynamics, and regeneration/succession for TEF. However, research on the effects of windstorms on mycorrhizal symbioses, population genetics, and physiological adaptation, element fluxes via litterfall, litter decomposition, belowground processes, biological invasion, and tree health are less common in all forest types. Further, most of the studies were conducted in permanent plots but these studies mostly used observational design, while controlled studies are obviously limited. Consequently, more observational and controlled studies are needed on the topic reviewed, particularly studies at the molecular-cellular-individual and landscape levels, to help inform forest management decision-making about developing sustainable and resilient forests amid climate change.
  • 1.0K
  • 15 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Glossary of Asteraceae-Related Terms
Following is a glossary of terms used to describe the Asteraceae family of flowering plants.
  • 1.0K
  • 14 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Metabolomics and Soy
Soy has been recognized as a medicinal plant since it contains several bioactive compounds in its various parts. For example, bioactive peptides found in soybeans have been linked to human health benefits with potential anti-hypertensive, anti-cancer, and anti-inflammatory properties. Another type of bioactive compound identified in soybeans, the anthocyanins, showed anti-obesity and anti- inflammatory properties. Isoflavonoids, the best-known class of compounds found in all parts of soy, have been studied due to their potential protective effects associated with chronic diseases, cancer, osteoporosis, and menopausal symptoms. Different factors modulate a plant’s metabolism, and metabolomics can measure these variations qualitatively and quantitatively, analyzing the production and turnover of primary and secondary (specialized) metabolites. In soy, metabolomics studies have identified four main causes of changes in metabolism: genetic modifications, organism interactions, growth stages, and abiotic factors.
  • 1.0K
  • 28 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Strigolactone-Mediated Bud Outgrowth
Strigolactones (SLs), being a novel class of phytohormone, are known to play a key role in branching decisions, where they act as a negative regulator of bud outgrowth. They can achieve this by modulating polar auxin transport to interrupt auxin canalisation, and independently of auxin by acting directly within buds by promoting the key branching inhibitor TEOSINTE BRANCHED1.
  • 1.0K
  • 17 Jan 2023
Topic Review
The New Green Challenge in Urban Planning
The creation of green areas within urban centers was born as a response to profoundly different problems, such as the demographic increase and the progressive urbanization of landscapes. Moreover, up to date, the genetics of plants has not been considered for urban contexts. Considering the multitude of urban contexts, purposes, and needs for which green spaces in cities are created, it is today very challenging to provide an exhaustive definition of ‘urban area’ and its relative ‘urban vegetation’, since the geographic, climatic, and resource-related opportunities, and constraints, are not equally distributed factors across the world and specific for each context. Furthermore, urban vegetation can also include cultural plant typology with agricultural interest related to food production, such as the horticultural species.
  • 1.0K
  • 08 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Conserving Refugia
Refugia play an important role in contributing to the conservation of species and communities by buffering environmental conditions over time. 
  • 1.0K
  • 12 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Improving Protein in Grain Legumes by Genetic Variability
Grain legumes are a rich source of dietary protein for millions of people globally and thus a key driver for securing global food security. Legume plant-based ‘dietary protein’ biofortification is an economic strategy for alleviating the menace of rising malnutrition-related problems and hidden hunger. Malnutrition from protein deficiency is predominant in human populations with an insufficient daily intake of animal protein/dietary protein due to economic limitations, especially in developing countries. Therefore, enhancing grain legume protein content will help eradicate protein-related malnutrition problems in low-income and underprivileged countries.
  • 1.0K
  • 23 Aug 2022
Topic Review
Mitochondrial Electron Transport Pathway Components
All plants contain an alternative electron transport pathway (AP) in their mitochondria, consisting of the alternative oxidase (AOX) and type 2 NAD(P)H dehydrogenase (ND) families, that are thought to play a role in controlling oxidative stress responses at the cellular level. These alternative electron transport components have been extensively studied in plants like Arabidopsis and stress inducible isoforms identified, but we know very little about them in the important crop plant chickpea. Previously we demonstrated AOX  activity in purified mitochondria from chickpea, identified the genes that encode the AOX isoforms and analysed their relative transcript levels. Here we do the same for NDs, and also explore the response of all AP gene transcripts to salinity stress in leaves of chickpea cultivars differing in their salinity response. A coordinated up-regulation of particular AP genes suggests that the mitochondrial alternative pathway of respiration is an important facet of the stress response in chickpea, in high Na accumulators in particular, despite high capacities for both of these activities in leaf mitochondria of non-stressed chickpeas.
  • 1.0K
  • 02 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Peptide Phytohormones
Various plant peptide hormones play a role in the defense from pathogens and herbivores and also in the interaction with beneficial microorganisms. Some families of peptide phytohormones have exclusively protective functions and are among the components of plant immunity, whereas other members of peptide phytohormones mostly play a role in the regulation of plant growth, but can be also involved in the defense response or plant–microbe interactions.
  • 1.0K
  • 29 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Jasmonate
Temperature is a critical environmental factor that plays a vital role in plant growth and development. Temperatures below or above the optimum ranges lead to cold or heat stress, respectively. Temperature stress retards plant growth and development, and it reduces crop yields. Jasmonates (JAs) are a class of oxylipin phytohormones that play various roles in growth, development, and stress response.
  • 1.0K
  • 04 Mar 2024
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