Background and aims
This study was the first to test the efficiency of monitoring root electrical capacitance (C
R
*) non-destructively in the field to evaluate crop development under different ...environmental conditions.
Methods
A free-air CO
2
enrichment (FACE) experiment was performed with two winter wheat cultivars, two levels (low and high) of nitrogen supply and two (ambient and elevated) of CO
2
in three replicate plots over two years. The validity of C
R
* as a proxy for root uptake activity was confirmed by tracking the ceptometer-based leaf area index (LAI).
Results
Repeated C
R
* measurements clearly demonstrated the seasonal dynamics in root development, with a peak at flowering, and the delayed growth in the second year caused by the unfavourable meteorological conditions. From the vegetative to flowering stages, C
R
* was strongly correlated with LAI (R
2
: 0.897–0.962). The positive effect of higher N supply and elevated CO
2
on crop growth was clearly indicated by the higher C
R
* values, associated with increased LAI, shoot dry mass (SDM) at flowering and grain yield (GY). The maximum C
R
* was closely related to GY (R
2
: 0.805 and 0.867) when the data were pooled across the N and CO
2
treatments and the years. Unlike C
R
* and GY, SDM and LAI were significantly lower in the second year, presumably due to the enhanced root/shoot ratio induced by a severe spring drought.
Conclusions
The present results convincingly demonstrated the potential of the
in situ
root capacitance method to assess root responses dynamically, and to predict crop GY.
We aim to predict Hungarian corn yields for the period of 2020–2100. The purpose of the study was to mutually consider the environmental impact of climate change and the potential human impact ...indicators towards sustaining corn yield development in the future. Panel data regression methods were elaborated on historic observations (1970–2018) to impose statistical inferences with simulated weather events (2020–2100) and to consider developing human impact for sustainable intensification. The within-between random effect model was performed with three generic specifications to address time constant indicators as well. Our analysis on a gridded Hungarian database confirms that rising temperature and decreasing precipitation will negatively affect corn yields unless human impact dissolves the climate-induced challenges. We addressed the effect of elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) as an important factor of diverse human impact. By superposing the human impact on the projected future yields, we confirm that the negative prospects of climate change can be defeated.
Abstract
This study examines the impact of neighbourhood effects and individual farm characteristics on the decision process of organic dairy conversion in Norway, using a unique, spatially explicit ...farm-level panel set comprising information at the population level from 2003 to 2015. Our results reveal a positive spatial spillover of neighbouring conversion, confirming previous findings. Additionally, we demonstrate that neighbouring organic dairy reversion (i.e. switching back to conventional dairy farming) and organic dairy exits (ceasing to farm altogether) exert notable negative spatial spillovers on organic conversion decisions that have not yet been shown in the literature. If organic dairy production is an important policy goal, such negative spatial spillover requires consideration within policy design and extension.
At the Abony-Turjányos dűlő site, located in Central Hungary, a rescue excavation was carried out. More than 400 features were excavated and dated to the Protoboleráz horizon, at the beginning of the ...Late Copper Age in the Carpathian Basin, between 3780-3650 cal BC. Besides the domestic and economic units, there were two special areas, with nine-nine pits that differed from the other archaeological features of the site. In the northern pit group seven pits contained human remains belonging to 48 individuals. Some of them were buried carefully, while others were thrown into the pits. The aim of this study is to present the results of the paleopathological and molecular analysis of human remains from this Late Copper Age site. The ratio of neonates to adults was high, 33.3%. Examination of the skeletons revealed a large number of pathological cases, enabling reconstruction of the health profile of the buried individuals. Based on the appearance and frequency of healed ante- and peri mortem trauma, inter-personal (intra-group) violence was characteristic in the Abony Late Copper Age population. However other traces of paleopathology were observed on the bones that appear not to have been caused by warfare or inter-group violence. The remains of one individual demonstrated a rare set of bone lesions that indicate the possible presence of leprosy (Hansen's disease). The most characteristic lesions occurred on the bones of the face, including erosion of the nasal aperture, atrophy of the anterior nasal spine, inflammation of the nasal bone and porosity on both the maxilla and the bones of the lower legs. In a further four cases, leprosy infection is suspected but other infections cannot be excluded. The morphologically diagnosed possible leprosy case significantly modifies our knowledge about the timescale and geographic spread of this specific infectious disease. However, it is not possible to determine the potential connections between the cases of possible leprosy and the special burial circumstances.
f.
(Ptt), the causal agent of net form net blotch (NFNB) disease, is an important and widespread pathogen of barley. This study aimed to quantify and characterize the virulence of Ptt isolates ...collected from experimental fields of barley in Hungary. Infection responses across 20 barley differentials were obtained from seedling assays of 34 Ptt isolates collected from three Hungarian breeding stations between 2008 and 2018. Twenty-eight Ptt pathotypes were identified. Correspondence analysis followed by hierarchical clustering on the principal components and host-by-pathogen GGE biplots suggested a continuous range of virulence and an absence of specific isolate × barley differential interactions. The isolates were classified into four isolate groups (IG) using agglomerative hierarchical clustering. One IG could be distinguished from other IGs based on avirulence/virulence on one to five barley differentials. Several barley differentials expressed strong resistance against multiple Ptt isolates and may be useful in the development of NFNB-resistant barley cultivars in Hungary. Our results emphasize that the previously developed international barley differential set needs to be improved and adapted to the Hungarian Ptt population. This is the first report on the pathogenic variations of Ptt in Hungary.
The integrity of the nuclear envelope (NE) is essential for maintaining the structural stability of the nucleus. Rupture of the NE has been frequently observed in cancer cells, especially in the ...context of mechanical challenges, such as physical confinement and migration. However, spontaneous NE rupture events, without any obvious physical challenges to the cell, have also been described. The molecular mechanism(s) of these spontaneous NE rupture events remain to be explored. Here, we show that DNA damage and subsequent ATR activation leads to NE rupture. Upon DNA damage, lamin A/C is phosphorylated in an ATR-dependent manner, leading to changes in lamina assembly and, ultimately, NE rupture. In addition, we show that cancer cells with intrinsic DNA repair defects undergo frequent events of DNA-damage-induced NE rupture, which renders them extremely sensitive to further NE perturbations. Exploiting this NE vulnerability could provide a new angle to complement traditional, DNA-damage-based chemotherapy.
Display omitted
•DNA damage leads to NE rupture•ATR activity promotes NE rupture through lamin A/C phosphorylation•HRD cells exhibit a targetable NE vulnerability
Homologous-recombination-deficient (HRD) tumors often develop resistance to traditional chemotherapies, making them difficult to kill. Kovacs et al. find that HRD tumor cells exhibit DNA-damage-induced nuclear envelope (NE) rupture and subsequent NE vulnerability. Targeting this structural vulnerability could potentially provide a complement to traditional, DNA-damage-based chemotherapies.
DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) are deleterious lesions that challenge genome integrity. To mitigate this threat, human cells rely on the activity of multiple DNA repair machineries that are tightly ...regulated throughout the cell cycle
. In interphase, DSBs are mainly repaired by non-homologous end joining and homologous recombination
. However, these pathways are completely inhibited in mitosis
, leaving the fate of mitotic DSBs unknown. Here we show that DNA polymerase theta
(Polθ) repairs mitotic DSBs and thereby maintains genome integrity. In contrast to other DSB repair factors, Polθ function is activated in mitosis upon phosphorylation by Polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1). Phosphorylated Polθ is recruited by a direct interaction with the BRCA1 C-terminal domains of TOPBP1 to mitotic DSBs, where it mediates joining of broken DNA ends. Loss of Polθ leads to defective repair of mitotic DSBs, resulting in a loss of genome integrity. This is further exacerbated in cells that are deficient in homologous recombination, where loss of mitotic DSB repair by Polθ results in cell death. Our results identify mitotic DSB repair as the underlying cause of synthetic lethality between Polθ and homologous recombination. Together, our findings reveal the critical importance of mitotic DSB repair in the maintenance of genome integrity.
Ancient DNA studies have established that Neolithic European populations were descended from Anatolian migrants who received a limited amount of admixture from resident hunter-gatherers. Many open ...questions remain, however, about the spatial and temporal dynamics of population interactions and admixture during the Neolithic period. Here we investigate the population dynamics of Neolithization across Europe using a high-resolution genome-wide ancient DNA dataset with a total of 180 samples, of which 130 are newly reported here, from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods of Hungary (6000-2900 bc, n = 100), Germany (5500-3000 bc, n = 42) and Spain (5500-2200 bc, n = 38). We find that genetic diversity was shaped predominantly by local processes, with varied sources and proportions of hunter-gatherer ancestry among the three regions and through time. Admixture between groups with different ancestry profiles was pervasive and resulted in observable population transformation across almost all cultural transitions. Our results shed new light on the ways in which gene flow reshaped European populations throughout the Neolithic period and demonstrate the potential of time-series-based sampling and modelling approaches to elucidate multiple dimensions of historical population interactions.
The Mesolithic in Eastern Europe was the last time that hunter-gatherer economies thrived there before the spread of agriculture in the second half of the seventh millennium BC. But the period, and ...the interactions between foragers and the first farmers, are poorly understood in the Carpathian Basin and surrounding areas because few sites are known, and even fewer have been excavated and published. How did site location differ between Mesolithic and Early Neolithic settlers? And where should we look for rare Mesolithic sites? Proximity analysis is seldom used for predictive modeling for hunter-gatherer sites at large scales, but in this paper, we argue that it can serve as an important starting point for prospection for rare and poorly understood sites. This study uses proximity analysis to provide quantitative landscape associations of known Mesolithic and Early Neolithic sites in the Carpathian Basin to show how Mesolithic people chose attributes of the landscape for camps, and how they differed from the farmers who later settled. We use elevation and slope, rivers, wetlands prior to the twentieth century, and the distribution of lithic raw materials foragers and farmers used for toolmaking to identify key proxies for preferred locations. We then build predictive models for the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic in the Pannonian region to highlight parts of the landscape that have relatively higher probabilities of having Mesolithic sites still undiscovered and contrast them with the settlement patterns of the first farmers in the area. We find that large parts of Pannonia conform to landforms preferred by Mesolithic foragers, but these areas have not been subject to investigation.
PDF
