Remote sensing (RS) of plant canopies permits non-intrusive, high-throughput monitoring of plant physiological characteristics. This study compared three RS approaches using a low flying UAV ...(unmanned aerial vehicle), with that of proximal sensing, and satellite-based imagery. Two physiological traits were considered, canopy temperature (CT) and a vegetation index (NDVI), to determine the most viable approaches for large scale crop genetic improvement. The UAV-based platform achieves plot-level resolution while measuring several hundred plots in one mission via high-resolution thermal and multispectral imagery measured at altitudes of 30-100 m. The satellite measures multispectral imagery from an altitude of 770 km. Information was compared with proximal measurements using IR thermometers and an NDVI sensor at a distance of 0.5-1 m above plots. For robust comparisons, CT and NDVI were assessed on panels of elite cultivars under irrigated and drought conditions, in different thermal regimes, and on un-adapted genetic resources under water deficit. Correlations between airborne data and yield/biomass at maturity were generally higher than equivalent proximal correlations. NDVI was derived from high-resolution satellite imagery for only larger sized plots (8.5 × 2.4 m) due to restricted pixel density. Results support use of UAV-based RS techniques for high-throughput phenotyping for both precision and efficiency.
Abstract
The current consensus on the formation and evolution of the brightest cluster galaxies is that their stellar mass forms early ($z$ ≳ 4) in separate galaxies that then eventually assemble the ...main structure at late times ($z$ ≲ 1). However, advances in observational techniques have led to the discovery of protoclusters out to $z$ ∼ 7. If these protoclusters assemble rapidly in the early Universe, they should form the brightest cluster galaxies much earlier than suspected by the late-assembly picture. Using a combination of observationally constrained hydrodynamical and dark-matter-only simulations, we show that the stellar assembly time of a sub-set of brightest cluster galaxies occurs at high redshifts ( $z$ > 3) rather than at low redshifts ($z$ < 1), as is commonly thought. We find, using isolated non-cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, that highly overdense protoclusters assemble their stellar mass into brightest cluster galaxies within ∼1 Gyr of evolution – producing massive blue elliptical galaxies at high redshifts ($z$ ≳ 1.5). We argue that there is a downsizing effect on the cluster scale wherein some of the brightest cluster galaxies in the cores of the most-massive clusters assemble earlier than those in lower mass clusters. In those clusters with $z$ = 0 virial mass ≥ 5 × 1014 M⊙, we find that $9.8{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ have their cores assembly early, and a higher fraction of $16.4{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ in those clusters above 1015 M⊙. The James Webb Space Telescope will be able to detect and confirm our prediction in the near future, and we discuss the implications to constraining the value of σ8.
Plant response to drought is complex, so that traits adapted to a specific drought type can confer disadvantage in another drought type. Understanding which type(s) of drought to target is of prime ...importance for crop improvement.
Modelling was used to quantify seasonal drought patterns for a check variety across the Australian wheatbelt, using 123 yr of weather data for representative locations and managements. Two other genotypes were used to simulate the impact of maturity on drought pattern.
Four major environment types summarized the variability in drought pattern over time and space. Severe stress beginning before flowering was common (44% of occurrences), with (24%) or without (20%) relief during grain filling. High variability occurred from year to year, differing with geographical region. With few exceptions, all four environment types occurred in most seasons, for each location, management system and genotype.
Applications of such environment characterization are proposed to assist breeding and research to focus on germplasm, traits and genes of interest for target environments. The method was applied at a continental scale to highly variable environments and could be extended to other crops, to other drought-prone regions around the world, and to quantify potential changes in drought patterns under future climates.
Characterization of drought environment types (ETs) has proven useful for breeding crops for drought‐prone regions. Here, we consider how changes in climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) ...concentrations will affect drought ET frequencies in sorghum and wheat systems of northeast Australia. We also modify APSIM (the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator) to incorporate extreme heat effects on grain number and weight, and then evaluate changes in the occurrence of heat‐induced yield losses of more than 10%, as well as the co‐occurrence of drought and heat. More than six million simulations spanning representative locations, soil types, management systems, and 33 climate projections led to three key findings. First, the projected frequency of drought decreased slightly for most climate projections for both sorghum and wheat, but for different reasons. In sorghum, warming exacerbated drought stresses by raising the atmospheric vapor pressure deficit and reducing transpiration efficiency (TE), but an increase in TE due to elevated CO2 more than offset these effects. In wheat, warming reduced drought stress during spring by hastening development through winter and reducing exposure to terminal drought. Elevated CO2 increased TE but also raised radiation‐use efficiency and overall growth rates and water use, thereby offsetting much of the drought reduction from warming. Second, adding explicit effects of heat on grain number and grain size often switched projected yield impacts from positive to negative. Finally, although average yield losses associated with drought will remain generally higher than that for heat stress for the next half century, the relative importance of heat is steadily growing. This trend, as well as the likely high degree of genetic variability in heat tolerance, suggests that more emphasis on heat tolerance is warranted in breeding programs. At the same time, work on drought tolerance should continue with an emphasis on drought that co‐occurs with extreme heat.
Abstract
SPT0311-58 is the most massive infrared luminous system discovered so far during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). In this paper, we present a detailed analysis of the molecular interstellar ...medium at
z
= 6.9, through high resolution observations of the CO(6–5), CO(7–6), CO(10–9), C
i
(2–1), and p‐H
2
O(2
1,1
−2
0,2
) lines and dust continuum emissions with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. The system consists of a pair of intensely star-forming, gravitationally lensed galaxies (labeled West and East). The intrinsic far-infrared luminosity is (16 ± 4) × 10
12
L
⊙
in West and (27 ± 4) × 10
11
L
⊙
in East. We model the dust, CO, and C
i
using non-local thermodynamic equilibrium radiative transfer models and estimate the intrinsic gas mass to be (5.4 ± 3.4) × 10
11
M
⊙
in West and (3.1 ± 2.7) × 10
10
M
⊙
in East. We find that the CO spectral line energy distribution in West and East are typical of high-redshift submillimeter galaxies (SMGs). The CO-to-H
2
conversion factor (
α
CO
) and the gas depletion timescales estimated from the model are consistent with the high-redshift SMGs in the literature within the uncertainties. We find no evidence of evolution of depletion time with redshift in SMGs at
z
> 3. This is the most detailed study of molecular gas content of a galaxy in the EoR to date, with the most distant detection of H
2
O in a galaxy without any evidence for active galactic nuclei in the literature.
ABSTRACT We present a comprehensive analysis of the structural properties and luminosities of the 23 dwarf spheroidal galaxies that fall within the footprint of the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological ...Survey (PAndAS). These dwarf galaxies represent the large majority of Andromeda's known satellite dwarf galaxies and cover a wide range in luminosity ( or ) and surface brightness ( mag arcsec−2). We confirm most previous measurements, but we find And XIX to be significantly larger than before ( , ) and cannot derive parameters for And XXVII as it is likely not a bound stellar system. We also significantly revise downward the luminosities of And XV and And XVI, which are now or . Finally, we provide the first detailed analysis of Cas II/And XXX, a fairly faint system ( ) of typical size ( ), located in close proximity to the two bright elliptical dwarf galaxies NGC 147 and NGC 185. Combined with the set of homogeneous distances published in an earlier contribution, our analysis dutifully tracks all relevant sources of uncertainty in the determination of the properties of the dwarf galaxies from the PAndAS photometric catalog. We further publish the posterior probability distribution functions of all the parameters we fit for in the form of MCMC chains available online; these inputs should be used in any analysis that aims to remain truthful to the data and properly account for covariance between parameters.
ABSTRACT
Submillimetre galaxies (SMGs) have long posed a challenge for theorists, and self-consistently reproducing the properties of the SMG population in a large-volume cosmological hydrodynamical ...simulation has not yet been achieved. We use a scaling relation derived from previous simulations plus radiative transfer calculations to predict the submm flux densities of simulated SMGs drawn from cosmological simulations from the Illustris and IllustrisTNG projects based on the simulated galaxies’ star formation rates (SFRs) and dust masses, and compare the predicted number counts with observations. We find that the predicted SMG number counts based on IllustrisTNG are significantly less than observed (more than 1 dex at S850 ≳ 4 mJy). The simulation from the original Illustris project yields more SMGs than IllustrisTNG: the predicted counts are consistent with those observed at both S850 ≲ 5 mJy and S850 ≳ 9 mJy and only a factor of ∼2 lower than those observed at intermediate flux densities. The redshift distribution of SMGs with S850 > 3 mJy in IllustrisTNG is consistent with the observed distribution, whereas the Illustris redshift distribution peaks at significantly lower redshift (1.5 versus 2.8). We demonstrate that IllustrisTNG hosts fewer SMGs than Illustris because in the former, high-mass ($M_{\star }\sim 10^{11} \, \text{M}_{\odot }$) z ∼ 2–3 galaxies have lower dust masses and SFRs than in Illustris owing to differences in the subgrid models for stellar and/or active galactic nucleus feedback between the two simulations (we unfortunately cannot isolate the specific cause(s) post hoc). Our results demonstrate that because our method enables predicting SMG number counts in post-processing with a negligible computational expense, SMGs can provide useful constraints for tuning subgrid models in future large-volume cosmological simulations.
Dwarf satellite galaxies are thought to be the remnants of the population of primordial structures that coalesced to form giant galaxies like the Milky Way. It has previously been suspected that ...dwarf galaxies may not be isotropically distributed around our Galaxy, because several are correlated with streams of H I emission, and may form coplanar groups. These suspicions are supported by recent analyses. It has been claimed that the apparently planar distribution of satellites is not predicted within standard cosmology, and cannot simply represent a memory of past coherent accretion. However, other studies dispute this conclusion. Here we report the existence of a planar subgroup of satellites in the Andromeda galaxy (M 31), comprising about half of the population. The structure is at least 400 kiloparsecs in diameter, but also extremely thin, with a perpendicular scatter of less than 14.1 kiloparsecs. Radial velocity measurements reveal that the satellites in this structure have the same sense of rotation about their host. This shows conclusively that substantial numbers of dwarf satellite galaxies share the same dynamical orbital properties and direction of angular momentum. Intriguingly, the plane we identify is approximately aligned with the pole of the Milky Way's disk and with the vector between the Milky Way and Andromeda.
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