Fungus-growing ants in the tribe Attini represent a classic example of a mutualism. These ants obligately depend on fungus as their major food source, while the fungus receives both vegetative substrate (nourishment) from the ants and protection from pathogens. Here, we try to identify both benefits and costs of the association by using cultivar switch experiments. We assessed the benefits to e...

Manual cultivar identification diagram is a new strategy for plant cultivar identification based on DNA markers, providing information to efficiently separate cultivars. We tested 25 pairs of apple EST-SSR primers for amplification of PCR products from loquat cultivars. These EST-SSR primers provided clear amplification products from the loquat cultivars, with a relatively high transferability ...

Flowering time of the short-day plant Chrysanthemum morifolium is largely dependent upon daylength, but it is also distinctly influenced by other environmental factors. Flowering is delayed by summer heat. Here, the underlying basis for this phenomenon was investigated. Heat-induced flowering retardation occurred similarly in C. morifolium and C. seticuspe, a wild-type diploid chrysanthemum. In...

A yeast glucan elicitor causes the accumulation o f the pterocarpan phytoalexins medicarpin and maackiain in chickpea ( Cicer arietinum) cell suspension cultures established from seeds. A cell culture line from a chickpea cultivar resistant against its main fungal pathogen Ascochyta rabiei accumulates large amounts (944 nmol/g fr. wt.) whereas a cell culture line from a susceptible cultivar acc...

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of water regime/soil condition (continuous flooding, saturated, and aerobic), cultivar ('Cocodrie' and 'Rondo'), and soil texture (clay and sandy loam) on rice grain yield, yield components and water productivity using a greenhouse trial. Rice grain yield was significantly affected by soil texture and the interaction between water regime ...

Two phenolic compound parameters (total phenolic and flavonoid contents) and 5 antioxidant parameters (DPPH [2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl] radical scavenging activity, HRSC (hydroxyl radical scavenging capacity), FRAP (ferric ion reducing antioxidant power), CUPRAC (cupric ion reducing antioxidant capacity), and MCA (metal chelating activity) were measured in bulbs and bolts of 43 garlic cult...

The narrow genetic base of soybean makes cultivar characterization based on morphological descriptors difficult; this characterization is mainly done for registration and protection. Correct characterization of cultivars could be achieved through molecular markers, since the frequencies of each allele in the population are known. Consequently, we developed a molecular characterization method an...

Four ecotypes of the species Lycopersicon cheesmanii ssp. minor (Hook.) C.H. Mull. from the Galapagos Islands were compared with L. esculentum Mill cv. VF 36 with respect to salt tolerance. The L. cheesmanii ecotype that proved most salt-tolerant was selected for detailed comparison with the L. esculentum cultivar. Plants were grown in modified Hoagland solution salinized with synthetic seawate...