The full complement of homeobox transcription factor sequences, including genes and pseudogenes, was determined from the analysis of 10 complete genomes from flowering plants, moss, Selaginella, unicellular green algae, and red algae. Our exhaustive genome-wide searches resulted in the discovery in each class of a greater number of homeobox genes than previously reported. All homeobox genes can...

In this study we present phylogenetic and molecular phylogenetic diversity analyses of moss taxa from a total of 655 genera of mosses. Three loci were sampled: chloroplast ribosomal small protein 4, the intronic region of the mitochondrial NADH dehydogenase subunit 5, and partial sequences of the nuclear 26S ribosomal RNA. Maximum likelihood and Bayesian phylogenetic analyses were performed on ...

Mosses are widespread vegetations on the ground layer level in boreal forests. They play important roles in productivity, soil hydroclimate regulation and nutrient cycling in the ecosystem. The Polytrichum mosses are desiccation-tolerant and have two physiological states: a hydrated state and a desiccated state. The physiological features and growth rates of mosses differ in different states. M...

Despite its small size, a moss bag can reveal the different temporal and spatial deposition patterns of pollutants at a particular site; therefore, researchers can use moss bags to determine pollution sources and to put forward strategies for pollution control. Although the use of moss bags to monitor atmospheric pollution has been widely reported in Europe, there are few such empirical studies...

Mosses are the dominant plants in polar and boreal regions, areas which are experiencing rapid impacts of regional warming. Long-term monitoring programmes provide some records of the rate of recent climate change, but moss peat banks contain an unrivalled temporal record of past climate change on terrestrial plant Antarctic systems. We summarise the current understanding of climatic proxies an...

Organic soil horizons function as important controls on the thermal state of near-surface soil and permafrost in high-latitude ecosystems. The thermal conductivity of organic horizons is typically lower than mineral soils and is closely linked to moisture content, bulk density, and water phase. In this study, we examined the relationship between thermal conductivity and soil moisture for differ...

Three different types of non-photochemical de-excitation of absorbed light energy protect photosystem II of the sun- and desiccation-tolerant moss Rhytidium rugosum against photo-oxidation. The first mechanism, which is light-induced in hydrated thalli, is sensitive to inhibition by dithiothreitol. It is controlled by the protonation of a thylakoid protein. Other mechanisms are activated by des...

We study the stochastic Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) problem under worst-case regret and heavy-tailed reward distribution. modify minimax policy MOSS for sub-Gaussian distribution by using saturated empirical mean to design a new algorithm called Robust MOSS. show that if moment of order $1+\epsilon $ exists, then refined strategy has matching lower bound while maintaining distribution-dependent lo...

The biological fixation of atmospheric nitrogen (N) is a major pathway for available N entering ecosystems. In N-limited boreal forests, a significant amount of N2 is fixed by cyanobacteria living in association with mosses, contributing up to 50% to the total N input. In this review, we synthesize reports on the drivers of N2 fixation in feather moss-cyanobacteria associations to gain a deeper...

BACKGROUND Detection of estrogens in the environment has raised concerns in recent years because of their potential to affect both wildlife and humans. OBJECTIVES We compared exposures to prescribed and naturally occurring estrogens in drinking water to exposures to naturally occurring background levels of estrogens in the diet of children and adults and to four independently derived acceptab...