To investigate the evolution of clinal variation in an invasive plant, we compared cold hardiness in the introduced saltcedar (Tamarix ramosissima, Tamarix chinensis, and hybrids) and the native plains cottonwood (Populus deltoides subsp. monilifera). In a shadehouse in Colorado (41°N), we grew plants collected along a latitudinal gradient in the central United States (29-48°N). On 17 occasions...

Seedlings of Leptospermum scoparium J.R. et G. Forst (manuka) originating from seed from a low altitude coastal site (Auckland) and from a high altitude inland site (Desert Road) were grown for 96 days in four controlled environments to compare the relationship between growth temperature and frost hardening. Day/night temperature treatments were 12/6, 12/3, 12/0 and 12/-3 degrees C. Frost hardi...

Cultivated flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) is the earliest oil and fiber crop and its early domestication history may involve multiple events of domestication for oil, fiber, capsular indehiscence, and winter hardiness. Genetic studies have demonstrated that winter cultivated flax is closely related to oil and fiber cultivated flax and shows little relatedness to its progenitor, pale flax (L. bie...

Background & aim: Although pregnancy seems to be a pleasant experience in a women’s life, the accompanied physical and psychological changes lead to high levels of stress in mothers. Prenatal stress widely affects the physical and mental health of mothers and infants; therefore, adopting appropriate coping strategies are highly required. Considering the importance of coping strategies in psycho...

Previous research has found that employed mothers experience conflict between the roles of mother and employee, and that interrole conflict is negatively correlated with marital adjustment. Furthermore, research has shown that social support and personality hardiness moderate the interrole conflict/marital adjustment reiationship. However, a longitudinal assessment of the effect of interrole co...

Supercooling points (SCPs) and low temperature survival were determined for diapausing and nondiapausing larvae of the ectoparasitoid Nasonia vitripennis. Neither nondiapausing nor diapausing larvae could survive tissue freezing. The SCP profiles were nearly identical for nondiapause-destined (-27 degrees C) and diapausing larvae (-25 degrees C), but these values were not indicative of the lowe...

Wheat stripe rust, caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (Pst), is one of the most important diseases of wheat worldwide. Understanding the survival of Pst during the overwintering period is critical for predicting Pst epidemics in the spring. Real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) methods quantifying Pst DNA and RNA (cDNA) were developed and compared for the ability to quantify viable Pst i...

Eggs of temperate Aedes albopictus populations are cold hardy and can diapause, but tropical populations are not cold hardy and cannot diapause. Heterozygotes possess intermediate diapause and cold hardiness. Males of a tropical strain from Malaysia with a distinctive genetic marker were released into an existing temperate population in East St. Louis, Illinois. Subsequent egg samples from the ...