The growth response of trees to ongoing climate change has important implications for future forest dynamics, accurate carbon accounting, and sustainable forest management. We used data from black spruce (Picea mariana) and jack pine (Pinus banksiana) provenance trials, along with published data for three other northern conifers, to identify a consistent growth response to climate warming in wh...

BACKGROUND The syndrome Multiple Congenital Ocular Anomalies (MCOA) is a congenital eye disorder in horses. Both the MCOA syndrome and the Silver coat colour in horses are caused by the same missense mutation in the premelanosome protein (PMEL) gene. Horses homozygous for the Silver mutation (TT) are affected by multiple ocular defects causing visual impairment or blindness. Horses heterozygous...

Fire is an important ecological factor and what constitutes appropriate fire management is much debated in the US and elsewhere. The role of fire as a source of greenhouse gases has been intensively investigated, but less is known about the production rate of the solid black carbon residue from fires. Black carbon accumulates in soil as it has longer turnover times than plant residues. To under...

For millions of years, the stout, muscular Przewalski’s horse freely roamed the high grasslands of Central Asia. By the mid-1960s, these, the last of the wild horses, were virtually extinct: a result of hunting, habitat loss, and cross breeding with domestic horses. Recovering fromatinypopulationof12 individualsand only fourpurebredfemales, therearenownearly2,000Przewalski’s horsesaround the wo...

Horses form a unique and special part of their owners' lives and aged horses are no exception. This review considers the health and management of aged horses, including the role of the owner and their perceptions of aged horses, potential threats or risks to their welfare and finally, factors affecting quality of life and euthanasia of aged horses. Owners of aged horses are concerned about the ...

Fungal spores are continuously deposited on the leaf surfaces by wind impaction, sedimentation and rain wash-out from the atmosphere and splash-dispersal. They reside and act as asymptomatic mutualists, benign commensals or latent pathogens. A slight imbalance in this relation can lead to pathogenic phase of the fungi, resulting in a variety of symptoms on leaves viz. discoloration, blight, soo...

Minerals play an essential role in the normal vital process.Calcium, phosphorus and magnesium are the most abundant minerals. Vitamin D and parathyroid hormone play a key role in regulation of their homeostasis as well. The aim of this study was to evaluate calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, vitamin D and parathyroid hormone on 30 Caspian horses of Guilan Province (south of the Caspian Sea) in two...

Effects of shoot water potential (Psi) and leaf-to-atmosphere vapor pressure difference (VPD) on gas exchange of jack pine (Pinus banksiana Lamb.), black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.), and aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) were investigated at the northern edge of the boreal forest in Manitoba, Canada. Laboratory measurements on cut branches showed that net photosynthesis (A(n)) and me...