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Plant Sciences

Open Access Dissertations

Theses/Dissertations

2015

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Effects Of Temperature And Pollinator Availability On Plant Reproductive Success In The Indiana Spring Ephemeral Community, Asya Robertshaw Apr 2015

Effects Of Temperature And Pollinator Availability On Plant Reproductive Success In The Indiana Spring Ephemeral Community, Asya Robertshaw

Open Access Dissertations

Temperature is a key driver of phenology in both plants and insects, and even small changes in temperature can impact the reproductive success of insect-pollinated plants by influencing access to pollinator services. While it is well-established that temperature variation directly impacts the flowering phenology of many plant species, the mechanisms by which it ultimately influences seed production via the pollinator community are not well understood. Climate change has the potential to disrupt the temporal synchrony between plants and their primary pollinators, especially if the two rely on different seasonal cues for the timing of their life history events. If the …


Genetic, Agronomic And Compositional Characterization Of Brown Midrib Sweet Sorghum Lignocellulosic Biomass For Ethanol Production, Luis A. Rivera Burgos Apr 2015

Genetic, Agronomic And Compositional Characterization Of Brown Midrib Sweet Sorghum Lignocellulosic Biomass For Ethanol Production, Luis A. Rivera Burgos

Open Access Dissertations

Sorghum is a promising bioenergy crop due to its unique phenotypic and genotypic attributes. Quality (low lignin and high stem sugar concentration) and quantity (biomass yield, plant height, plant maturity, etc.) biomass traits are key contributors to ethanol yield and production. In this study, a 236 sorghum recombinant inbred line (RIL) population was subjected to genetic, agronomic and compositional characterization for ethanol yield and production. We found that the sweet mutation enhances biomass quantity traits in the RILs which translates to higher ethanol production and biomass quality which improves ethanol yield. The variance components showed from moderate to high heritability …


Profiling Gene Expression During Early Gametophyte Development And Sex Determination In Ceratopteris Richardii, Nadia Atallah Apr 2015

Profiling Gene Expression During Early Gametophyte Development And Sex Determination In Ceratopteris Richardii, Nadia Atallah

Open Access Dissertations

In the fern Ceratopteris richardii, every spore has the potential to develop as either a male or hermaphroditic gametophyte. Gametophyte sex is determined by a GA-like pheromone (ACE) that is secreted by hermaphrodites approximately 6 days after spore inoculation and induces male development in other juvenile gametophytes. Our goal is to better understand the genetic and molecular mechanisms involved in sex determination and to identify sex determination genes in Ceratopteris. RNA-Seq was used to create de novotranscriptome assemblies from gametophytes grown, with or without ACE, during the time that their sex is determined, and from male gametophytes in early …


Genetic Analysis Of Nitrogen Remobilization And Kernel Compositon In Zea Mays L. And Sorghum Bicolor (L.) Moench, Raymond S Lindsey Apr 2015

Genetic Analysis Of Nitrogen Remobilization And Kernel Compositon In Zea Mays L. And Sorghum Bicolor (L.) Moench, Raymond S Lindsey

Open Access Dissertations

Genetic Analysis of Nitrogen Remobilization and Kernel Composition in Zea Mays L. and Sorghum Bicolor (L.) Moench. Major Professor: Mitchell Tuinstra. Modern maize (Zea mays L.) production relies heavily on nitrogen fertilization for high productivity. Over-application of nitrogen fertilizers in cropping systems can have detrimental economic and environmental effects. For this reason, improving Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE) is a major goal of breeders and producers. Nitrogen Utilization Efficiency (NUtE) is one component of NUE, and the most important component under N-limited conditions. In this study we examined the genetic controls of the timing and preferential canopy position of leaf N …


Utilization Of Tall Wheatgrass Translocation Lines To Improve Fusarium Head Blight Resistance In Wheat, Xiangye Xiao Apr 2015

Utilization Of Tall Wheatgrass Translocation Lines To Improve Fusarium Head Blight Resistance In Wheat, Xiangye Xiao

Open Access Dissertations

Fusarium head blight (FHB) and leaf rust (LR) are two major fungal pathogens threatening the wheat crop, consequently identifying resistance genes from various sources is always of importance to wheat breeders. Type II FHB resistance in wheat has been improved by introgressing QTL from landraces and wild species. The present study was undertaken to (1) combine two different type II FHB resistance QTL in the backgrounds of six adapted wheat lines (2) improve the map resolution of Qfhs.pur-7EL.^ In the first objective, the FHB resistance gene Fhb1 originated in a Chinese wheat cultivar and is located on wheat chromosome …