Life Sciences Commons^™

Genetic Diversity And Family Groups Detected In A Coyote Population With Red Wolf Ancestry On Galveston Island, Texas, Tanner Barnes, Melissa Karlin, Bridgett M. Vonholdt, Jennifer R. Adams, Lisette P. Waits, Joseph W. Hinton, Josh Henderson, Kristin Brzeski

Michigan Tech Publications

Background: Hybridization can be a conservation concern if genomic introgression leads to the loss of an endangered species’ unique genome, or when hybrid offspring are sterile or less fit than their parental species. Yet hybridization can also be an adaptive management tool if rare populations are inbred and have reduced genetic variation, and there is the opportunity to enhance genetic variation through hybridization. The red wolf (Canis rufus) is a critically endangered wolf endemic to the eastern United States, where all extant red wolves are descended from 14 founders which has led to elevated levels of inbreeding over time. Red …

A Mini Review Of Citrus Rootstocks And Their Role In High-Density Orchards, Faisal Hayat, Juan Li, Shahid Iqbal, Yang Peng, Leming Hong, Rashad Mukhtar Balal, Muhammad Nawaz Khan, Muhammad Azher Nawaz, Ummara Khan, Muhammad Asad Farhan, Caiqing Li, Wenpei Song, Panfeng Tu, Jiezhong Chen

Michigan Tech Publications

Dwarfing is an important agricultural trait for intensive cultivation and effective orchard management in modern fruit orchards. Commercial citrus production relies on grafting with rootstocks that reduce tree vigor to control plant height. Citrus growers all over the world have been attracted to dwarfing trees because of their potential for higher planting density, increased productivity, easy harvest, pruning, and efficient spraying. Dwarfing rootstocks can be used to achieve high density. As a result, the use and development of dwarfing rootstocks are important. Breeding programs in several countries have led to the production of citrus dwarf rootstocks. For example, the dwarfing …

Molecular Mechanisms Of Diverse Auxin Responses During Plant Growth And Development, Yang Zhang, Jiajie Yu, Xiuyue Xu, Ruiqi Wang, Yingying Liu, Shan Huang, Hairong Wei, Zhigang Wei

Michigan Tech Publications

The plant hormone auxin acts as a signaling molecule to regulate numerous developmental processes throughout all stages of plant growth. Understanding how auxin regulates various physiological and developmental processes has been a hot topic and an intriguing field. Recent studies have unveiled more molecular details into how diverse auxin responses function in every aspect of plant growth and development. In this review, we systematically summarized and classified the molecular mechanisms of diverse auxin responses, and comprehensively elaborated the characteristics and multilevel regulation mechanisms of the canonical transcriptional auxin response. On this basis, we described the characteristics and differences between different …

Fresh Air For The Mire-Breathing Hypothesis: Sphagnum Moss And Peat Structure Regulate The Response Of Co2 Exchange To Altered Hydrology In A Northern Peatland Ecosystem, Ally O’Neill, Colin Tucker, Evan S. Kane

Michigan Tech Publications

Sphagnum-dominated peatlands store more carbon than all of Earth’s forests, playing a large role in the balance of carbon dioxide. However, these carbon sinks face an uncertain future as the changing climate is likely to cause water stress, potentially reducing Sphagnum productivity and transitioning peatlands to carbon sources. A mesocosm experiment was performed on thirty-two peat cores collected from two peatland landforms: elevated mounds (hummocks) and lower, flat areas of the peatland (hollows). Both rainfall treatments and water tables were manipulated, and CO2 fluxes were measured. Other studies have observed peat subsiding and tracking the water table downward when experiencing …

Sight Versus Sound: Do Visual Assessments Of Dead Standing Trees Reflect Acoustic Nondestructive Evaluations Of Wood Quality?, Tyler J. Hovde, John W. Forsman, Robert J. Ross, Mark Rudnicki, Xinfeng Xie, Xiping Wang, Yvette L. Dickson

Michigan Tech Publications

The forest industry typically uses visual appearance to evaluate the wood quality when salvaging dead standing trees. We investigated whether the visual appearance of white spruce (Picea glauca (Moench) Voss) defoliated by the spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana (Clem.)) accurately reflects wood quality measured using nondestructive techniques. Longitudinal and transverse acoustic velocities were measured on white spruce, representing three condition categories assessed visually, ranging from live trees to dead standing trees with signs of decay. Generalized linear models were used to determine whether there were significant differences in longitudinal and transverse acoustic velocities among the visual categories. Longitudinal velocities significantly differed …

Soil Carbon Within The Mangrove Landscape In Rufiji River Delta, Tanzania, Zhaohua Dai, Carl C. Trettin, Mwita M. Mangora, Wenwu Tang

Michigan Tech Publications

Mangroves are among the most carbon-rich terrestrial ecosystems, primarily attributable to the soil pool. There are substantial differences in soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) due to the disparities in geomorphic settings and ecological drivers, but this insight is drawn primarily from observational studies. An objective inventory of carbon stocks in mangroves of the Rufiji River Delta, Tanzania was conducted. Seventy-five soil cores were collected within a 12,164 ha inventory area, comprising the northern portion of the delta. Cores were collected from intact and dwarf mangroves, agricultural fields, and mudflats. The spatial mean soil organic carbon (SOC) density in mangroves …

A Spectral Three-Dimensional Color Space Model Of Tree Crown Health, William B. Monahan, Colton E. Arnspiger, Parth Bhatt, Zhongming An, Frank J. Krist, Tao Liu, Robert P. Richard, Curtis Edson, Robert E. Froese, John Steffenson, Tony C. Lammers, Randy Frosh

Michigan Tech Publications

Protecting the future of forests in the United States and other countries depends in part on our ability to monitor and map forest health conditions in a timely fashion to facilitate management of emerging threats and disturbances over a multitude of spatial scales. Remote sensing data and technologies have contributed to our ability to meet these needs, but existing methods relying on supervised classification are often limited to specific areas by the availability of imagery or training data, as well as model transferability. Scaling up and operationalizing these methods for general broadscale monitoring and mapping may be promoted by using …

Image Processing In Dense Forest Areas Using Unmanned Aerial System (Uas), Parth Bhatt, Curtis Edson, Ann Maclean

Michigan Tech Publications

Description:

A detailed workflow using Structure from Motion (SfM) techniques for processing high-resolution Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) NIR and RGB imagery in a dense forest environment where obtaining control points is difficult due to limited access and safety issues.

Abstract:

Imagery collected via Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) platforms has become popular in recent years due to improvements in a Digital Single-Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera (centimeter and sub-centimeter), lower operation costs as compared to human piloted aircraft, and the ability to collect data over areas with limited ground access. Many different application (e.g., forestry, agriculture, geology, archaeology) are already using and …

Whole-Tree Harvest Effects On Macronutrients In An Oak-Dominated System After Seven Years, Robert Richard, Evan Kane, Dustin Bronson, Randall Kolka

Michigan Tech Publications

This study assesses the impacts of whole-tree harvesting (WTH) versus stem-only harvest (SOH) on two oak-dominated stands located in Northern Wisconsin. Specifically, our study follows up on an experiment designed to better understand the impacts of WTH and whether stands are at risk of long-term nutrient losses, which could contribute to declines in productivity. The original study assessed: (i) full biomass removal (referred to as WTH), (ii) partial biomass removal (removal to 5 cm diameter bole), (iii) a traditional SOH (removal to 10 cm bole), and (iv) no harvest (control). Our data were collected 93 months after harvest and showed …

European Mushroom Assemblages Are Phylogenetically Structured By Temperature, Claus Bässler, Jacob Heilmann-Clausen, Carrie Andrew, Lynne Boddy, Ulf Büntgen, Jeffrey Diez, Et. Al.

Michigan Tech Publications

Recent global warming affects species compositions at an unprecedented rate. To predict climate-induced changes in species assemblages, a better understanding of the link between species occurrence and climate is needed. Macrofungal fruit body assemblages are correlated with the thermal environment at the European scale. However, it is still unknown whether macrofungal communities are also phylogenetically structured by thermal environments. Thermal environments are characterized by annual temperature means but also by intra-annual temperature variability (hereafter termed temperature seasonality), which are both considered in this study. Here, we used distribution data of 2882 species based on fruit body records across Europe to …

A Key Study On Pollen-Specific Sfb Genotype And Identification Of Novel Sfb Alleles From 48 Accessions In Japanese Apricot (Prunus Mume Sieb. Et Zucc.), Daouda Coulibaly, Guofeng Hu, Zhaojun Ni, Kenneth Omondi Ouma, Xiao Huang, Shahid Iqbal, Chengdong Ma, Ting Shi, Faisal Hayat, Benjamin Karikari, Zhihong Gao

Michigan Tech Publications

Self-incompatibility (SI) is a common strategy to avoid inbreeding and, consequently, keep genetic diversity within a species. In its mechanism, pollen rejection happens in the style when the single multiallelic locus (SFB in prunus species) of the haploid pollen matches one of the S-alleles existing in the diploid pistil. The SFB gene for the pollen S gene has been identified in many Prunus species. However, Japanese apricot is a species with a typical gametophytic self-incompatibility (GSI), and its SFB alleles available are limited, although they are required for studying GSI. Therefore, we used an AS-PCR amplification method, sequencing, and the …

Comparative Analysis Of Complete Chloroplast Genome And Phenotypic Characteristics Of Japanese Apricot Accessions, Daouda Coulibaly, Xiao Huang, Shi Ting, Shahid Iqbal, Zhaojun Ni, Kenneth Omondi Ouma, Faisal Hayat, Wei Tan, Guofeng Hu, Chengdong Ma, Benjamin Karikari, Mahmoud Magdy, Zhihong Gao

Michigan Tech Publications

Japanese apricot (Prunus mume Sieb. et Zucc.) is among the most valued fruits and flowering plants in eastern Asia. However, few comparative studies have been conducted with respect to its agro-morphological and pomological traits, chloroplast (cp) genome sequences and plastid diversity. Therefore, a comparative study was, conducted to investigate the divergence and geographic distribution of ten Japanese apricot accessions from three Chinese provinces (Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Sichuan). Phenotypic characteristics of the evaluated accessions, such as leaf length, tip leaf length, flower diameter, anther number, fruit weight, longitudinal height, transversal height, lateral height, fruit stone weight, stone longitudinal height, stone transversal …

Current Status And Trends In Forest Genomics, Dulal Borthakur, Victor Busov, Xuan Hieu Cao, Qingzhang Du, Oliver Gailing, Fikret Isik, Hairong Wei, Et. Al.

Michigan Tech Publications

Forests are not only the most predominant of the Earth's terrestrial ecosystems, but are also the core supply for essential products for human use. However, global climate change and ongoing population explosion severely threatens the health of the forest ecosystem and aggravtes the deforestation and forest degradation. Forest genomics has great potential of increasing forest productivity and adaptation to the changing climate. In the last two decades, the field of forest genomics has advanced quickly owing to the advent of multiple high-throughput sequencing technologies, single cell RNA-seq, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-mediated genome editing, and spatial transcriptomes, as …

Joint Impacts Of Future Climate Conditions And Invasive Species On Black Ash Forested Wetlands, Joseph Shannon, Randall Kolka, Matthew Van Grinsven, Fengjing Liu

Michigan Tech Publications

Wetlands around the globe are being impacted by changing temperature and precipitation patterns. Simultaneously black ash forested wetlands are expected to lose much of their overstory canopy due to the invasive Emerald Ash Borer (EAB). Field experiments and modeling efforts have provided information on species tolerance of post-EAB conditions and future climate adapted species. No studies have yet examined the interaction of the loss of ash and future climate scenarios on wetland hydrologic conditions. We developed daily wetland hydrology models for three vegetation conditions: black ash forest, alternate non-ash forest, and non-forested. Model simulations were evaluated under current climate conditions …

Lowering Water Table Reduces Carbon Sink Strength And Carbon Stocks In Northern Peatlands, Min Jung Kwon, Ashley Ballantyne, Philippe Ciais, Chunjing Qiu, Elodie Salmon, Nina Raoult, Bertrand Guenet, Mathias Göckede, Eugénie S. Euskirchen, Hannu Nykänen, Edward A. Schuur, Merritt R. Turetsky, Catherine M. Dieleman, Evan Kane, Donatella Zona

Michigan Tech Publications

Peatlands at high latitudes have accumulated >400 Pg carbon (C) because saturated soil and cold temperatures suppress C decomposition. This substantial amount of C in Arctic and Boreal peatlands is potentially subject to increased decomposition if the water table (WT) decreases due to climate change, including permafrost thaw-related drying. Here, we optimize a version of the Organizing Carbon and Hydrology In Dynamic Ecosystems model (ORCHIDEE-PCH4) using site-specific observations to investigate changes in CO and CH fluxes as well as C stock responses to an experimentally manipulated decrease of WT at six northern peatlands. The unmanipulated control peatlands, with the WT …

Harvesting Intensity And Aridity Are More Important Than Climate Change In Affecting Future Carbon Stocks Of Douglas-Fir Forests, Alyssa J. Robinson, Camille E. Defrenne, W. Jean Roach, Caren C. Dymond, Brian J. Pickles, Suzanne W. Simard

Michigan Tech Publications

Improved forest management may offer climate mitigation needed to hold warming to below 2°C. However, uncertainties persist about the effects of harvesting intensity on forest carbon sequestration, especially when considering interactions with regional climate and climate change. Here, we investigated the combined effects of harvesting intensity, climatic aridity, and climate change on carbon stocks in Douglas-fir [Pseudotsuga menziesii Mirb. (Franco)] stands. We used the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector to simulate the harvest and regrowth of seven Douglas-fir stand types covering a 900 km-long climate gradient across British Columbia, Canada. In particular, we simulated stand growth under …

Reviving Ghost Alleles: Genetically Admixed Coyotes Along The American Gulf Coast Are Critical For Saving The Endangered Red Wolf, Bridgett M. Vonholdt, Joseph W. Hinton, Amy C. Shutt, Sean M. Murphy, Melissa L. Karlin, Jennifer R. Adams, Lisette P. Waits, Kristin Brzeski

Michigan Tech Publications

The last known red wolves were captured in southwestern Louisiana and eastern Texas in 1980 to establish a captive breeding population. Before their extirpation, gene flow with coyotes resulted in the persistence of endangered red wolf genetic variation in local coyote populations. We assessed genomic ancestry and morphology of coyotes in southwestern Louisiana. We detected that 38 to 62% of the coyote genomes contained red wolf ancestry acquired in the past 30 years and have an admixture profile similar to that of the canids captured before the extirpation of red wolves. We further documented a positive correlation between ancestry and …

Understory Plant Communities Show Resistance To Drought, Hurricanes, And Experimental Warming In A Wet Tropical Forest, Aura M. Alonso-Rodríguez, Tana E. Wood, Jamarys Torres-Díaz, Molly A. Cavaleri, Sasha C. Reed, Benedicte Bachelot

Michigan Tech Publications

Global climate change has led to rising temperatures and to more frequent and intense climatic events, such as storms and droughts. Changes in climate and disturbance regimes can have non-additive effects on plant communities and result in complicated legacies we have yet to understand. This is especially true for tropical forests, which play a significant role in regulating global climate. We used understory vegetation data from the Tropical Responses to Altered Climate Experiment (TRACE) in Puerto Rico to evaluate how plant communities responded to climate warming and disturbance. The TRACE understory vegetation was exposed to a severe drought (2015), 2 …

Influence Of Strip Clearcuts, Deer Exclusion And Herbicide On Initial Sapling Recruitment In Northern Hardwood Forests, Stefan Hupperts, Christopher R. Webster, Robert Froese, Brandon Bal, Yvette L. Dickinson

Michigan Tech Publications

Sapling recruitment in hardwood forests is often suppressed by overstory shade, interspecific competition, and browsing pressure from white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus Zimmerman). In some northern hardwood stands, these three interacting factors may cause persistent recruitment failure of the dominant canopy species, sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.), into the sapling size class. In this study, we compared initial (two-year) sugar maple and hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana ((Mill.) K. Koch) seedling and sapling recruitment in strip clearcuts to strip selection cuts, with combinations of herbicide and deer exclosures, in a northern hardwood forest with limited sugar maple sapling recruitment. We found that sugar …

Ptrwox13a Promotes Wood Formation And Bioactive Gibberellins Biosynthesis In Populus Trichocarpa, Yang Zhang, Yingying Liu, Xueying Wang, Ruiqi Wang, Xuebing Chen, Shuang Wang, Hairong Wei, Zhigang Wei

Michigan Tech Publications

WUSCHEL-related homeobox (WOX) genes are plant-specific transcription factors (TFs) involved in multiple processes of plant development. However, there have hitherto no studies on the WOX TFs involved in secondary cell wall (SCW) formation been reported. In this study, we identified a Populus trichocarpa WOX gene, PtrWOX13A, which was predominantly expressed in SCW, and then characterized its functions through generating PtrWOX13A overexpression poplar transgenic lines; these lines exhibited not only significantly enhanced growth potential, but also remarkably increased SCW thicknesses, fiber lengths, and lignin and hemicellulose contents. However, no obvious change in cellulose content was observed. We revealed that PtrWOX13A directly …

Integrating Deep Learning And Hydrodynamic Modeling To Improve The Great Lakes Forecast, Pengfei Xue, Aditya Wagh, Gangfeng Ma, Yilin Wang, Yongchao Yang, Tao Liu, Chenfu Huang

Michigan Tech Publications

The Laurentian Great Lakes, one of the world’s largest surface freshwater systems, pose a modeling challenge in seasonal forecast and climate projection. While physics-based hydrodynamic modeling is a fundamental approach, improving the forecast accuracy remains critical. In recent years, machine learning (ML) has quickly emerged in geoscience applications, but its application to the Great Lakes hydrodynamic prediction is still in its early stages. This work is the first one to explore a deep learning approach to predicting spatiotemporal distributions of the lake surface temperature (LST) in the Great Lakes. Our study shows that the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) neural network, …

A Pilot Study Of Transplanting Methods For Wilding American Beech (Fagus Grandifolia), Andrea L. Myers, Yvette L. Dickinson, Andrew J. Storer, Tara L. Bal

Michigan Tech Publications

American beech is facing pressure from a number of emergent health issues including beech bark disease, beech leaf disease, beech leaf mining weevil, and climate and habitat change. Interest has increased in the propagation of American beech in response to the demand for more disease-resistant American beech for use in restoration. This study describes the first steps towards publishing methods for transplanting beech in order to supplement commercially available beech seedlings in an area with multiple agencies depleting the existing stock of slow growing species. American beech seedlings were purchased from a nursery in northern Michigan and were excavated from …

The Flying Spider-Monkey Tree Fern Genome Provides Insights Into Fern Evolution And Arborescence, Xiong Huang, Wenling Wang, Ting Gong, David Wickell, Li Yaung Kuo, Xingtan Zhang, Jialong Wen, Hoon Kim, Fachuang Lu, Hansheng Zhao, Song Chen, Hui Li, Wenqi Wu, Changjiang Yu, Su Chen, Wei Fan, Shuai Chen, Xiuqi Bao, Li Li, Dan Zhang, Longyu Jiang, Xiaojing Yan, Zhenyang Liao, Gongke Zhou, Yalong Guo, John Ralph, Ronald R. Sederoff, Hairong Wei, Ping Zhu, Fay Wei Li, Ray Ming

Michigan Tech Publications

To date, little is known about the evolution of fern genomes, with only two small genomes published from the heterosporous Salviniales. Here we assembled the genome of Alsophila spinulosa, known as the flying spider-monkey tree fern, onto 69 pseudochromosomes. The remarkable preservation of synteny, despite resulting from an ancient whole-genome duplication over 100 million years ago, is unprecedented in plants and probably speaks to the uniqueness of tree ferns. Our detailed investigations into stem anatomy and lignin biosynthesis shed new light on the evolution of stem formation in tree ferns. We identified a phenolic compound, alsophilin, that is abundant in …

Two High Hierarchical Regulators, Pumyb40 And Puwrky75, Control The Low Phosphorus Driven Adventitious Root Formation In Populus Ussuriensis, Hanzeng Wang, Solme Pak, Jia Yang, Ye Wu, Wenlong Li, He Feng, Jingli Yang, Hairong Wei, Chenghao Li

Michigan Tech Publications

Adventitious rooting is an essential biological process in the vegetative propagation of economically important horticultural and forest tree species. It enables utilization of the elite genotypes in breeding programmes and production. Promotion of adventitious root (AR) formation has been associated with starvation of inorganic phosphate and some factors involved in low phosphorus (LP) signalling. However, the regulatory mechanism underlying LP-mediated AR formation remains largely elusive. We established an efficient experimental system that guaranteed AR formation through short-term LP treatment in Populus ussuriensis. We then generated a time-course RNA-seq data set to recognize key regulatory genes and regulatory cascades positively regulating …

Kraft Lignin With Improved Homogeneity Recovered Directly From Black Liquor And Its Application In Flexible Polyurethane Foams, Peng Quan, Alper Kiziltas, Akash Gondaliya, Mohsen Siahkamari, Mojgan Nejad, Xinfeng Xie

Michigan Tech Publications

An effective method that can produce a large amount of Kraft lignin with improved homogeneity is strongly desired for Kraft lignin's high-value applications and scientific advancements. Herein, a one-pot acid-catalyzed liquefaction method was developed to recover Kraft lignin directly from black liquor. The recovery rate and properties of the recovered lignin were affected by the reaction time, reaction temperature, moisture content (MC), pH, and acid categories. The highest lignin recovery rate of 75% was achieved when the concentrated black liquor (MC = 25%) reacted with methanol at pH = 7 and 160 °C for 10 min using acetic acid as …

The Role Of Wolves In Regulating A Chronic Non-Communicable Disease, Osteoarthritis, In Prey Populations, Sarah Hoy, John A. Vucetich, Rolf O. Peterson

Michigan Tech Publications

It is widely accepted that predators disproportionately prey on individuals that are old, weak, diseased or injured. By selectively removing individuals with diseases, predators may play an important role in regulating the overall health of prey populations. However, that idea is seldom tested empirically. Here we assess the extent that wolves (Canis lupus) select adult moose (Alces alces) in Isle Royale National Park on the basis of age-class and osteoarthritis, a chronic, non-communicable disease. We also assess how temporal variation in kill rates (on moose by wolves) were associated with the subsequent incidence of osteoarthritis in the moose population over …

Enacting Boundaries Or Building Bridges? Language And Engagement In Food-Energy-Water Systems Science, Valoree Gagnon, Chelsea Schelly, William Lytle, Andrew Kliskey, Virginia H. Dale, Anna Maria Marshall, Luis F. Rodriguez, Paula Williams, Michael Waasegiizhig Price, Elizabeth A. Redd, Margaret A. Noodin

Michigan Tech Publications

Scientific study of issues at the nexus of food–energy–water systems (FEWS) requires grappling with multifaceted, “wicked” problems. FEWS involve interactions occurring directly and indirectly across complex and overlapping spatial and temporal scales; they are also imbued with diverse and sometimes conflicting meanings for the human and more-than-human beings that live within them. In this paper, we consider the role of language in the dynamics of boundary work, recognizing that the language often used in stakeholder and community engagement intended to address FEWS science and decision-making constructs boundaries and limits diverse and inclusive participation. In contrast, some language systems provide opportunities …

Flooding Tolerance Of Four Tropical Peatland Tree Species In A Nursery Trial, Hesti L. Tata, Hani S. Nuroniah, Diandra A. Ahsania, Haning Anggunira, Siti N. Hidayati, Meydina Pratama, Istomo Istomo, Rodney Chimner, Meine Van Noordwijk, Randall Kolka

Michigan Tech Publications

In order to facilitate hydrological restoration, initiatives have been conducted to promote tree growth in degraded and rewetted peatlands in Indonesia. For these initiatives to be successful, tree seedlings need to be able to survive flooding episodes, with or without shade. We investigated the survival rates and the formation of adventitious roots in the case of four tree species exposed to combinations of different shading and water levels under controlled conditions in a nursery, with artificial rainwater and with peat soil as the medium. The research focused on the following questions (i) whether trees can grow on flooded peat soils; …

Challenges And Opportunities For Restoration Of High-Elevation Andean Peatlands In Ecuador, Esteban Suarez, Segundo Chimbolema, Ricardo Jaramillo, Leo Zurita-Arthos, Paul Arellano, Rodney Chimner, John S. Stanovick, Erik A. Lilleskov

Michigan Tech Publications

Páramo peatlands are a regional reservoir of biodiversity and ecosystem services, accumulating large amounts of carbon and buffering water flows. Despite their importance, they have a long history of use and impacts including drainage for agriculture and grazing, and water withdrawal for human uses. Here we present a preliminary assessment of the conservation status of páramo peatlands in Ecuador and, using a case study, discuss peatland restoration as a tool for mitigation and adaptation to the impacts of current climate change. Through a simple index assessing the cumulative presence of signs of human activities on 163 peatland sites, we found …

Breeding Polyploid Populus: Progress And Perspective, Xiangyang Kang, Hairong Wei

Michigan Tech Publications

Populus is a genus of 25−30 species of deciduous flowering plants in the family Salicaceae, which are primarily planted in short-rotation planations for producing timber, pulpwood, wooden products as well as bioenergy feedstock; they are also widely planted in agricultural fields and along roadsides as shelter forest belts for windbreak, decoration, and reduction of pollutants and noise. Moreover, their fast-growth and good adaptation to marginal lands enable them to provide some critical ecosystem services at various phytoremediation sites for land restoration and reclaimation. Thanks to their important roles, breeding for fast growing poplar trees has been one of the most …