Life Sciences Commons^™

Changing Climatic Averages And Variance: Implications For Mesophication At The Eastern Edge Of North America’S Eastern Deciduous Forest, Evan Kutta, Jason A. Hubbart

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Observed conversion of xerophytic warm genera species to mesophytic cool genera species in North America’s Eastern Deciduous Forest (EDF) suggests species composition is in disequilibrium with recent climatic warming. However, increasing annual average temperatures is an oversimplification of long-term climatic change and the importance of climate variance is often neglected. Seven-year moving averages and standard deviations of annually averaged maximum temperatures, minimum temperatures, daily precipitation, and vapor pressure deficits (VPD) in West Virginia, USA were quantified over a 111-year period of record (1906–2016). Maximum temperatures decreased significantly (−5.3%; p < 0.001), minimum temperatures increased significantly (7.7%; p < 0.001), and precipitation increased (2.2%; p = 0.107). Additionally, maximum temperature variance decreased (−17.4%; p = 0.109), minimum temperature variance decreased significantly (−22.6%; p = 0.042), and precipitation variance increased significantly (26.6%; p = 0.004). Results indicate a reduced diurnal temperature range and significant reductions in estimated VPD (10.3%; p < 0.001) that imply increased relative humidity, cloud cover, and soil moisture that may support increasingly abundant mesophytic cool genera species. Feedback mechanisms associated with extensive changes in land use, fire suppression, and browser population may have exacerbated climatic changes. Long-term assessments of changing climatic averages and variance are needed to ensure sustainability of forest ecosystem services, health, and productivity in a swiftly changing climate across the broader EDF region and similar temperate forest ecosystems globally.

Dendroclimatic Analysis Of White Pine (Pinus Strobus L.) Using Long-Term Provenance Test Sites Across Eastern North America, Sophan Chhin, Ronald S. Zalesny Jr, William C. Parker, John Brissette

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Background: The main objective of this study was to examine the climatic sensitivity of the radial growth response of 13 eastern white pine (Pinus strobus L.) provenances planted at seven test sites throughout the northern part of the species’ native distribution in eastern North America.

Methods: The test sites (i.e., Wabeno, Wisconsin, USA; Manistique, Michigan, USA; Pine River, Michigan, USA; Newaygo, Michigan, USA; Turkey Point, Ontario, Canada; Ganaraska, Ontario, Canada; and Orono, Maine, USA) examined in this study were part of a range-wide white pine provenance trial established in the early 1960s in the eastern United States and Canada. Principal …

Application Of Crispr/Cas9 Genome Editing Technology For The Improvement Of Crops Cultivated In Tropical Climates: Recent Progress, Prospects, And Challenges, Effi Haque, Hiroaki Taniguchi, Md. Mahmudul Hassan, Pankaj Bhowmik, M. Rezaul Karim, Magdalena Śmiech, Kaijun Zhao, Mahfuzur Rahman, Tofazzal Islam

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The world population is expected to increase from 7.3 to 9.7 billion by 2050. Pest outbreak and increased abiotic stresses due to climate change pose a high risk to tropical crop production. Although conventional breeding techniques have significantly increased crop production and yield, new approaches are required to further improve crop production in order to meet the global growing demand for food. The Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 (CRISPR-associated protein9) genome editing technology has shown great promise for quickly addressing emerging challenges in agriculture. It can be used to precisely modify genome sequence of any organism including plants …