The value of sea urchin,Lytechinus variegatus,egesta consumed by shrimp,Litopenaeus vannamei

Sea urchins produce high‐energy, membrane‐bound fecal pellets that contain residual nutrients and large quantities of microbiota. These egesta are readily consumed by the shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei. Egesta of the sea urchin, Lytechinus variegatus, were evaluated as a feed supplement or total replacement for a commercial shrimp diet. Shrimp were stocked at 0.49 g ± 0.06 g initial body weight and housed individually in 2.8‐L tanks in a commercial recirculating zebrafish system. Shrimp were assigned to one of six diets: commercial shrimp feed, reference sea urchin feed, collected dried sea urchin egesta, collected wet sea urchin egesta, half ration of shrimp feed and half collected wet sea urchin egesta, and egesta naturally produced by two sea urchins in polyculture. Equivalent dry matter amounts of each diet were proffered to shrimp in each treatment twice daily, except for those that had complete access to natural egesta excreted by sea urchins in polyculture. Sea urchins were proffered a reference sea urchin feed at 2% body weight daily. After 27 days, shrimp proffered collected dried or wet egesta did not differ significantly in percent weight gain and showed the lowest weight gain. The percent weight gain of shrimp fed the commercial shrimp diet did not differ significantly from that of the shrimp fed half commercial shrimp diet and half egesta. The highest weight gain was recorded for those shrimp that consumed the untouched egesta produced by sea urchins in polyculture. These data suggest that consumed egesta have noteworthy nutritional value and therefore would be beneficial to the culture of extractive species in an integrated multitrophic aquaculture system.     

Ray blight of pyrethrum in Australia: a review of the current status and future opportunities

Ray blight caused by Stagonosporopsis tanaceti is one of the most important diseases of pyrethrum (Tanacetum cinerariifolium), a perennial herbaceous plant cultivated for the extraction of insecticidal pyrethrins in Australia. The disease is responsible for complete yield loss in severe outbreaks. Infected seed is considered as the principal source of S. tanaceti. Infection hyphae remain only in the seed coat and not in the embryo, resulting in pre- and post-emergence death of seedlings and latent infection. Therefore, quantification of the level of infection by S. tanaceti within seed using a qPCR assay is important for efficient management of the disease. Stagonosporopsis tanaceti completes its life cycle within 12 days after leaf infection through production of pycnidia and can infect every tissue of the pyrethrum plant except the vascular and root tissues. Ray blight epidemics occur in pyrethrum fields through splash dispersal of pycnidiospores between adjacent plants. Besides steam sterilization, thiabendazole/thiram and fludioxonil are effective seed-treating chemicals in controlling S. tanaceti before planting begins. Ray blight is currently managed in the field through the foliar application of strobilurin fungicides in the first 1–2 years of crop establishment. Later on, difenoconazole and multisite specific fungicides in the next 2–3 years during early spring successfully reduce ray blight infestation. Avoiding development of resistance to fungicides will require more sustainable management of ray blight including the development and deployment of resistant cultivars.     

Mapping QTLs using a novel source of salinity tolerance from Hasawi and their interaction with environments in rice

Background

Salinity is one of the most severe and widespread abiotic stresses that affect rice production. The identification of major-effect quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for traits related to salinity tolerance and understanding of QTL × environment interactions (QEIs) can help in more precise and faster development of salinity-tolerant rice varieties through marker-assisted breeding. Recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from IR29/Hasawi (a novel source of salinity) were screened for salinity tolerance in the IRRI phytotron in the Philippines (E1) and in two other diverse environments in Senegal (E2) and Tanzania (E3). QTLs were mapped for traits related to salinity tolerance at the seedling stage.

Results

The RILs were genotyped using 194 polymorphic SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms). After removing segregation distortion markers (SDM), a total of 145 and 135 SNPs were used to construct a genetic linkage map with a length of 1655 and 1662 cM, with an average marker density of 11.4 cM in E1 and 12.3 cM in E2 and E3, respectively. A total of 34 QTLs were identified on 10 chromosomes for five traits using ICIM-ADD and segregation distortion locus (SDL) mapping (IM-ADD) under salinity stress across environments. Eight major genomic regions on chromosome 1 between 170 and 175 cM (qSES1.3, qSES1.4, qSL1.2, qSL1.3, qRL1.1, qRL1.2, qFWsht1.2, qDWsht1.2), chromosome 4 at 32 cM (qSES4.1, qFWsht4.2, qDWsht4.2), chromosome 6 at 115 cM (qFWsht6.1, qDWsht6.1), chromosome 8 at 105 cM (qFWsht8.1, qDWsht8.1), and chromosome 12 at 78 cM (qFWsht12.1, qDWsht12.1) have co-localized QTLs for the multiple traits that might be governing seedling stage salinity tolerance through multiple traits in different phenotyping environments, thus suggesting these as hot spots for tolerance of salinity. Forty-nine and 30 significant pair-wise epistatic interactions were detected between QTL-linked and QTL-unlinked regions using single-environment and multi-environment analyses.

Conclusions

The identification of genomic regions for salinity tolerance in the RILs showed that Hasawi possesses alleles that are novel for salinity tolerance. The common regions for the multiple QTLs across environments as co-localized regions on chromosomes 1, 4, 6, 8, and 12 could be due to linkage or pleiotropic effect, which might be helpful for multiple QTL introgression for marker-assisted breeding programs to improve the salinity tolerance of adaptive and popular but otherwise salinity-sensitive rice varieties.

     

Bulk pollen pollination in maize for efficient construction of introgression populations with high genome coverage

Introgression populations consist of a set of introgression lines or families, constructed by continuous backcrossing to the recurrent parent, while carrying a limited number of chromosome segments from a donor parent in their genomes. Increasing the genome coverage is an important aim when constructing introgression population. In this study, we proposed bulk pollen pollination (BPP) method and used it to increase the genome coverage of a maize introgression population. The results showed that the genome coverage of the introgression population constructed using BPP method reached 100% at BC₃ generation, which accorded with the simulation result. The BPP‐based BC₃F_1:2 population could identify most quantitative trait loci (QTL) detected using the F_2:3 population, especially major QTL. Simulation analysis showed that the genome coverage of introgression population increased with the increase of population size and the number of bulked plants, and decreased with the increase of backcross generation. Our results proved the reliability of the BPP‐based introgression population in increasing genome coverage and detecting QTL, and provided references for constructing high‐coverage introgression populations.     

我国牧草种植成本收益变化与比较

本研究以牧草种植户牧草及粮食作物的调研数据为基础,计算出2010-2014年主要牧草和粮食作物的成本收益基本信息,对其变化进行统计分析,并对各作物的成本收益进行比较。分析发现,2014年苜蓿(Medicago sativa)的经济效益有所下降;黑麦草(Lolium perenne)和青贮玉米(Zea mays)的纯收益和收益率有所增长;苜蓿的纯收益和收益率要高于黑麦草和青贮玉米;马铃薯(Solanum tuberosum)和苜蓿的经济效益更具优势,种植小麦(Triticum aestivum)经济效益较差;黑麦草和青贮玉米人工和土地成本更高,苜蓿水电费最高。建议调整农业产业结构,推行"粮+经+饲+草"四元种植结构,全面扶持牧草产业发展,建立健全牧草生产资料补贴制度。     

马铃薯AP2/ERF转录因子的克隆及植物表达载体构建

AP2/ERF基因家族转录因子普遍存在于植物中,参与植物体内的各种生物学过程,包括植物的生长发育、生物和非生物胁迫响应等。前期转录组测序的结果发现马铃薯‘加湘1号’一个AP2/ERF家族基因(PGSC0003DMG400012154)在接种晚疫病菌(Phytophthora infestans)24 h后被显著激活。从接种P.infestans 24 h的‘加湘1号’的总RNA中通过RT-PCR获得了该基因CDS序列为885 bp,BLAST分析显示该基因编码一个295个氨基酸残基的蛋白,并且含有1个AP2/ERF结构域,是AP2/ERF转录因子家族中的ERF亚家族的一员。本研究将该基因与XcmⅠ酶切的表达载体pCXSN连接,转化大肠杆菌,通过测序挑选插入正确克隆酶切验证,并成功转化农杆菌。本研究结果为进一步研究该基因的功能提供了帮助。