Migrations and movements of Atlantic tarpon revealed by two decades of satellite tagging

Understanding large‐scale migratory behaviours, local movement patterns and population connectivity are critical to determining the natural processes and anthropogenic stressors that influence population dynamics and for developing effective conservation plans. Atlantic tarpon occur over a broad geographic range in the Atlantic Ocean where they support valuable subsistence, commercial and recreational fisheries. From 2001 through 2018, we deployed 292 satellite telemetry tags on Atlantic tarpon in coastal waters off three continents to document: (a) seasonal migrations and regional population connectivity; (b) freshwater and estuarine habitat utilization; (c) spawning locations; and (d) shark predation across the south‐eastern United States, Gulf of Mexico and northern Caribbean Sea. These results showed that some mature tarpon make long seasonal migrations over thousands of kilometres crossing state and national jurisdictional borders. Others showed more local movements and habitat use. The tag data also revealed potential spawning locations consistent with those inferred in other studies from observations of early life stage tarpon leptocephalus larvae. Our analyses indicated that shark predation mortality on released tarpon is higher than previously estimated, especially at ocean passes, river mouths and inlets to bays. To date, there has been no formal stock assessment of Atlantic tarpon, and regional fishery management plans do not exist. Our findings will provide critical input to these important efforts and assist the multinational community in the development of a stock‐wide management information system to support informed decision‐making for sustaining Atlantic tarpon fisheries.     

抗大麦黄矮病（BYDV）种质——无芒中4的同工酶电泳图谱研究

抗大麦黄矮病的小麦--中间偃麦草部分双二倍体无芒中4（2n=56,染色体组A、B、D、E、）胚乳的乙醇脱氢酶（ADH）、β-淀粉酶（β-amy）,酯酶（EST）和叶片过氧化物酶（Per）电泳图谱表明：无芒中4的ADH酶谱中除具有双亲的酶带外,还有一条由普通小麦4B、4D和中间偃麦草4E染色体上结构基因共同编码产生的杂种带ADH-4。在酯酶电泳图谱的EST1活性区,无芒中4缺少普通小麦部分同源染色体组3上的结构基因控制产生的酶带EST1-5、6;具有中间偃麦草3E染色体上结构基因编码产生的酶带EST1-7。在EST2活性区,它还有由中间偃麦草6E染色体上结构基因控制产生的3条酶带。无芒中4有 2条色深且宽的β-amy酶带,有3条等电点pH=4.32,5.35和6.12的Per酶带,它们都源于中间偃麦草。无芒中4的这些特异带在无芒中4/普通小麦F#-1代,除EST1-5、6、7外,都呈显性效应,可作为鉴别真假杂种的生化标志。     

Intelligent diagnosis of northern corn leaf blight with deep learning model

Maize (Zea mays L.), also known as corn, is the third most cultivated crop in the world. Northern corn leaf blight (NCLB) is a globally devastating maize foliar disease caused by Setosphaeria turcica (Luttrell) Leonard and Suggs. Early intelligent diagnosis and warning is an effective and economical strategy to control this disease. Today, deep learning is beginning to play an essential role in agriculture. Notably, deep convolutional neural networks (DCNN) are amongst the most successful machine learning techniques in plant disease detection and diagnosis. Our study aims to identify NCLB in the maize-producing area in Jilin Province based on several DCNN models. We established a database of 985 leaf images of healthy and infected maize and applied data augmentation techniques including image segmentation, image resizing, image cropping, and image transformation, to expand to 30 655 images. Several proven convolutional neural networks, such as AlexNet, GoogleNet, VGG16, and VGG19, were then used to identify diseases. Based on the best performance of the DCNN pre-trained model GoogleNet, some of the recent loss functions developed for deep facial recognition tasks such as ArcFace, CosFace, and A-Softmax were applied to detect NCLB. We found that a pre-trained GoogleNet architecture with the Softmax loss function can achieve an excellent accuracy of 99.94% on NCLB diagnosis. The analysis was implemented in Python with two deep learning frameworks, Pytorch and Keras. The techniques, training, validation, and test results are presented in this paper. Overall, our study explores intelligent identification technology for NCLB and effectively diagnoses NCLB from images of maize.     

A nematicidal metabolite from Verticillium chlamydosporium

A bioassay‐directed fractionation of cultures of the fungus, Verticillium chlamydosporium, demonstrated nematicidal activity, due mainly to phomalactone. Compared with aldicarb, the lethal activity against Meloidogyne incognita was less, but its activity in suppressing root invasion was similar. The extract also contained monorden. © 2000 Society of Chemical Industry     

Perspective: root exudation of herbicides as a novel mode of herbicide resistance in weeds

The evolution of resistance to herbicides in weeds has become a great challenge for global agricultural production. Weeds have evolved resistance to herbicides through many different physiological mechanisms. Some weed species are known to secrete herbicide molecules from roots into the rhizosphere upon being treated. However, root exudation of herbicides as a mechanism of resistance has only recently been identified in two weed species. Root exudation pathways have been investigated in Arabidopsis, and this work suggested that ATP‐binding cassette (ABC) and multidrug and toxic compound extrusion (MATE) transporters play a role in the secretion of primary and secondary plant products from roots. We hypothesize that the mechanisms involved in root exudation of herbicides that result in resistance are mediated by overactive or overexpressed transporters, probably similar to those found for the exudation of primary and secondary compounds from roots. Elucidating the molecular and physiological basis of root exudation in herbicide‐resistant weeds would improve our understanding of the pathways involved in herbicide root secretion mediated by transporters in plants. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry     

Heterocyclic Insecticides Acting at the GABA-Gated Chloride Channel: 5-Alkyl-2-arylpyrimidines and -1,3-thiazines

5-tert-Butyl-2-(4-ethynylphenyl)pyrimidine and the corresponding 2,5-disubstituted-4H-1,3-thiazine block the GABA-gated chloride channel at c.20and c.200 nm , respectively, measured as 50% inhibition of the binding of 1-(4-ethynylphenyl)-4-[³H]propyl-2,6,7-trioxabicyclo[2.2.2]octane (4′-ethynyl-4-n-[³H]propylbicycloorthobenzoate; [³H]EBOB) in house fly and mouse brain membranes, and they are also toxic to topically-treated flies with LD₅₀ values of 6–27 μg g⁻¹ alone and 2–6 μg g⁻¹ with piperonyl butoxide (PB) as synergist. In the pyrimidine series, the general pattern of effectiveness of substituents in the 5-position is tert-butyl>isopropyl≈cyclohexyl≈cyclopropyl>methyl, phenyl and 3- and 4-fluorophenyl, and in the 2-position is 4-ethynylphenyl≪4-bromophenyl. These planar pyrimidines and nearly-planar 4H-1,3-thiazines with 2-ethynylphenyl or 2-bromophenyl and 5-tert-butyl or 5-isopropyl substituents are more effective than the corresponding 6H-1,3-thiazine, 6-oxo-1,3-thiazines and 4,6-dioxo-1,3-thiazine examined, but they are less active than the analogous conformationally flexible trans-1,3-dioxanes and -1,3-dithianes. The heterocyclic moiety confers a region of high electron density and positions the 2- and 5-substituents in a linear or parallel relationship for optimal affinity at the receptor. Two observations indicate that the new pyrimidines and thiazines probably act as chloride channel blockers. First, the poisoning signs are identical to those of EBOB in both mice and house flies. Second, each of the pyrimidines, thiazines and dioxanes falls on the same correlation line for inhibition of [³H]EBOB binding and toxicity to house flies (with PB) as that obtained earlier for EBOB analogs, dithianes and polychlorocycloalkanes, suggesting that they all act at the same or closely coupled binding sites in the GABA-gated chloride channel.     

Substantial advancement in aquaria rearing methods to assist recovery of an Endangered soft coral

1. The temperate soft coral Dendronephthya australis has been listed as Endangered in NSW, Australia, owing to its restricted geographic range, rapidly declining populations, and a number of escalating threats. Research to assess practical methods for aquarium cultivation of D. australis for rehabilitation of wild populations is considered a high priority.
2. Previous attempts at restoration by transplanting D. australis fragments have had limited success, but identified key challenges, which included achieving attachment to substrates and identifying appropriate foods to maximize survival.
3. This study presents the results of experiments promoting the attachment of cuttings (nubbins) removed from donor colonies to moveable substrates (small concrete discs). Using a balanced orthogonal experimental design, three feeding regimes were tested: live artemia, live rotifers and dry powdered zooplankton.
4. Donor colony survival and growth were also monitored over a 6 month period in the field.
5. An overall nubbin survival rate of 100% was achieved under all three feeding regimes. Attachment rates were similar across feeding treatments, although nubbin behavioural responses (percentage of open polyps before feeding) suggested some preference for live rotifers.
6. The cutting removal process had no significant effect on donor colonies in the wild, indicating that this is a sustainable approach for restoration.
7. Overall, this study substantially advances the methodology for maintaining an Endangered azooxanthellate soft coral in aquaria and provides valuable input for management programmes aimed at implementing transplantation into the wild to aid species recovery.