The Creative Economies of Texas Metropolitan Regions: A Comparative Analysis Before,During, and After the Recession

With the exception of Austin, metropolitan regions in Texas are not commonly included in research and analysis concerning creative economies—attention is largely focused on either the traditional capitals of creative production, New York and Los Angeles, or emerging, secondary regions such as Austin and Seattle, Washington. This article utilizes an industrial approach to examine the creative economies of the four most populous metropolitan regions of Texas—Austin, Dallas‐Ft. Worth, Houston, and San Antonio—and detail their scale, scope, and change between 2005 and 2015. Results help establish the creative economies of the Dallas‐Ft. Worth, Houston, and San Antonio metropolitan regions in the existing stream of creative research and discussion, offer further perspective on the dynamics and strength of the Austin region's creative economy, and provide insight into how regional creative economies emerge in rapidly urbanizing regions during the digital era. Additionally, special attention is paid to how these four creative economies transformed during the recessionary period from 2007 to 2009. Results of that attention build on prior research which points to the recession having a varied influence on creative economies depending on trends in the broader regional economies that house them.     

Exploiting Knowledge of Pathogen Effectors to Enhance Late Blight Resistance in Potato

Late blight disease of potato, caused by Phytophthora infestans, is the most serious disease of this crop on a global scale and is thus a threat to food security. Use of resistant potato cultivars to prevent late blight does not have a very successful history, as P. infestans genotypes have overcome the deployed resistances. Thus, there is a need to identify more durable resistances, or identify and develop novel forms of resistance that exploit vulnerabilities in the biology of P. infestans. Application of molecular biology tools in P. infestans research has recently culminated in the identification of several avirulence effectors matching specific resistances in potato, the sequencing of the P. infestans genome and identification of hundreds of candidate translocated pathogen ‘RXLR’ effector proteins that may promote disease progression. Strategies for prioritising these effectors for further research are revealing those that are highly expressed during infection, difficult for the pathogen to alter rapidly, essential for P. infestans pathogenesis and recognized by resistant accessions of Solanum spp. These effector characteristics are being used to identify and characterise resistances from Solanum germplasm that may prove more durable. In addition to RXLR effectors, P. infestans also produces a broad spectrum of additional secreted proteins. These are exposed to plant cells and may potentially act to trigger resistance, either as broad spectrum pathogen-associated molecular patterns or as specific effectors of resistance. Alternatively, conserved secreted proteins may be attractive targets for novel agrichemical development. We have silenced a diverse selection of these candidate secreted proteins in P. infestans and demonstrated their effects on late blight disease development. Results from these studies are aiding a deeper understanding of P. infestans disease development and identifying potential pathogen weaknesses for exploitation in future control measures.     

Phylogenetic and pathogenicity evaluation of the marasmioid fungus Marasmius palmivorus causing fruit bunch rot disease of oil palm

Marasmius palmivorus is a marasmioid fungal species that exhibits parasitic behaviour, although most marasmioids are rarely parasitic. The fungus has been reported to cause fruit bunch rot disease of oil palm and coconut, but only a few studies on its pathogenic behaviour are available, particularly on oil palm. Hence, there is a need to assess the ability of the fungus to act as a pathogen and to study its molecular evolution and taxonomy. Nine isolates of M. palmivorus were successfully isolated from basidiocarps and diseased fruitlets of oil palm collected from oil palm plantations and were morphologically characterized on potato dextrose agar (PDA) followed by molecular identification based on nucleotide sequence alignments of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene clusters with sequences from GenBank. Koch's Postulates confirmed that M. palmivorus could infect oil palm fruitlets with symptoms similar to those observed for bunch rot disease. Molecular phylogenetic studies using nucleotide sequences of ITS and the nuclear ribosomal large subunit (nLSU) showed that isolates sharing the same phenotypic characteristics of Marasmius palmivorus and Marasmiellus palmivorus are monophyletic and share a common ancestor. The fungus has also been shown to be more closely related to the genus Marasmius than Marasmiellus; therefore, we support retention of the taxon name of the pathogen causing bunch rot disease of oil palm as Marasmius palmivorus.     

Seasonal variation in venison quality of mature, farmed red deer stags in New Zealand.

Two studies involving 20 red deer (Cervus elaphus) stags were conducted to determine the effects of season on venison quality. In each study, five sexually mature red deer stags were slaughtered immediately preceding the rut (autumn) and five were slaughtered after the rut. Stags slaughtered postrut had lower carcass weights (25 to 30%) than those slaughtered prerut. Average bodywall thickness measurements above the 12th rib (an indicator of fat thickness) were approximately 31 mm prerut compared with 3 to 7 mm postrut. Individual muscles and retail cuts (which included subcutaneous and intermuscular fat) were heavier in prerut carcasses. There were significant decreases in intramuscular fat in both the longissimus muscle and the semimembranosus muscle. Postrut longissimus muscle steaks appeared brighter and(or) fresher than the other groups; color acceptability was negatively correlated (P less than .05) with fat content. Prerut streaks from both muscles were more tender than postrut steaks from those muscles. Overall desirability and tenderness were highly correlated (r = .94 and .82 for longissimus muscle and semimembranosus muscle, respectively).     

Bermudagrass management in the Southern Piedmont USA. V: Gastrointestinal parasite control in cattle

Parasite-free pastures would improve cattle health and performance, resulting in possible economic return to producers. Our objective was to determine the effect of a single series of anthelmintic treatment of steers prior to stocking on Coastal bermudagrass pastures, during five consecutive summers, on the parasite burden in cattle. The site for this experiment had been conventionally cropped for several decades, with no exposure to cattle, and would be expected to be relatively free of nematode larvae. The experimental design was a randomized complete block (landscape features) with a split plot arrangement of treatments where main plots were pasture fertilization treatments (mineral, clover plus mineral, and broiler litter) and split plots were low and high forage mass. Anthelmintic treatment included pour-on ivermectin on day -21, albendazole on day -7, and injectable ivermectin 48 h prior to stocking of pastures, with the cattle remaining in drylot during the 48-h period prior to being placed on the experimental paddocks. All steers received only one series of treatments during any given year. Yearling Angus steers (Bos taurus) were managed in a put-and-take grazing system with three "tester" steers assigned to each paddock and "grazer" steers added or removed at 28-day intervals. From 1994 to 1998, steers grazed the paddocks for a 140-day period from mid May until early October each year. Fecal samples for worm egg counts were obtained on day 0 and at 28-day intervals, thereafter. On all sampling days after day 0, samples were obtained only from tester animals. Over the 5-year period, the mean eggs per gram of feces (epg) gradually increased from 0 (following treatment) to a mean of 2.2 (range from 0.7 to 3.0) by the end of the grazing season (the last sampling date) in October. Although the epg were not zero, they were below threshold levels that would allow development of a parasite burden in cattle. In traditional management systems, cattle graze parasite-contaminated pastures; therefore, parasites negatively impact growth and productivity throughout the entire grazing period. Periodic anthelmintic treatments simply give a temporary reprieve from those parasitic infections. Conceptually, using the current grazing system, it should be possible to maintain these pastures in a parasite-free status indefinitely; however, from a drug resistance perspective, it would be most applicable in sod-based rotation systems where cattle graze from two to five years before land is returned to row-crops. By removing the effect of parasites, cattle can grow without the physiological constraints that gastrointestinal parasites place on appetite, digestion, nutrient utilization, and general well being.     

Genetic diversity and differentiation in Ethiopian populations of Phytolacca dodecandra as revealed by AFLP and RAPD analyses

Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analyses were performed on six populations (a total of 89 individuals) of Phytolacca dodecandra (endod) collected in Ethiopia. The populations were selected based on our previous investigation to represent two altitude groups: lowland/central-highland (1600–2500 m) and highland (2501–3000 m). A total of 197 AFLP and 68 RAPD markers were scored from 5 primer pairs and 12 random primers, respectively. The overall patterns obtained for AFLPs and RAPDs from diversity, cluster and principal component analyses were very comparable. However, the moderate correlation (r = 0.56) between AFLP and RAPD similarity matrices as well as the discrepancies in diversity estimates between the two techniques in some populations and in the lowland/central-highland plants could be due to differences in sensitivity of reaction conditions, bias in scoring of bands, number of markers used for analyses, and/or parts of the genome surveyed. For both AFLP and RAPD, the lowland/central-highland populations showed higher polymorphism and Shannon information measure (H) than the highlands. Cluster and principal component analyses performed for both marker types have also clearly demonstrated the differentiation of all the lowland/central highland plants from those of the highlands, in agreement with our previous conclusion. Markers scored from any of the five AFLP primer pairs were sufficient to clearly distinguish the two altitude groups; with RAPD, selection of about 8 informative markers produced by seven random primers was needed for the same purpose.     

Behavior of steers grazing monocultures and binary mixtures of alfalfa and tall fescue.

Spectral analysis was used to relate dietary quality and herbage species to the behavior of grazing steers. Four .3-ha paddocks were established with either 'AU-Triumph' tall fescue (F; Festuca arundinacea Schreb.), 'Apollo' alfalfa (A; Medicago sativa L.), 1/3 fescue and 2/3 alfalfa (2/3A), or 2/3 fescue and 1/3 alfalfa (1/3A). Each paddock was stocked with 10 to 16 steers and defoliated in 5 d. Three steers on each paddock carried vibracorders to monitor grazing time. Daily forage samples were taken in 10-cm layers and weighed. Esophageal extrusa were collected from fistulated steers to measure diet quality. Daily grazing time did not differ (P = .37) among treatments; however, steers grazing mixtures grazed numerically longer (1.4 h/d) than steers on monocultures. Spectral analysis revealed that steers grazing A and 2/3A had many daily meals of short duration, but steers grazing 1/3A and F consumed three meals daily at 8-h intervals. Throughout the 4.67-d grazing period, quality of the diet linearly declined in crude protein and herbage digestibility, linearly increased in neutral detergent fiber and cellulose, and exhibited quadratic changes in lignin and ash. For most quality values, the tall fescue monoculture differed from the others (P < .05). Steers selected diets with similar quality for the A, 2/3A, and 1/3A treatments. This study illustrates how differences in forage diets alter grazing behavior of steers.     

Headspace solid‐phase microextraction gas chromatography–mass spectrometry for the detection of volatile organic compounds released from Ganoderma boninense and oil palm wood

Basal stem rot disease caused by the white‐rot fungus Ganoderma boninense is a major threat to the oil palm industry, and hence, the ability to detect infections at an early stage of development is desired. In this study, a headspace solid‐phase microextraction (HS‐SPME) method coupled with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC‐MS) was employed to analyse the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released from G. boninense cultures and infected oil palm wood. We examined VOCs released from three types of samples: G. boninense mycelium, oil palm wood and oil palm wood colonized by G. boninense. This preliminary study led to the tentative identification of 57 VOCs, including alcohols, alkanes, volatile acids, ketones, aldehydes, esters, sesquiterpenes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon groups. Aliphatic compounds with eight‐carbon atoms, such as 1‐octen‐3‐ol, 3‐octanone, 1‐octanol and (E)‐2‐octenal, were the most abundant constituents of the Ganoderma samples, whereas furfural and hexanal were the major compounds detected in the oil palm wood samples. Chemometric analyses using cluster heat maps and principal component analyses were used to discriminate between the VOC profiles. The results indicated that the novel method described here could be used to detect Ganoderma disease and, more generally, for chemoecological studies of plant–pathogen interactions.