Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2009
Abstract
A range of studies the last decade have shown that modified wood can provide excellent protection against a range of wood deteriorating organisms, including decay fungi. However, we still lack information about why the modified wood is protected from microbial attack. Several hypotheses have been put forward e.g. inhibition of action of specific enzymes, but they still need testing. An understanding of the mechanisms utilized by decay fungi when exposed to modified wood is important for further optimisation of new modified wood products. In this study gene expression of the brown rot fungus Postia placenta has been monitored after 2, 4 and 8 weeks of colonization in furfurylated Scots pine and control samples. Preliminary results are given. The main finding was that genes related to oxidative metabolic activity was higher in furfurylated wood compared to untreated Scots pine, and that carbohydrate metabolism related expression was lower in furfurylated wood compared to untreated control.
Abstract
There is a need to establish new objective and sensitive methods for early detection and quantification of decay fungi in wood materials. Molecular methods have proven to be a useful tool within wood protection issues, however, this field is still poorly explored and so far relatively few have used these methods within the field of wood deterioration. Among the techniques used in the indirect quantification of fungi in decayed wood and building material are chitin and ergosterol assays. DNA-based methods are rarely used for identification in connection with quantification. Access to knowledge about fungal colonisation paterns in different wood substrates would allow further improvement of new products. The aim of this study was to investigate the colonisation pattern of decay fungi in wood samples after six years in soil exposure, in an EN252 test.....
Abstract
Tree and understorey fine root growth and longevity was determined by minirhizotrone research in northern Finland. The study was made in a 70-year-old Norway spruce stand, growing on a mesic mineral soil site in the Kivalo experimental forest. Three replicate plots were established, and three vertical minirhizotron tubes installed in June 2003 in soil of each of the three plots. The images were taken at monthly intervals (altogether 11 sessions) during the growing seasons 2004, 2005 and 2006. The lengths, diameters and status (new, living, dead, disappeared) of Norway spruce and understorey (mainly shrub) fine roots were recorded. Our data indicates that there were more new roots growing in the upper soil depths (the organic layer) than in the lower soil depths (mineral soil). Roots in the organic layer, however, elongated less than roots in the upper mineral soil. The growth rate was highest in late summer and early autumn. Regarding root longevity, both trees and understorey showed the same trends by root order and soil depth; the average longevity was 14-16 months. The time from death to disappearance was 6-8 months for trees and 2-7 months for understorey. Furthermore, monthly trends of new roots born versus their death and/or disappearance by soil depth are also presented.
Abstract
Minirhizotrons, transparent acrylic tubes inserted in the soil, are well suited for long term, non destructive, in situ observations of fine roots. In minirhizotrons, the fine roots are regularly photographed and the root images are visually evaluated according to their status as living, dead or disappeared. This evaluation gives the background for further statistical treatment to estimate the fine root longevity. It is inherent in the minirhizotron technique that a large group of roots will be described as “disappeared” due to grazing, overgrowing by other roots, unclear images or other reasons. Because the fraction of disappeared roots is substantial in some cases, this has consequences for the interpretation of the longevity results. We processed three years of minirhizotron images from Norway spruce stands in southeast Norway (30 yr old) and northern Finland (60 yr old). Of all processed fine roots 32 and 23% was evaluated as disappeared in Norway and Finland, respectively. When roots labelled as disappeared were pooled together with dead ones, the fine root longevity estimates, using the Kaplan Meier method, decreased almost by a factor of two (401 and 433 days), as opposed to labeling them as censored observations (770 and 750 days for Norway and Finland, respectively). Here we demonstrate how the early decision making on the fine root status bears consequences on the resulting longevity estimates. The implications will be discussed
Abstract
The soil is considered to be the major Carbon (C) sink in boreal forests, thus determination of soil carbon fluxes is essential for reliable C budgets. Especially partitioning of soil and root respiration is a major challenge. Soil respiration (Rs) consists of autotrophic respiration (Ra, respiration of plant roots and of microorganisms living on root-derived organic C in the rhizosphere) and heterotrophic respiration (Rh, respiration of free-living microorganisms during their decomposition of soil organic matter. In our study we attempted to estimate the contribution of roots to soil respiration by a girdling experiment. The study was established in two Norway spruce (Picea abies) stands, 35 and 65 year old, at Nordmoen, southeast Norway. Four quadratic plots (21m x 21m) were chosen within each of the two stands in spring 2006 and within two plots all trees were girdled. To estimate the contribution of root respiration, we measured CO2 efflux within each plot with a PP EGM-4 gas monitor for CO2, at permanently marked spots during two years (2006 and 2007). In the youngest stand in 2006, Rs in the control plots was higher than in the girdled plots at all measurement occasions. During this period, the mean Rs in the girdled plots was 64.9 % of the mean Rs in the control plots. In 2007, the Rs was highest in the girdled plots on most occasions, but the difference was never significant. In the oldest stand, Rs was also highest in the control plots in 2006 and highest in the girdled stand in most cases in 2007, but the difference was never significant. The implications will be discussed.
Authors
Nadeem Yaqoob Igor A. Yakovlev Paal Krokene Harald Kvaalen Halvor Solheim Carl Gunnar FossdalAbstract
Clonal variation towards resistance has been observed in Norway spruce Heterobasidion annosum s.l. (H.a). H.a. is the main cause of root rot and has a severe economic impact on an economically important conifer tree species. Annual financial losses are in the hundreds of millions of Euros annually. Less susceptible clones appear to have an efficient system of recognizing the pathogen and initiating early defense signalling events. Active defense responses can be started locally and transmitted systemically. This work focus on the expression both spatially (systemically) and temporally in this pathosystem. Two-year-old, somatic saplings of the Norway spruce clone were challenged with H.a., wounded, methyl jasmonate painted and compared to untreated controls and ninety plants were used for the experiment. Stem samples were collected at 1, 3, 6 and 13 days post inoculation (d.p.i). The stem of the saplings were divided into sections along its length and the bark and wood separated from each other at time of collection. In order to see local response an area of 1cm including the site of inoculation was collected, while the spatial (systemic) response was assessed in sections collected at distances of 3 and 6cm away from the site of inoculation. The separated bark and wood were analysed for differential gene expression by qRT-PCR, and the results from peroxidases (PaPX3 and PaPX2) and a chitinase (PaChi4) are presented. Both local and systemic up- and down-regulation were observed at the transcriptional level in both bark and wood, up to 2000 fold local increase in expression was observed for PaChi4.
Authors
Øystein Johnsen Igor A. Yakovlev Carl Gunnar FossdalAbstract
Temperature during zygotic and somatic embryogenesis regulates an epigenetic memory in Picea abies. Conditions colder than normal advance the timing of bud burst and bud set, whilst temperatures above normal delay the onset of these processes. The long-lasting memory affects growth and hardiness in the field. We made a search of candidate genes and micro RNAs that could regulate the memory, using specialized library sequencing approaches. Two subtracted cDNA libraries, representing genes that are mainly expressed in plants from a cold (CE) or a warm (WE) embryogenesis, revealed considerable differences in the transcriptomes. Many contigs were unknown. We used qRT-PCR to demonstrate that five genes with no matching in the database were differentially expressed in close correlation with the memory-induced differences in bud set. Partial sequencing of two concatemerized small RNA libraries revealed 199 different small RNAs, with predominant length of 21-nt. We found 24 novel candidate miRNAs among them, and 4 described earlier. Most of the predicted miRNA targets were related to unknown and “no-hit” genes, 5 target different disease-related genes, and 4 contigs were homologous to described functional genes. Using qRT-PCR we confirmed that three selected genes regulated by miRNAs pab-miR100, 175 and 176, could to be involved in the memory regulation. Additionally, several novel miRNAs; pab-miR080, 105, 119, 122, 132, 144a,b and 157 were differentially expressed between epigenetically distinct plants. Our data illustrates that micro RNAs will guide us to candidate genes that are putative elements in the epigenetic machinery, regulating the long-lasting memory that affects adaptive traits in this species.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
Two mature clones of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) shown to have different level of resistance towards inoculation of Heterobasidion parviporum were compared with respect to spatiotemporal expression of transcripts related to biosynthesis of lignin, stilbenes and other phenolic compounds in response to fungal inoculation and physical wounding. Both clones responded to H. parviporum and physical wounding at transcriptional and chemical levels. Taxifolin, detected in the resistant clone only, increased in concentration following both wounding and inoculation. Concentrations of stilbenoid glucosides were highest in the susceptible clone. Following wounding or inoculation, concentrations of these glucosides increased in the susceptible clone, and quantities of their corresponding aglycones increased dramatically in both clones close to the treatment point. Significant changes in transcription were detected over the entire lesion length for all transcripts, and only the changes in a few transcripts indicated a response to inoculation with H. parviporum differing from that caused by wounding alone. The resistant clone had higher basal concentrations of lignin (LTGA) compared to the susceptible clone; concentrations increased in both clones after wounding and wounding plus inoculation treatments, but remained consistently higher in the resistant clone, suggesting higher lignin levels in the cell walls compared to the susceptible clone. In addition, the transcript level in the same clones was also measured the following year and we saw indications of primed defences for a number of gene products likely resulting from the inoculations performed 12 months prior.
Authors
Nadeem Yaqoob Jan Karlsson Benedicte Riber Albrectsen Halvor Solheim Carl Gunnar FossdalAbstract
In natural conditions plants are continuously exposed to number of pathogens both biotrophs and necrotrophs. To understand their defense response at the transcript level two clones C72 and C23 with differential level of resistance from the SwAsp collection were inoculated with a biotroph (Melampsora magnusiana Wagnar) and necrotroph (Ceratocysis spp.) and compared to wounded and healthy controls. Samples were collected in leaves and areas some distance away from the inoculation site to examine the long distance (systemic) defense responses at day, day3 and day14 post treatments. We performed microarray experiments on the necrotrophic and biothrophic interaction compared with the healthy controls and found that the two clones respond in widely different fashions to the treatments applied. Clone C23 showed almost no response to biotroph and necrotroph inoculations after 24 hours while clone 72 gave a clear defense response to both pathogens. We are now in the process of verifying these results and looking at additional time-points using qRT-PCR.