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.
2018
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Degradation of organic chemicals in natural soils depends on oxidation-reduction conditions. To protect our groundwater resources we need to understand the degradation processes under anaerobic conditions. Available iron and manganese oxides are used as electron acceptors for anaerobic degradation and are reduced to the dissolved form of metallic cations in pore water. To monitor this process is a challenge, because anaerobic conditions are difficult to sample directly without introducing oxygen. A few studies have shown an impact of iron reduction on spectral induced polarisation (SIP) signature, often associated with bacterial growth. Our objective is to study the impact of iron and manganese oxide dissolution, caused by degradation of an organic compound, with spectral induced polarisation signatures. Twenty-six vertical columns (30 cm high, inner diameter 4.6 cm) were filled with a sand rich in oxides (manganese and iron) with a static water table in the middle. In half of the columns, a 2 cm high contaminated layer was installed just above the water table. As the contaminant degrades, the initial oxygen is consumed and anaerobic conditions form Every three days over a period of one month, spectral induced polarisation (twenty frequencies between 5mHz and 10 kHz) data were collected on six columns: three contaminated replicates and three control replicates. Chemical analysis was done on twenty columns assigned for destructive water sampling, ten contaminated columns and ten control. The results show an increase of the real conductivity associated with the degradation processes, independent of frequency. Compared with the pore water electrical conductivity in the saturated zone, the real conductivity measurement revealed the formation of surface conductivity before iron was released in the pore water. In parallel, we also observed an evolution of the imaginary conductivity in both saturated and unsaturated zones at frequencies below 1 Hz. Overall, the anaerobic reduction of iron and manganese oxide during the organic degradation increased both the conductive and polarisation component of the complex conductivity.
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We describe Arge bella Wei & Du sp. nov., a large and beautiful species of Argidae from south China, and report its mitochondrial genome based on high-throughput sequencing data. We present the gene order, nucleotide composition of proteincoding genes (PCGs), and the secondary structures of RNA genes. The nearly complete mitochondrial genome of A. bella has a length of 15,576 bp and a typical set of 37 genes (22 tRNAs, 13 PCGs, and 2 rRNAs). Three tRNAs are rearranged in the A. bella mitochondrial genome as compared to the ancestral type in insects: trnM and trnQ are shuffled, while trnW is translocated from the trnW -trnC-trnY cluster to a location downstream of trnI. All PCGs are initiated by ATN codons, and terminated with TAA, TA or T as stop codons. All tRNAs have a typical cloverleaf secondary structure, except for trnS1. H821 of rrnS and H976 of rrnL are redundant. A phylogenetic analysis based on mitochondrial genome sequences of A. bella, 21 other symphytan species, two apocritan representatives, and four outgroup taxa supports the placement of Argidae as sister to the Pergidae within the symphytan superfamily Tenthredinoidea.
Authors
Victor Phani Vishal S. Somvanshi Rohit N. Shukla Keith Davies Uma RaoAbstract
Background: Southern root-knot nematode Meloidogyne incognita (Kofoid and White, 1919), Chitwood, 1949 is a key pest of agricultural crops. Pasteuria penetrans is a hyperparasitic bacterium capable of suppressing the nematode reproduction, and represents a typical coevolved pathogen-hyperparasite system. Attachment of Pasteuria endospores to the cuticle of second-stage nematode juveniles is the first and pivotal step in the bacterial infection. RNA-Seq was used to understand the early transcriptional response of the root-knot nematode at 8 h post Pasteuria endospore attachment. Results: A total of 52,485 transcripts were assembled from the high quality (HQ) reads, out of which 582 transcripts were found differentially expressed in the Pasteuria endospore encumbered J2 s, of which 229 were up-regulated and 353 were down-regulated. Pasteuria infection caused a suppression of the protein synthesis machinery of the nematode. Several of the differentially expressed transcripts were putatively involved in nematode innate immunity, signaling, stress responses, endospore attachment process and post-attachment behavioral modification of the juveniles. The expression profiles of fifteen selected transcripts were validated to be true by the qRT PCR. RNAi based silencing of transcripts coding for fructose bisphosphate aldolase and glucosyl transferase caused a reduction in endospore attachment as compared to the controls, whereas, silencing of aspartic protease and ubiquitin coding transcripts resulted in higher incidence of endospore attachment on the nematode cuticle. Conclusions: Here we provide evidence of an early transcriptional response by the nematode upon infection by Pasteuria prior to root invasion. We found that adhesion of Pasteuria endospores to the cuticle induced a downregulated protein response in the nematode. In addition, we show that fructose bisphosphate aldolase, glucosyl transferase, aspartic protease and ubiquitin coding transcripts are involved in modulating the endospore attachment on the nematode cuticle. Our results add new and significant information to the existing knowledge on early molecular interaction between M. incognita and P. penetrans.
Authors
Øyvind Kaste Eva Skarbøvik Inga Greipsland Cathrine Brecke Gundersen Kari Austnes Liv Bente Skancke Jose-Luis Guerrero James Edward SampleAbstract
Project manager Hans Fredrik Veiteberg Braaten
Authors
Ivan N. Bolotov Alexander A. Makhrov Mikhail Yu. Gofarov Olga V. Aksenova Paul Eric Aspholm Yulia V. Bespalaya Mikhail B. Kabakov Yulia S. Kolosova Alexander V. Kondakov Thomas Ofenböck Andrew N. Ostrovsky Igor Yu. Popov Ted von Proschwitz Mudite Rudzite Maris Rudzitis Svetlana E. Sokolova Ilmari Valovirta Ilya V. Vikhrev Maxim V. Vinarski Alexey A. ZotinAbstract
The effects of climate change on oligotrophic rivers and their communities are almost unknown, albeit these ecosystems are the primary habitat of the critically endangered freshwater pearl mussel and its host fishes, salmonids. The distribution and abundance of pearl mussels have drastically decreased throughout Europe over the last century, particularly within the southern part of the range, but causes of this wide-scale extinction process are unclear. Here we estimate the effects of climate change on pearl mussels based on historical and recent samples from 50 rivers and 6 countries across Europe. We found that the shell convexity may be considered an indicator of the thermal effects on pearl mussel populations under warming climate because it reflects shifts in summer temperatures and is significantly different in viable and declining populations. Spatial and temporal modeling of the relationship between shell convexity and population status show that global climate change could have accelerated the population decline of pearl mussels over the last 100 years through rapidly decreasing suitable distribution areas. Simulation predicts future warming-induced range reduction, particularly in southern regions. These results highlight the importance of large-scale studies of keystone species, which can underscore the hidden effects of climate warming on freshwater ecosystems.
Authors
Francesca Giampieri Sadia Afrin Derek Stewart Gordon J. McDougall Rex Brennan Lesley Blyth Massimiliano Gasparrini Luca Mazzoni Franco Capocasa José Miguel Alvarez-Suarez Stefano Bompadre Pedro Nogueira Brás de Oliveira Claudia N. Santos Manuel Masias Pablo Agudo Jorge Crespo Bruno Mezzetti Tamara Y. Forbes-Hernández Maurizio BattinoAbstract
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No abstract has been registered
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The long history of human land use have had a strong influence on ecosystems and landscapes in the boreal forest region of Northern Europe and created semi-natural habitats of high conservation value. In this study, we quantify land-cover change and loss of semi-natural grassland in an agricultural landscape (6.2 km2 ) in the boreal region of Norway from 1960 to 2015, and document a 49.1% loss of area that was seminatural grassland in 1960. The remaining semi-natural grasslands became smaller and the connectivity between them decreased. Intensification and abandonment of agricultural land use were of approximately equal importance for the loss of semi-natural grassland although the relative contribution of these processes depended on the topography and distance to farmsteads. The study provides an example of how change in land cover can be estimated and key drivers identified on a scale that is relevant for implementation of management and conservation measures.