Association study of resistance to Soilborne wheat mosaic virus in U.S. winter wheat

Soilborne wheat mosaic virus (SBWMV) is one of the most important winter wheat pathogens worldwide. To identify genes for resistance to the virus in U.S. winter wheat, association study was conducted using a selected panel of 205 elite experimental lines and cultivars from U.S. hard and soft winter wheat breeding programs. Virus symptoms were evaluated twice in virus-infected fields for the panel at Manhattan, KS in spring 2010 and 2011 and for a subpanel of 137 hard winter wheat accessions at Stillwater, OK in spring 2008. At the two locations, 69.8 and 79.5% of cultivars were resistant or moderately resistant to the disease, respectively. After 282 simple-sequence repeat markers covering all wheat chromosome arms were scanned for association in the panel, marker Xgwm469 on the long arm of chromosome 5D (5DL) showed a significant association with the disease rating. Three alleles (Xgwm469-165bp, -167bp, and -169bp) were associated with resistance and the null allele was associated with susceptibility. Correlations between the marker and the disease rating were highly significant (0.80 in Manhattan at P < 0.0001 and 0.63 in Stillwater at P < 0.0001). The alleles Xgwm469-165bp and Xgwm469-169bp were present mainly in the hard winter wheat group, whereas allele Xgwm469-167bp was predominant in the soft winter wheat. The 169 bp allele can be traced back to 'Newton', and the 165 bp allele to Aegilops tauschii. In addition, a novel locus on the short arm of chromosome 4D (4DS) was also identified to associate with the disease rating. Marker Xgwm469-5DL is closely linked to SBWMV resistance and highly polymorphic across the winter wheat accessions sampled in the study and, thus, should be useful in marker-assisted selection in U.S. winter wheat.

A multi-proxy approach for revealing recent climatic changes in the Russian Altai

For the first time we present a multi-proxy data set for the Russian Altai, consisting of Siberian larch tree-ring width (TRW), latewood density (MXD), δ13C and δ18O in cellulose chronologies obtained for the period 1779–2007 and cell wall thickness (CWT) for 1900–2008. All of these parameters agree well between each other in the high-frequency variability, while the low-frequency climate information shows systematic differences. The correlation analysis with temperature and precipitation data from the closest weather station and gridded data revealed that annual TRW, MXD, CWT, and δ13C data contain a strong summer temperature signal, while δ18O in cellulose represents a mixed summer and winter temperature and precipitation signal. The temperature and precipitation reconstructions from the Belukha ice core and Teletskoe lake sediments were used to investigate the correspondence of different independent proxies. Low frequency patterns in TRW and δ13C chronologies are consistent with temperature reconstructions from nearby Belukha ice core and Teletskoe lake sediments showing a pronounced warming trend in the last century. Their combination could be used for the regional temperature reconstruction. The long-term δ18O trend agrees with the precipitation reconstruction from the Teletskoe lake sediment indicating more humid conditions during the twentieth century. Therefore, these two proxies could be combined for the precipitation reconstruction.

No adverse effect of genetically modified antifungal wheat on decomposition dynamics and the soil fauna community - a field study

The cultivation of genetically modified (GM) plants has raised several environmental concerns. One of these concerns regards non-target soil fauna organisms, which play an important role in the decomposition of organic matter and hence are largely exposed to GM plant residues. Soil fauna may be directly affected by transgene products or indirectly by pleiotropic effects such as a modified plant metabolism. Thus, ecosystem services and functioning might be affected negatively. In a litterbag experiment in the field we analysed the decomposition process and the soil fauna community involved. Therefore, we used four experimental GM wheat varieties, two with a race-specific antifungal resistance against powdery mildew (Pm3b) and two with an unspecific antifungal resistance based on the expression of chitinase and glucanase. We compared them with two non-GM isolines and six conventional cereal varieties. To elucidate the mechanisms that cause differences in plant decomposition, structural plant components (i.e. C:N ratio, lignin, cellulose, hemicellulose) were examined and soil properties, temperature and precipitation were monitored. The most frequent taxa extracted from decaying plant material were mites (Cryptostigmata, Gamasina and Uropodina), springtails (Isotomidae), annelids (Enchytraeidae) and Diptera (Cecidomyiidae larvae). Despite a single significant transgenic/month interaction for Cecidomyiidae larvae, which is probably random, we detected no impact of the GM wheat on the soil fauna community. However, soil fauna differences among conventional cereal varieties were more pronounced than between GM and non-GM wheat. While leaf residue decomposition in GM and non-GM wheat was similar, differences among conventional cereals were evident. Furthermore, sampling date and location were found to greatly influence soil fauna community and decomposition processes. The results give no indication of ecologically relevant adverse effects of antifungal GM wheat on the composition and the activity of the soil fauna community.

Eugene Onegin As A Bridge Between Worlds: Aleksandr Pushkin As Translator Of The 19Th-Century Russian Experience

In my thesis, I use literary criticism, knowledge of Russian, and elements of translation theory to study the seminal poet of the Russian literary tradition ¿ Aleksandr Pushkin. In his most famous work, Eugene Onegin, Pushkin explores the cultural and linguistic divide in place at the turn of the 19th century in Russia. Pushkin stands on the peripheries of several colliding worlds; never fully committing to any of them, he acts as a translator between various realms of the 19th-century Russian experience. Through his narrator, he adeptly occupies the voices, styles, and modes of expression of various characters, displaying competency in all realms of Russian life. In examining Tatiana, his heroine, the reader witnesses her development as analogous to the author¿s. At the center of the text stands the act of translation itself: as the narrator ¿translates¿ Tatiana¿s love letter from French to Russian, the author-narrator declares his function as a mediator, not only between languages, but also between cultures, literary canons, social classes, and identities. Tatiana, as both main character and the narrator¿s muse, emerges as the most complex figure in the novel, and her language manifests itself as the most direct and capable of sincerity in the novel. The elements of Russian folklore that are incorporated into her language speak to Pushkin¿s appreciation for the rich Russian folklore tradition. In his exaltation of language considered to be ¿common¿, ¿low¿ speech is juxtaposed with its lofty counterpart; along the way, he incorporates myriad foreign borrowings. An active creator of Russia¿s new literary language, Pushkin traverses linguistic boundaries to synthesize a fragmented Russia. In the process, he creates a work so thoroughly tied to language and entrenched in complex cultural traditions that many scholars have argued for its untranslatability.

Interethnic Interaction Dynamics in the Russian Federation

The collapse of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s also meant the end of the idea of a common soviet identity incarnated in the "soviet man" and the new "historic community of the soviet people". While this idea still lives on in the generations of the 1920s to 1940s, the younger generations tend to prefer identification with family, profession, ethnic group or religion. Ms. Alexakhina set out to investigate different interethnic interaction strategies in the multi-ethnic context of the Russian Federation, with an emphasis on analysing the role of cultural and ethno-demographic characteristics of minority ethnic groups. It aimed to identify those specific patterns of interaction dynamics that have emerged in response to the political and economic transformation at present under way. The basic supposition was that the size and growth of an ethnic population are defined not only by demographic features such as fertility, mortality and net migration, but are also dependent on processes interethnic interaction and ethnic transition. The central hypothesis of the project was that the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural composition of Russia is apparently manifesting itself in the ethnic minority groups in various forms, but particularly in the form of ethnic revival and/or assimilation. The results of these complex phenomena are manifested as changes in ethnic attachments (national re-identification and language behaviour (multi-lingualism, language transition and loss of the mother tongue). The stress of the political and economic crisis has stimulated significant changes in ethnographic, social and cultural characteristics of inter-ethnic dynamics such as the rate of national re-identification, language behaviour, migration activity and the spread of mixed marriages, among both those minorities with a long history of settlement in Russia and those that were annexed during the soviet period. Patterns of language behaviour and the spread of mixed marriages were taken as the main indicators of the directions of interethnic interaction described as assimilation, ethnic revival and cultural pluralism. The first stage of the research involved a statistical analysis of census data from 1959 to 1994 in order to analyse the changing demographic composition of the largest ethnic groups of the Russian Federation. Until 1989 interethnic interaction in soviet society was distinguished by the process of russification but the political and economic transformation has stimulated the process of ethnic revival, leading to an apparent fall in the size of the Russian population due to ethnic re-identification by members of other ethnic groups who had previously identified themselves as Russian. Cross-classification of nationalities by demographic, social and cultural indicators has shown that the most important determinants of the nature of interethnic interaction are cultural factors such as religion and language affiliation. The analysis of the dynamics of language shift through the study of bilingualism and the domains of language usage for different demographic groups revealed a strong correlation between recognition of Russian as a mother tongue among some non-Russian ethnic groups and the declining size of these groups. The main conclusion from this macro-analysis of census data was the hypothesis of the growing importance of social and political factors upon ethnic succession, that ethnic identity is no longer a stable characteristic but has become dynamic in nature. In order to verify this hypothesis Ms. Alexakhina conducted a survey in four regions showing different patterns of interethnic interaction: the Karelian Republic, Buryatiya, the Nenezkii Autonomous Region and Tatarstan. These represented the west, east, north and south of the Russian Federation. Samples for the survey were prepared on the basis of census lists so as to exclude mono-Russian families in favour of mixed and ethnic-minority families. The survey confirmed the significant growth in the importance of ethnic affiliation in the everyday lives of people in the Federation following the de-centralisation of the political and economic spheres. Language was shown to be a key symbol of the consciousness of national distinction, confirmed by the fact that the process of russification has been reversed by the active mastering of the languages of titular nationalities. The results also confirmed that individual ethnic identity has ceased to be a fixed personal characteristic of one's cultural and genetic belonging, and people's social adaptation to the current political, social and economic conditions is also demonstrated in changes in individual ethnic self-identification. In general terms, the dynamic nature of national identity means that ethnic identity is at present acquiring the special features of overall social identity, for which the frequent change of priorities is an inherent feature of a person's life cycle. These are mainly linked with a multi-ethnic environment and high individual social mobility. From her results Ms. Alexakhina concludes that the development of national languages and multi-lingualism, together with the preservation of Russian as a state language, seems to be the most promising path to peaceful coexistence and the development of the national cultures of different ethnic groups within the Russian Federation.