Cool-season turfgrass color and growth calibrated to leaf nitrogen

Tissue N analysis a tool available for N management of turfgrass. However, peer-reviewed calibration studies to determine optimum tissue N values are lacking. A field experiment with a mixed cool-season species lawn and a greenhouse experiment with Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.) were conducted across 2 yr, each with randomized complete block design. Treatments were N application rates between 0 and 587 kg N ha-1 yr-1. In the field experiment, clipping samples were taken monthly from May to September, dried, ground, and analyzed for total N. Clippings samples were collected one to two mowings after plots were fertilized. Linear plateau models comparing relative clipping yield, Commission Internationale de l' Eclairage hue, and CM1000 index to leaf N concentrations were developed. In the greenhouse experiment, clipping samples were taken every 2 wk from May to October and composited across sample dates for leaf N analysis. Color and clipping yields were related to leaf N concentrations using linear plateau models. These models indicated small marginal improvements in growth or color when leaf N exceeded 30 g kg-1, suggesting that a leaf N test can separate turf with optimum leaf N concentrations from turf with below optimum leaf N concentrations. Plateaus in leaf N concentrations with increasing N fertilizer rates suggest, however, that this test may be unable to identify sites with excess available soil N when turf has been mowed before tissue sampling.

Effects of Cor15a-IPT Gene Expression on Leaf Senescence in Transgenic Petunia x hybrida and Dendranthema x grandiflorum.

To prevent leaf senescence of young transplants or excised shoots during storage under dark and cold conditions, the cytokinin biosynthetic gene isopentenyl transferase (ipt) was placed under the control of a cold-inducible promoter cor15a from Arabidopsis thaliana and introduced into Petunia x hybrida 'Marco Polo Odyssey' and Dendranthema x grandiflorum (chrysanthemum) 'Iridon'. Transgenic cor15a-ipt petunia and chrysanthemum plants and excised leaves remained green and healthy during prolonged dark storage (4 weeks at 25 degrees C) after an initial exposure to a brief cold-induction period (4 degrees C for 72 h). However, cor15a-ipt chrysanthemum plants and excised leaves that were not exposed to a cold-induction period, senesced under the same dark storage conditions. Regardless of cold-induction treatment, leaves and plants of non-transformed plants senesced under prolonged dark storage. Analysis of ipt expression indicated a marked increase in gene expression in intact transgenic plants as well as in isolated transgenic leaves exposed to a short cold-induction treatment prior to dark storage. These changes correlated with elevated concentrations of cytokinins in transgenic leaves after cold treatment. Cor15a-ipt transgenic plants showed a normal phenotype when grown at 25 degrees C.

Electron intensity modulation for mixed-beam radiation therapy with an x-ray multi-leaf collimator

The current standard treatment for head and neck cancer at our institution uses intensity-modulated x-ray therapy (IMRT), which improves target coverage and sparing of critical structures by delivering complex fluence patterns from a variety of beam directions to conform dose distributions to the shape of the target volume. The standard treatment for breast patients is field-in-field forward-planned IMRT, with initial tangential fields and additional reduced-weight tangents with blocking to minimize hot spots. For these treatment sites, the addition of electrons has the potential of improving target coverage and sparing of critical structures due to rapid dose falloff with depth and reduced exit dose. In this work, the use of mixed-beam therapy (MBT), i.e., combined intensity-modulated electron and x-ray beams using the x-ray multi-leaf collimator (MLC), was explored. The hypothesis of this study was that addition of intensity-modulated electron beams to existing clinical IMRT plans would produce MBT plans that were superior to the original IMRT plans for at least 50% of selected head and neck and 50% of breast cases. Dose calculations for electron beams collimated by the MLC were performed with Monte Carlo methods. An automation system was created to facilitate communication between the dose calculation engine and the treatment planning system. Energy and intensity modulation of the electron beams was accomplished by dividing the electron beams into 2x2-cm2 beamlets, which were then beam-weight optimized along with intensity-modulated x-ray beams. Treatment plans were optimized to obtain equivalent target dose coverage, and then compared with the original treatment plans. MBT treatment plans were evaluated by participating physicians with respect to target coverage, normal structure dose, and overall plan quality in comparison with original clinical plans. The physician evaluations did not support the hypothesis for either site, with MBT selected as superior in 1 out of the 15 head and neck cases (p=1) and 6 out of 18 breast cases (p=0.95). While MBT was not shown to be superior to IMRT, reductions were observed in doses to critical structures distal to the target along the electron beam direction and to non-target tissues, at the expense of target coverage and dose homogeneity. ^

Environmental characteristics, and growth traits and leaf chemistry of tundra plants in a warming experiment at Alexandra Fiord

Understanding plant trait responses to elevated temperatures in the Arctic is critical in light of recent and continuing climate change, especially because these traits act as key mechanisms in climate-vegetation feedbacks. Since 1992, we have artificially warmed three plant communities at Alexandra Fiord, Nunavut, Canada (79°N). In each of the communities, we used open-top chambers (OTCs) to passively warm vegetation by 1-2 °C. In the summer of 2008, we investigated the intraspecific trait responses of five key species to 16 years of continuous warming. We examined eight traits that quantify different aspects of plant performance: leaf size, specific leaf area (SLA), leaf dry matter content (LDMC), plant height, leaf carbon concentration, leaf nitrogen concentration, leaf carbon isotope discrimination (LCID), and leaf d15N. Long-term artificial warming affected five traits, including at least one trait in every species studied. The evergreen shrub Cassiope tetragona responded most frequently (increased leaf size and plant height/decreased SLA, leaf carbon concentration, and LCID), followed by the deciduous shrub Salix arctica (increased leaf size and plant height/decreased SLA) and the evergreen shrub Dryas integrifolia (increased leaf size and plant height/decreased LCID), the forb Oxyria digyna (increased leaf size and plant height), and the sedge Eriophorum angustifolium spp. triste (decreased leaf carbon concentration). Warming did not affect d15N, leaf nitrogen concentration, or LDMC. Overall, growth traits were more sensitive to warming than leaf chemistry traits. Notably, we found that responses to warming were sustained, even after many years of treatment. Our work suggests that tundra plants in the High Arctic will show a multifaceted response to warming, often including taller shoots with larger leaves.

(Table 3) Leaf area and leaf nitrogen for deciduous, evergreen, forb and graminoid species at Barrow, Svalbard and Zackenberg

Arctic vegetation is characterized by high spatial variability in plant functional type (PFT) composition and gross primary productivity (P). Despite this variability, the two main drivers of P in sub-Arctic tundra are leaf area index (LT) and total foliar nitrogen (NT). LT and NT have been shown to be tightly coupled across PFTs in sub-Arctic tundra vegetation, which simplifies up-scaling by allowing quantification of the main drivers of P from remotely sensed LT. Our objective was to test the LT-NT relationship across multiple Arctic latitudes and to assess LT as a predictor of P for the pan-Arctic. Including PFT-specific parameters in models of LT-NT coupling provided only incremental improvements in model fit, but significant improvements were gained from including site-specific parameters. The degree of curvature in the LT-NT relationship, controlled by a fitted canopy nitrogen extinction co-efficient, was negatively related to average levels of diffuse radiation at a site. This is consistent with theoretical predictions of more uniform vertical canopy N distributions under diffuse light conditions. Higher latitude sites had higher average leaf N content by mass (NM), and we show for the first time that LT-NT coupling is achieved across latitudes via canopy-scale trade-offs between NM and leaf mass per unit leaf area (LM). Site-specific parameters provided small but significant improvements in models of P based on LT and moss cover. Our results suggest that differences in LT-NT coupling between sites could be used to improve pan-Arctic models of P and we provide unique evidence that prevailing radiation conditions can significantly affect N allocation over regional scales.

European Leaf Physiognomic Approach ELPA

Physiognomic traits of plant leaves such as size, shape or margin are decisively affected by the prevailing environmental conditions of the plant habitat. On the other hand, if a relationship between environment and leaf physiognomy can be shown to exist, vegetation represents a proxy for environmental conditions. This study investigates the relationship between physiognomic traits of leaves from European hardwood vegetation and environmental parameters in order to create a calibration dataset based on high resolution grid cell data. The leaf data are obtained from synthetic chorologic floras, the environmental data comprise climatic and ecologic data. The high resolution of the data allows for a detailed analysis of the spatial dependencies between the investigated parameters. The comparison of environmental parameters and leaf physiognomic characters reveals a clear correlation between temperature related parameters (e.g. mean annual temperature or ground frost frequency) and the expression of leaf characters (e.g. the type of leaf margin or the base of the lamina). Precipitation related parameters (e.g. mean annual precipitation), however, show no correlation with the leaf physiognomic composition of the vegetation. On the basis of these results, transfer functions for several environmental parameters are calculated from the leaf physiognomic composition of the extant vegetation. In a next step, a cluster analysis is applied to the dataset in order to identify "leaf physiognomic communities". Several of these are distinguished, characterised and subsequently used for vegetation classification. Concerning the leaf physiognomic diversity there are precise differences between each of these "leaf physiognomic classes". There is a clear increase of leaf physiognomic diversity with increasing variability of the environmental parameters: Northern vegetation types are characterised by a more or less homogeneous leaf physiognomic composition whereas southern vegetation types like the Mediterranean vegetation show a considerable higher leaf physiognomic diversity. Finally, the transfer functions are used to estimate palaeo-environmental parameters of three fossil European leaf assemblages from Late Oligocene and Middle Miocene. The results are compared with results obtained from other palaeo-environmental reconstructing methods. The estimates based on a direct linear ordination seem to be the most realistic ones, as they are highly consistent with the Coexistence Approach.