A Study on the Flora of 15 Islands in the Western Sea of Jeollanamdo Province, Korea

AbstractThis study aims to investigate the flora of 15 islands in Yeonggwang, Shinan, and Mokpo of the Jeollanamdo province and the distribution of major plants in order to use the results as fundamental data for studies on plants in islands. Field surveys were performed 25 times from 2004 to 2010 to investigate the flora in these regions. A total of 793 taxa including 123 families, 421 genera, 695 species, 2 subspeices, 88 varieties, and 8 forms was found. Korean endemic plants including Hepatica insularis and Galium koreanum were 6 taxa. 25 taxa of rare plants including Trachomitum lancifolium, Daphne kiusiana, and Centranthera cochinchinensis var. lutea were confirmed 120 taxa floristic special plant species were confirmed; 11 taxa of the fifth class, four taxa of the fourth class, 28 taxa of the third class. 78 taxa of naturalized plants were confirmed

Three newly recorded plants of South Korea: Muhlenbergia ramosa (Hack. ex Matsum.) Makino, Dichanthelium acuminatum (Sw.) Gould & C.A. Clark and Rottboellia cochinchinensis (Lour.) Clayton

AbstractThree new Poaceae species are reported in South Korea. Muhlenbergia ramosa was found in Boryeong-si, Iksan-si, Jangsu-gun and Gwangju. Dichanthelium acuminatum and Rottboellia cochinchinensis were found in Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do and Seogwipo-si, Jeju-do which were thought to be alien species. Genus Dichanthelium and Rottboellia are newly reported in South Korea. Muhlenbergia ramosa was thought to be native to Korea

Diversity and distribution of the genus Scrophularia L. (Scrophulariaceae) in Uzbekistan

This article presents a new checklist of Scrophularia in Uzbekistan. The synopsis includes 21 species; one of them is national endemic, and seven species were newly recorded for Uzbekistan as a result of field collecting missions, studies, and examination of Tashkent (TASH), St.-Petersburg (LE), Almaty (AA), and Moscow (MW) herbarium collections. The geographical distribution of Scrophularia in Uzbekistan was mapped and analyzed. The identification key, a table of comparative diagnostic characters, nomenclatural types, and ecological data are provided. (C) 2019 National Science Museum of Korea (NSMK) and Korea National Arboretum (KNA), Publishing Services by Elsevier.Peer reviewe

The complete chloroplast genome sequence of Abies nephrolepis (Pinaceae: Abietoideae)

AbstractThe plant chloroplast (cp) genome has maintained a relatively conserved structure and gene content throughout evolution. Cp genome sequences have been used widely for resolving evolutionary and phylogenetic issues at various taxonomic levels of plants. Here, we report the complete cp genome of Abies nephrolepis. The A. nephrolepis cp genome is 121,336 base pairs (bp) in length including a pair of short inverted repeat regions (IRa and IRb) of 139 bp each separated by a small single copy (SSC) region of 54,323 bp (SSC) and a large single copy region of 66,735 bp (LSC). It contains 114 genes, 68 of which are protein coding genes, 35 tRNA and four rRNA genes, six open reading frames, and one pseudogene. Seventeen repeat units and 64 simple sequence repeats (SSR) have been detected in A. nephrolepis cp genome. Large IR sequences locate in 42-kb inversion points (1186 bp). The A. nephrolepis cp genome is identical to Abies koreana’s which is closely related to taxa. Pairwise comparison between two cp genomes revealed 140 polymorphic sites in each. Complete cp genome sequence of A. nephrolepis has a significant potential to provide information on the evolutionary pattern of Abietoideae and valuable data for development of DNA markers for easy identification and classification

Association analyses of East Asian individuals and trans-ancestry analyses with European individuals reveal new loci associated with cholesterol and triglyceride levels

Large-scale meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified >175 loci associated with fasting cholesterol levels, including total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and triglycerides (TG). With differences in linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure and allele frequencies between ancestry groups, studies in additional large samples may detect new associations. We conducted staged GWAS meta-analyses in up to 69,414 East Asian individuals from 24 studies with participants from Japan, the Philippines, Korea, China, Singapore, and Taiwan. These meta-analyses identified (P < 5 × 10-8) three novel loci associated with HDL-C near CD163-APOBEC1 (P = 7.4 × 10-9), NCOA2 (P = 1.6 × 10-8), and NID2-PTGDR (P = 4.2 × 10-8), and one novel locus associated with TG near WDR11-FGFR2 (P = 2.7 × 10-10). Conditional analyses identified a second signal near CD163-APOBEC1. We then combined results from the East Asian meta-analysis with association results from up to 187,365 European individuals from the Global Lipids Genetics Consortium in a trans-ancestry meta-analysis. This analysis identified (log10Bayes Factor ≥6.1) eight additional novel lipid loci. Among the twelve total loci identified, the index variants at eight loci have demonstrated at least nominal significance with other metabolic traits in prior studies, and two loci exhibited coincident eQTLs (P < 1 × 10-5) in subcutaneous adipose tissue for BPTF and PDGFC. Taken together, these analyses identified multiple novel lipid loci, providing new potential therapeutic targets

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

Mapping Asia Plants: Current status of floristic information for Northeast Asia

As part of the Mapping Asia Plants (MAP) project, floristic works for Northeast Asia (i.e., China, Japan, the Korean Peninsula, and Mongolia) have been surveyed and compared. From the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century, most floristic research in Northeast Asia was performed by European nations. Since then, local botanists have directed the course of floristic research. Although a Flora of Northeast Asia has yet to be published, several materials covering more than one country have published, from Maximowicz's Primitiae Florae Amurensis (1895) to Ma's A Checklist of Woody Plants from Eastern Asia (2017). However, the status of floristic information in Northeast Asia varies widely by country. China, Japan, and the North Korea published the latest editions of their floras in 2020, 2013, and 2000, respectively. Both Mongolia and South Korea have published several volumes of their latest floras and plan to complete them in the next few years. Together, these works give an overall picture of the flora of Northeast Asia. While every country in Northeast Asia has at least one plant species checklist, the availability of digital specimen records varies from 1.3 per species to 387.1 per species. Factors that currently hinder research include variation among works in how terms are used, in writing style, and taxonomic treatments, in addition to a lack of specimens for Mongolia and the Korean Peninsula. Some floras are written in their native languages and may be difficult to access for general researchers. In a few years, after the completion of the Flora of Mongolia, the Flora of Korea, and a local flora for Northeast China, floristic research in Northeast Asia will enter a new stage. Using floristic information currently available, a total of 336 families, 3506 genera, and nearly 40,000 species of vascular plants were identified in Northeast Asia. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license

Cladistic analysis of the section Adonanthe under genus Adonis L. (Ranunculaceae) from East Asia

Cladistic analysis was conducted for 11 taxa belonging to sect. Adonanthe in the gen. Adonis in East Asia on the basis of morphological and cytological characters, and the evolutionary change of major diagnostic characters and the validity of the existing taxonomic system were reviewed. Adonis davidii has been considered the most primitive species of the 11 treated taxa. However, cladistic analysis indicated that A. davidii differentiated since A. sutchuenensis branched. Evolutionary tendencies of taxonomic characters were generally orthogenesis. However, a few characters evolved in the reverse direction. Meanwhile, the cladistic analysis did not support the classification system proposed by Wang, who classified sect. Adonanthe into four series, as most of these were found to be rather polyphyletic or paraphyletic. The differences between these proposed four series were thought to be attributed to the adaptation of only a few morphological characters that pertained to the leaves shape and the petals color

Thalictrum acutifolium (Hand.-Mazz.) B. Boivin: a new record to the flora of the Jeju-do, Korea

Thalictrum acutifolium (Hand.-Mazz.) B. Boivin is hitherto known as an endemic species of China. However, recently we found another population in Jeju-do, Korea. This species is closely related to Thalictrum tuberiferum Maxim., having characters such as 2- or 3-ternate leaves, whitish stamens with clavate filaments, and stipitate achenes, but distinguished from the latter by the following features: rootlets lacking tubers, stoloniferous, alternate cauline leaves, apex acuted leaflets, and ovate-shaped sepals with whitish color. Here, we provide its description, illustrations, and photographs as a new record species in Korea. Also, a lectotype is designated for T. acutifolium based on the material conserved at the University of Vienna (WU)

Semiaquilegia quelpaertensis (Ranunculaceae), a new species from the Republic of Korea

Semiaquilegia quelpaertensis sp. nov., a new species belonging to the family Ranunculaceae, from Hallasan National Park in Jeju-do, Republic of Korea, is described and illustrated. The new species is similar to Semiaquilegia adoxoides (DC.) Makino, but can be readily distinguished by a thick underground stem, shallowly lobed leaflets, larger flowers, (4–)6 staminodes and conspicuously rugose tuberculate seed surface