Finding Our Way through Phenotypes

Despite a large and multifaceted effort to understand the vast landscape of phenotypic data, their current form inhibits productive data analysis. The lack of a community-wide, consensus-based, human- and machine-interpretable language for describing phenotypes and their genomic and environmental contexts is perhaps the most pressing scientific bottleneck to integration across many key fields in biology, including genomics, systems biology, development, medicine, evolution, ecology, and systematics. Here we survey the current phenomics landscape, including data resources and handling, and the progress that has been made to accurately capture relevant data descriptions for phenotypes. We present an example of the kind of integration across domains that computable phenotypes would enable, and we call upon the broader biology community, publishers, and relevant funding agencies to support efforts to surmount today's data barriers and facilitate analytical reproducibility

Finding Our Way through Phenotypes

Despite a large and multifaceted effort to understand the vast landscape of phenotypic data, their current form inhibits productive data analysis. The lack of a community-wide, consensus-based, human- and machine-interpretable language for describing phenotypes and their genomic and environmental contexts is perhaps the most pressing scientific bottleneck to integration across many key fields in biology, including genomics, systems biology, development, medicine, evolution, ecology, and systematics. Here we survey the current phenomics landscape, including data resources and handling, and the progress that has been made to accurately capture relevant data descriptions for phenotypes. We present an example of the kind of integration across domains that computable phenotypes would enable, and we call upon the broader biology community, publishers, and relevant funding agencies to support efforts to surmount today's data barriers and facilitate analytical reproducibility

PITHOMYCES CHARTARUM AS A PATHOGEN OF WHEAT

During routine surveys of wheat-growing (Triticum aestivum L.) areas of Hungary, symptomatic leaf samples were collected from different wheat cultivars. Macro- and micromorphological examinations of singlespore isolates showed some of them to belong to Pithomyces chartarum (teleomorph: Leptosphaerulina chartarum). Species assignment was confirmed by sequence analysis of the intergenic transcribed spacer region. P. chartarum isolates produced a range of secondary metabolites including gregatin, alternariol and alternariol monomethyl ether, but not sporidesmin, a mycotoxin responsible for photosensitisation and liver damage of grazing animals. Pathogenicity tests proved that P. chartarum can cause leaf damage to wheat. Disease symptoms were strikingly different in different wheat cultivars. This is the first report on pathogenicity of P. chartarum to wheat in Europe

Messor erwini sp. n., a hitherto cryptic harvester ant in the Iberian Peninsula

European harvester ants, Messor species, are important ecosystem engineers. In Catalonia (Spain), among others, the three species Messor barbarus, M. bouvieri, and M. capitatus occur. At one Catalan site, a cluster of nest samples of unknown identity was found, raising the possibility of either a hybrid lineage or a currently unexplored species in the region. The aim of this study was to test whether the newly recognized cluster represents a hybrid of M. barbarus and M. capitatus, or some form of social hybridogenesis, or an independent, hitherto unrecognised species. We addressed this question in an integrative taxonomic fashion combining evidence from microsatellites analyzed via Bayesian cluster analysis, phylogenetic analyses based on mitochondrial DNA, and multivariate exploratory and confirmatory analyses of morphometric data. The unidentified Messor ants formed a well separated entity from M. barbarus, M. capitatus, and M. bouvieri in all these analyses. These results are in line with the existence of a cryptic Messor species but not with hybridization nor social hybridogenesis. The newly detected species, which has been neither genetically nor morphologically analyzed before, is described as Messor erwini sp. n., since no name-bearing types of valid Messor taxa correspond with the morphological characteristics of the species. Discovering a hitherto unknown species from a myrmecologically well studied area nourishes expectations that further diversity of the genus Messor may await its discovery.Fil: Orou, Noel. Universidad de Innsbruck; AustriaFil: Csösz, Sándor. Institute of Ecology and Botany; HungríaFil: Arnan, Xavier. Universidade Federal de Pernambuco; BrasilFil: Pol, Rodrigo Gabriel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas; ArgentinaFil: Arthofer, Wolfgang. Universidad de Innsbruck; AustriaFil: Schlick Steiner, Birgit C.. Universidad de Innsbruck; AustriaFil: Steiner, Florian M.. Universidad de Innsbruck; Austri

European virulence survey for leaf rust in wheat

With standardised near isogenic line (NIL) differentials co-operators were able to present the first comprehensive virulence survey of the European wheat leaf rust population (1996-1999). The work included pathotype identification of 2608 isolates and field tests of NILs. Lr9 and Lr19 were very effective all over Europe. Lr24, Lr25, and Lr28 were also effective, but in some countries and locations substantial virulence frequencies were observed. In addition, the genes Lr12, Lr13, Lr22a, Lr34, Lr35 and Lr37 were effective at the adult plant stage, but locally less so. In general, the indoor seedling tests and adult plant field tests showed good agreement. Virulence to Lr1, Lr2a, Lr24, Lr25, Lr28 and Lr29 tended to increase in the period, for the other Lr-genes the virulence frequency remained more or less stable. Among the 105 pathotypes identified none was clearly predominant in Europe