Phenotypic and genetic analysis of the Triticum monococcum-Mycosphaerella graminicola interaction

Here, the aim was to understand the cellular and genetic basis of the Triticum monococcum–Mycosphaerella graminicola interaction. Testing for 5 yr under UK field conditions revealed that all 24 T. monococcum accessions exposed to a high level of natural inocula were fully resistant to M. graminicola. When the accessions were individually inoculated in the glasshouse using an attached leaf seeding assay and nine previously characterized M. graminicola isolates, fungal sporulation was observed in only three of the 216 interactions examined. Microscopic analyses revealed that M. graminicola infection was arrested at four different stages post‐stomatal entry. When the inoculated leaves were detached 30 d post inoculation and incubated at 100% humidity, abundant asexual sporulation occurred within 5 d in a further 61 interactions. An F2 mapping population generated from a cross between T. monococcum accession MDR002 (susceptible) and MDR043 (resistant) was inoculated with the M. graminicola isolate IPO323. Both resistance and in planta fungal growth were found to be controlled by a single genetic locus designated as TmStb1 which was linked to the microsatellite locus Xbarc174 on chromosome 7Am. Exploitation of T. monococcum may provide new sources of resistance to septoria tritici blotch disease

Age of the Mt. Ortles ice cores, the Tyrolean Iceman and glaciation of the highest summit of South Tyrol since the Northern Hemisphere Climatic Optimum

In 2011 four ice cores were extracted from the summit of Alto dell'Ortles (3859 m), the highest glacier of South Tyrol in the Italian Alps. This drilling site is located only 37 km southwest from where the Tyrolean Iceman, similar to 5.3 kyrs old, was discovered emerging from the ablating ice field of Tisenjoch (3210 m, near the Italian-Austrian border) in 1991. The excellent preservation of this mummy suggested that the Tyrolean Iceman was continuously embedded in prehistoric ice and that additional ancient ice was likely preserved elsewhere in South Tyrol. Dating of the ice cores from Alto dell'Ortles based on Pb-210, tritium, beta activity and C-14 determinations, combined with an empirical model (COPRA), provides evidence for a chronologically ordered ice stratigraphy from the modern glacier surface down to the bottom ice layers with an age of similar to 7 kyrs, which confirms the hypothesis. Our results indicate that the drilling site has continuously been glaciated on frozen bedrock since similar to 7 kyrs BP. Absence of older ice on the highest glacier of South Tyrol is consistent with the removal of basal ice from bedrock during the Northern Hemisphere Climatic Optimum (6-9 kyrs BP), the warmest interval in the European Alps during the Holocene. Borehole inclinometric measurements of the current glacier flow combined with surface ground penetration radar (GPR) measurements indicate that, due to the sustained atmospheric warming since the 1980s, an acceleration of the glacier Alto dell'Ortles flow has just recently begun. Given the stratigraphic-chronological continuity of the Mt. Ortles cores over millennia, it can be argued that this behaviour has been unprecedented at this location since the Northern Hemisphere Climatic Optimum