Reproductive success through high pollinator visitation rates despite self incompatibility in an endangered wallflower

PREMISE OF THE STUDY: Self incompatibility (SI) in rare plants presents a unique challenge—SI protects plants from inbreeding depression, but requires a sufficient number of mates and xenogamous pollination. Does SI persist in an endangered polyploid? Is pollinator visitation sufficient to ensure reproductive success? Is there evidence of inbreeding/outbreeding depression? We characterized the mating system, primary pollinators, pollen limitation, and inbreeding/outbreeding depression in Erysimum teretifolium to guide conservation efforts. METHODS: We compared seed production following self pollination and within- and between-population crosses. Pollen tubes were visualized after self pollinations and between-population pollinations. Pollen limitation was tested in the field. Pollinator observations were quantified using digital video. Inbreeding/outbreeding depression was assessed in progeny from self and outcross pollinations at early and later developmental stages. KEY RESULTS: Self-pollination reduced seed set by 6.5× and quadrupled reproductive failure compared with outcross pollination. Pollen tubes of some self pollinations were arrested at the stigmatic surface. Seed-set data indicated strong SI, and fruit-set data suggested partial SI. Pollinator diversity and visitation rates were high, and there was no evidence of pollen limitation. Inbreeding depression (δ) was weak for early developmental stages and strong for later developmental stages, with no evidence of outbreeding depression. CONCLUSIONS: The rare hexaploid E. teretifolium is largely self incompatible and suffers from late-acting inbreeding depression. Reproductive success in natural populations was accomplished through high pollinator visitation rates consistent with a lack of pollen limitation. Future reproductive health for this species will require large population sizes with sufficient mates and a robust pollinator community

Stereochemical control of the DNA binding affinity, sequence specificity, and orientation preference of chiral hairpin polyamides in the minor groove

Three-ring polyamides containing pyrrole (Py) and imidazole (Im) amino acids covalently coupled by γ-aminobutyric acid (γ) form six-ring hairpins that recognize five-base-pair sequences in the minor groove of DNA. Selective chiral substitution of the ``gamma-turn'' enhances the properties of polyamide hairpins with regard to DNA affinity and sequence specificity. Polyamides of core sequence composition ImPyPy-γ-PyPyPy which differ by selective stereochemical substitution of the prochiral alpha-position in the γ-turn were prepared. The DNA binding properties of two enantiomeric polyamides were analyzed by footprinting and affinity cleavage on a DNA fragment containing two match sites (5'-TGTTA-3' and 5'-ACATT-3') and one 5'-TGTCA-3' mismatch site. Quantitative footprint titrations demonstrate that replacement of γ-aminobutyric acid by (R)-2,4-diaminobutyric acid enhances DNA binding affinity for the 5'-TGTTA-3' match site 13-fold (K_a = 3.8 x 10^9 M-1). The enhanced affinity is achieved without a compromise in sequence selectivity, which in fact increases and is found to be 100-fold higher relative to binding at a single base pair mismatch sequence, 5'-TGTCA-3'. An (S)-2,4-diaminobutyric acid linked hairpin binds with 170-fold reduced affinity relative to the R-enantiomer and only 5-fold sequence specificity versus a 5'-ACATT-3' reversed orientation site. These effects are modulated by acetylation of the chiral amine substituents. This study identifies structural elements which should facilitate the design of new hairpin polyamides with improved DNA binding affinity, sequence specificity, and orientational selectivity

Laws affecting employers of farm labor

"If you hire farm labor, you are responsible for complying with state and federal laws concerned with the safety and well-being of employees."--First page.Stephen F. Matthews, Herman E. Workman, and Patrick B. Starke (Department of Agricultural Economics, College of Agriculture)Revised 3/80/8

Ballistic deposition patterns beneath a growing KPZ interface

We consider a (1+1)-dimensional ballistic deposition process with next-nearest neighbor interaction, which belongs to the KPZ universality class, and introduce for this discrete model a variational formulation similar to that for the randomly forced continuous Burgers equation. This allows to identify the characteristic structures in the bulk of a growing aggregate ("clusters" and "crevices") with minimizers and shocks in the Burgers turbulence, and to introduce a new kind of equipped Airy process for ballistic growth. We dub it the "hairy Airy process" and investigate its statistics numerically. We also identify scaling laws that characterize the ballistic deposition patterns in the bulk: the law of "thinning" of the forest of clusters with increasing height, the law of transversal fluctuations of cluster boundaries, and the size distribution of clusters. The corresponding critical exponents are determined exactly based on the analogy with the Burgers turbulence and simple scaling considerations.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures. Minor edits: typo corrected, added explanation of two acronyms. The text is essentially equivalent to version

A temperature-controlled device for volumetric measurements of Helium adsorption in porous media

We describe a set-up for studying adsorption of helium in silica aerogels, where the adsorbed amount is easily and precisely controlled by varying the temperature of a gas reservoir between 80 K and 180 K. We present validation experiments and a first application to aerogels. This device is well adapted to study hysteresis, relaxation, and metastable states in the adsorption and desorption of fluids in porous media

Interaction of intense vuv radiation with large xenon clusters

The interaction of atomic clusters with short, intense pulses of laser light to form extremely hot, dense plasmas has attracted extensive experimental and theoretical interest. The high density of atoms within the cluster greatly enhances the atom--laser interaction, while the finite size of the cluster prevents energy from escaping the interaction region. Recent technological advances have allowed experiments to probe the laser--cluster interaction at very high photon energies, with interactions much stronger than suggested by theories for lower photon energies. We present a model of the laser--cluster interaction which uses non-perturbative R-matrix techniques to calculate inverse bremsstrahlung and photoionization cross sections for Herman-Skillman atomic potentials. We describe the evolution of the cluster under the influence of the processes of inverse bremsstrahlung heating, photoionization, collisional ionization and recombination, and expansion of the cluster. We compare charge state distribution, charge state ejection energies, and total energy absorbed with the Hamburg experiment of Wabnitz {\em et al.} [Nature {\bf 420}, 482 (2002)] and ejected electron spectra with Laarmann {\em et al.} [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 95}, 063402 (2005)]

Gas-Kinetic-Based Traffic Model Explaining Observed Hysteretic Phase Transition

Recently, hysteretic transitions to `synchronized traffic' with high values of both density and traffic flow were observed on German freeways [B. S. Kerner and H. Rehborn, Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 4030 (1997)]. We propose a macroscopic traffic model based on a gas-kinetic approach that can explain this phase transition. The results suggest a general mechanism for the formation of probably the most common form of congested traffic.Comment: With corrected formula (3). For related work see http://www.theo2.physik.uni-stuttgart.de/helbing.htm