Long-term Recovery from Acute Cold Shock in Caenorhabditis Elegans

Background Animals are exposed to a wide range of environmental stresses that can cause potentially fatal cellular damage. The ability to survive the period of stress as well as to repair any damage incurred is essential for fitness. Exposure to 2 °C for 24 h or longer is rapidly fatal to the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, but the process of recovery from a shorter, initially non-lethal, cold shock is poorly understood. Results We report that cold shock of less than 12-hour duration does not initially kill C. elegans, but these worms experience a progression of devastating phenotypes over the next 96 h that correlate with their eventual fate: successful recovery from the cold shock and survival, or failure to recover and death. Cold-shocked worms experience a marked loss of pigmentation, decrease in the size of their intestine and gonads, and disruption to the vulva. Those worms who will successfully recover from the cold shock regain their pigmentation and much of the integrity of their intestine and gonads. Those who will die do so with a distinct phenotype from worms dying during or immediately following cold shock, suggesting independent mechanisms. Worms lacking the G-protein coupled receptor FSHR-1 are resistant to acute death from longer cold shocks, and are more successful in their recovery from shorter sub-lethal cold shocks. Conclusions We have defined two distinct phases of death associated with cold shock and described a progression of phenotypes that accompanies the course of recovery from that cold shock. The G-protein coupled receptor FSHR-1 antagonizes these novel processes of damage and recovery

The Navajo Sheep Herder

Most popular literature states that the Navajo Indian is a “natural born sheep herder.” This fallacy should be corrected since any experienced observer would soon find that the reverse is more than true. He would find that the sheep industry has survived only through the type of stock originally used and the persistence of the Navajo in preserving his flocks. The object of this paper is to present a few of the facts concerning the methods of handling the sheep and range by the Navajo Indians. It may be proper to first give a short history of the sheep industry in the Navajo country

Impacts of Goat Browsing and Disease on Lilium Grayi, Gray\u27s Lily, on Roan Mountain.

The flora of southern Appalachian high elevation balds has strong representation of northern disjuncts and regional endemics. Among the endemics, the showy Lilium grayi (Gray’s Lily), is most noteworthy for its historical significance and for a high public profile. As bald vegetation changes in response to human and natural environmental shifts, active bald management has been implemented on public lands. Among managed balds, the Roan Mountain massif supports a large population of L. grayi. The purpose of this study was to describe the demography of adult plants, compare browsed and non-browsed plots, and determine the extent to which disease may impact survival and reproduction of L. grayi on Roan Mountain. There were no significant differences between browsed and control plots in measures of plant morphology, vigor, or reproductive output, but browsed plots had significantly more juvenile plants compared to controls. Along a transect, spatial analyses uncovered clusters of diseased and healthy plants and showed that plants in close proximity tended to be alike in disease status and those distant were more unalike. A pathogenic fungus, Pseudocercosporella inconspicua, may be the disease pathogen

Biofuels and Bio-Based Chemicals: Opportunities & Barriers

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/abq_citizen_news/4529/thumbnail.jp

The Edible Landscape: Plant Breeding, Farming, and Sustainbility in Northwest Portugal

This dissertation is an ethnographic analysis of a participatory plant breeding project in northwest Portugal. Participatory plant breeding (PPB) is a crop enhancement strategy that brings farmers and plant breeders together in the effort to conserve crop genetic resources in-situ, improve yield, and increase the overall agricultural sustainability in agriculture. One strategy in PPB calls for plant breeders to spend considerable time on working farms to understand better farmers’ knowledge and skill, and to survey the existing crop genetic diversity within the existing resource limitations on farms. Although there are clear social implications for PPB, the bulk of PPB evaluative literature focuses on narrow agronomic and technological goals. This dissertation widens the evaluative scope of existing research by drawing upon actor-network theory (ANT) and developing the notion of the edible landscape. The ethnography reveals how linkages between human and non-human actors are formed in the context of the VASO Project, a PPB project in Portugal where famers and plant breeders have been working on-farm to enhance local landraces of maize (Zea mays var. mays L.) for yield increases and other traits of interest. One key trait is bread flour yielding capacity and culinary quality of local white flint-type maize. Maize flour is used primarily to make flour for the traditional Portuguese bread, broa. When viewed from the perspective of food and edible landscape formation, a wide range of human and non-human actors well beyond the spaces of the farm are revealed as critical to the agronomic goals and social reproduction of the VASO project. These actors include traditional grain millers and broa bakers to name a few. Conservation of these actors and their livelihoods, as well as sustaining the linkages between them, are just as critical to in-situ maize crop diversity conservation and PPB as are the plants and genes themselves