Past summer temperatures inferred from dendrochronological records of Fitzroya cupressoides on the eastern slope of the northern Patagonian Andes

Estimating summer temperature fluctuations over long timescales in southern South America is essential for better understanding the past climate variations in the Southern Hemisphere. Here we developed robust 212 year long basal area increment (BAI) and δ13C chronologies from living temperature‐sensitive Fitzroya cupressoides on the eastern slope of the northern Patagonian Andes (41°S). After removing the increasing trend from the growth records likely due to the CO2 fertilization effect, we tested the potential to reconstruct past summer temperature variations using BAI and δ13C as predictors. The reconstruction based on δ13C records has the strongest predictive skills and explains as much as 62% of the total variance in instrumental summer temperature (n = 81, p < 0.001). The temperature signal recorded in tree‐ring growth is not substantially different to that present in δ13C and consequently does not provide additional information to improve the regression models. Our δ13C‐based reconstruction shows cold summer temperatures in the second part of the 19th century and in the mid‐20th century followed by a warmer period. Notably, the 20th and the early 21st centuries were warmer (+0.6°C) than the 19th century. Reconstructed summer temperature variations are modulated by low‐latitude (El Niño–Southern Oscillation) and high‐latitude (Southern Annular Mode) climate forcings. Our reconstruction based on δ13C agrees well with previous ring width based temperature reconstructions in the region and comparatively enhances the low‐frequency variations in the records. The present study provides the first reconstruction of summer temperature in South America south of 40°S for the period 1800–2011 entirely based on isotopic records

Erosion of quantitative host resistance in the apple × Venturia inaequalis pathosystem

Theoretical approaches predict that host quantitative resistance selects for pathogens with a high level of pathogenicity, leading to erosion of the resistance. This process of erosion has, however, rarely been experimentally demonstrated. To investigate the erosion of apple quantitative resistance to scab disease, we surveyed scab incidence over time in a network of three orchards planted with susceptible and quantitatively resistant apple genotypes. We sampled Venturia inaequalis isolates from two of these orchards at the beginning of the experiment and we tested their quantitative components of pathogenicity (i.e., global disease severity, lesion density, lesion size, latent period) under controlled conditions. The disease severity produced by the isolates on the quantitatively resistant apple genotypes differed between the sites. Our study showed that quantitative resistance may be subject to erosion and even complete breakdown, depending on the site. We observed this evolution over time for apple genotypes that combine two broad-spectrum scab resistance QTLs, F11 and F17, showing a significant synergic effect of this combination in favour of resistance (i.e., favourable epistatic effect). We showed that isolates sampled in the orchard where the resistance was inefficient presented a similar level of pathogenicity on both apple genotypes with quantitative resistance and susceptible genotypes. As a consequence, our results revealed a case where the use of quantitative resistance may result in the emergence of a generalist pathogen population that has extended its pathogenicity range by performing similarly on susceptible and resistant genotypes. This emphasizes the need to develop quantitative resistances conducive to trade-offs within the pathogen populations concerned

Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core,

Antarctica has allowed the extension of the ice record of atmospheric composition and climate to the past four glacial-interglacial cycles. The succession of changes through each climate cycle and termination was similar, and atmospheric and climate properties oscillated between stable bounds. Interglacial periods differed in temporal evolution and duration. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane correlate well with Antarctic air-temperature throughout the record. Present-day atmospheric burdens of these two important greenhouse gases seem to have been unprecedented during the past 420,000 years. The late Quaternary period (the past one million years) is punctuated by a series of large glacial-interglacial changes with cycles that last about 100,000 years (ref. 1). Glacial-interglacial climate changes are documented by complementary climate records 1,2 largely derived from deep sea sediments, continental deposits of flora, fauna and loess, and ice cores. These studies have documented the wide range of climate variability on Earth. They have shown that much of the variability occurs with periodicities corresponding to that of the precession, obliquity and eccentricity of the Earth&apos;s orbit 1,3 . But understanding how the climate system responds to this initial orbital forcing is still an important issue in palaeoclimatology, in particular for the generally strong ϳ100,000-year (100-kyr) cycle. Ice cores give access to palaeoclimate series that includes local temperature and precipitation rate, moisture source conditions, wind strength and aerosol fluxes of marine, volcanic, terrestrial, cosmogenic and anthropogenic origin. They are also unique with their entrapped air inclusions in providing direct records of past changes in atmospheric trace-gas composition. The ice-drilling project undertaken in the framework of a long-term collaboration between Russia, the United States and France at the Russian Vostok station in East Antarctica (78Њ S, 106Њ E, elevation 3,488 m, mean temperature −55 ЊC) has already provided a wealth of such information for the past two glacial-interglacial cycles [4][5][6][7][8][9] Here we present a series of detailed Vostok records covering this ϳ400-kyr period. We show that the main features of the more recent Vostok climate cycle resemble those observed in earlier cycles. In particular, we confirm the strong correlation between atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations and Antarctic temperature, as well as the strong imprint of obliquity and precession in most of the climate time series. Our records reveal both similarities and differences between the successive interglacial periods. They suggest the lead of Antarctic air temperature, and of atmospheric greenhousegas concentrations, with respect to global ice volume and Greenland air-temperature changes during glacial terminations. The ice record The data are shown in Figs 1, 2 and 3 (see Supplementary Information for the numerical data). They include the deuterium content of the ice (dD ice , a proxy of local temperature change), the dust content (desert aerosols), the concentration of sodium (marine aerosol), and from the entrapped air the greenhouse gases CO 2 and CH 4 , and the d 18 O are defined in the legends to Figs 1 and 2, respectively.) All these measurements have been performed using methods previously described except for slight modifications (see The detailed record of dD ic

Coherent Isotope History of Andean Ice Cores over the Last Century

[1] Isotope records from Andean ice cores provide detailed and high-resolution climate information on various time scales. However, the relationship between these valuable isotope records and local or regional climate remains poorly understood. Here we present results from two new drillings in Bolivia, from the Illimani and the Sajama ice caps. All four high altitude isotope signals in the Andes now available (Huascaran, Quelccaya, Illimani and Sajama) show near identical decadal variability in the 20th century. Comparison with general circulation model results and meteorological data suggest that the Andean high altitude records are primarily controlled by precipitation variability over the Amazon basin

Distribution of stable isotopes in surface snow along the route of the 1990 International Trans-Antarctica Expedition

International audienceThis paper presents the distribution of average OD and 6 18 0 values for the top 1 m of surface snow for a large area of Antarctica. The samples were collected on the 1990 International Trans-Antarctica Expedition which crossed the continent from the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula to Mirny Station. The empirical relationships between the isotopes, temperature and elevation are computed. The slopes of OD with respect to the surface temperature for the segments west (Patriot Hills-Vostok) and east ofVostok (Komsomolskaya-Mirny) are not significantly different to that observed between Dumont d'Urville and Dome C (Lorius and Merlivat, 1977) which are often used to interpret deep ice-core isotopic profiles. There is, however, a noticeable shift between the two regression lines with, for a given temperature i higher isotopic values west ofVostok. The deuterium excess values (d=6D-8 x 6 8 0) increase sharply at 3000 m a.s.l. on the plateau, confirming the results of Peti t and others (1991)

Tree-rings and the climate of New Caledonia (SW pacific) preliminary results from Araucariacae

The dendroclimatologic potential of some Araucariacae of New Caledonia (including Agathis, or kauris, and Araucaria) is assessed using ring thickness and delta O-18 measurements. New Caledonia is a group of islands in the SW Pacific that are currently under influence of ENSO events. Endemic to New Caledonia, the long-living species of Agathis lanceolata and A. ovata, growing on poor ultramafic-detived soils may provide valuable proxies for the local climate and for ENSO. These trees present visible growth bands of changing thickness along their circumference. However, several bands are locally absent, and the growth axis is generally offset with respect to the geometrical axis of the tree. This led us to compute so-called composite ring thickness profiles, accounting for the geometry of growth bands on the whole surface of a tree disk. Our computational method involves 10 optical density profiles measured along 10 equally spaced radii drawn from the bark toward the growth axis, and 10 to 20 master rings, that can be easily identified on the whole disk. Growth bands visible on less than 5 radii were discarded. Our method is similar to the cross-dating method used by dendrochronologists, except that it is applied here to a single tree disk. Our samples consist of three disks of A. lanceolata, one disk of A. ovata, and one disk of Araucaria columnaris. Multiple regressions have been computed between composite profiles and climatic variables i.e. monthly and yearly temperatures and rainfall amounts. The best correlation is found between the width of the ring growing between July (n-1) and June (n) with the rainfalls of June (n), June (n-1) and June (n-2). Monthly rainfalls allow to explain between 20% to 50% of the ring thickness variance, a result similar to that obtained with other studies on Agathis of New Zealand. No temperature parameter appears in the most stable regressions. 30 measurements of tree ring cellulose delta O-18 have been conducted on one single disk selected for the strong climate-ring width correlation. While earlier studies have used 6180 measurements to identify seasonal cycles in tropical woods and date the rings, our data suggest that the direct use of delta O-18 is misleading due to false rings that do not correspond to a complete growth year. When these false rings are identified from the disk analysis and discarded, a fair visual correlation with the total rainfall during the growth season is obtained. This requires information that cannot be found in single growth band thickness profiles, for example as obtained by coring. Thus, Araucariacae of New Caledonia may present a valuable potential for dendroclimatology. However, reconstructing a chronology of this region will require more extensive sampling and possibly an account of additional species

Fluidics of a nanogap

We have determined the filling properties of nanogaps with chemically heterogeneous walls. The quantitative criteria we present allow the prediction of the liquid loading of the nanostructure. They can easily be applied in combination with contact-angle measurements on planar substrates of the nanogap materials. We present an application of the theory to a recently developed nanogap biosensor. Chemical force microscopy (CFM) is employed to characterize the initial silanol properties of the gap. The functionality of the complex surface chemistry of the biosensor is demonstrated by the observation of functionalized nanoparticles in the gap with its resulting characteristic current-voltage relationship