Detection of a novel locus involved in non-seed-shattering behaviour of Japonica rice cultivar, Oryzasativa ‘Nipponbare’

Asian cultivated rice, Oryzasativa, was domesticated from its wild ancestor, O.rufipogon. Loss of seed shattering is one of the most recognisable traits selected during rice domestication. Three quantitative trait loci (QTLs), qSH1, qSH3, and sh4, were previously reported to be involved in the loss of seed shattering of Japonica cultivated rice, O.sativa ‘Nipponbare’. However, the introgression line (IL) carrying ‘Nipponbare’ alleles at these three loci in the genetic background of wild rice, O.rufipogon W630, showed a lower value for detaching a grain from the pedicel than ‘Nipponbare’. Here, we investigated abscission layer formation in the IL and found a partially formed abscission layer in the central region between the epidermis and vascular bundles. Based on QTL-seq analysis using the F2 population obtained from a cross between ‘Nipponbare’ and the IL, we detected two novel loci qCSS3 and qCSS9 (QTL for the Control of Seed Shattering in rice on chromosomes 3 and 9), which were found to be involved in the difference in seed-shattering degree between ‘Nipponbare’ and W630. Then, we further focused on qCSS3 in order to understand its potential role on the loss of seed shattering. The candidate region of qCSS3 was found to be located within a 526-kb region using substitution mapping analysis. Interestingly, the qCSS3 candidate region partially overlaps the selective sweep detected for Japonica but not for Indica rice cultivars, suggesting that this region harbours the mutation at a novel seed-shattering locus specifically selected for non-seed-shattering behaviour in Japonica cultivars

Linking Land and Sea Through an Ecological-Economic Model of Coral Reef Recreation

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordCoastal zones are popular recreational areas that substantially contribute to social welfare. Managers can use information about specific environmental features that people value, and how these might change under different management scenarios, to spatially target actions to areas of high current or potential value. We explored how snorkelers' experience would be affected by separate and combined land and marine management actions in West Maui, Hawaiʻi, using a Bayesian belief network (BBN) and a spatially explicit ecosystem services model. The BBN simulates the attractiveness of a site for recreation by combining snorkeler preferences for coastal features with expert opinions on ecological dynamics, snorkeler behavior, and management actions. A choice experiment with snorkelers elucidated their preferences for sites with better ecological and water-quality conditions. Linking the economic elicitation to the spatially explicit BBN to evaluate land-sea management scenarios provides specific guidance on where and how to act in West Maui to maximize ecosystem service returns. Improving coastal water quality through sediment runoff and cesspool effluent reductions (land management), and enhancing coral reef ecosystem conditions (marine management) positively affected overall snorkeling attractiveness across the study area, but with differential results at specific sites. The highest improvements were attained through joint land-sea management, driven by strong efforts to increase fish abundance and reduce sediment; however, the effects of management at individual beaches varied.Pacific Islands Climate Science Center (PICSC)US Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA)National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coral Reef Conservation ProgramNational Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC

Barnyard grasses were processed with rice around 10000 years ago

Rice (Oryza sativa) is regarded as the only grass that was selected for cultivation and eventual domestication in the Yangtze basin of China. Although both macro-fossils and micro-fossils of rice have been recovered from the Early Neolithic site of Shangshan, dating to more than 10,000 years before present (BP), we report evidence of phytolith and starch microfossils taken from stone tools, both for grinding and cutting, and cultural layers, that indicating barnyard grass (Echinochloa spp.) was a major subsistence resource, alongside smaller quantities of acorn starches (Lithocarpus/Quercus sensu lato) and water chestnuts (Trapa). This evidence suggests that early managed wetland environments were initially harvested for multiple grain species including barnyard grasses as well as rice, and indicate that the emergence of rice as the favoured cultivated grass and ultimately the key domesticate of the Yangtze basin was a protracted process

Evidence of Sorghum Cultivation and Possible Pearl Millet in the Second Millennium BC at Kassala, Eastern Sudan

Carbonized plant remains and plant impressions in burnt clay pieces, recovered during archaeological excavation and survey of two sites in East Sudan, were subjected toarchaeobotanical investigation. Analysed samples have provided evidence for plant use and cultivation of sorghum alongside the use of a range of other taxa. The results from this study illustrate that as late as the early second millennium BC, the inhabitants of Kassala were still exploiting a mixture of morphologically wild and domesticated Sorghum bicolor. The evidence suggests that while the domestication process of sorghum was underway, full domestication may not have been reached at this time. We can hence classify this as part of the pre-domestication cultivation stage for Sorghum bicolor, which can be inferred to have begun at least two thousand years earlier. Wild taxa that may also have been exploited for food include Brachiaria sp., Rottboellia cochinchinensis (itchgrass), and apparently mixed wild and domesticated Pennisetum glaucum (pearl millet). This study also provides the first archaeobotanical evidence for Adansonia digitata (baobab) in northeastern Africa. Taken together these data suggest that Kassala was part of an early core area for sorghum domestication and played an important role in the diffusion of Africa crops including pearl millet to Asia