AoBck1 and AoMkk1 Are Necessary to Maintain Cell Wall Integrity, Vegetative Growth, Conidiation, Stress Resistance, and Pathogenicity in the Nematode-Trapping Fungus Arthrobotrys oligospora

The cell wall integrity (CWI) pathway is composed of three mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), Bck1, Mkk1/2, and Slt2, and is one of the main signaling pathways for fungal pathogenesis, cell wall synthesis, and integrity maintenance. In this study, we characterized orthologs of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Bck1 and Mkk1 in the nematode-trapping (NT) fungus Arthrobotrys oligospora by multiple phenotypic comparison, and the regulation of conidiation and cell wall synthesis was analyzed using real-time PCR (RT-PCR). Both ΔAoBck1 and ΔAoMkk1 mutants showed severe defects in vegetative growth, cell nucleus number, and stress resistance. Both the mutants were unable to produce spores, and the transcription of several genes associated with sporulation and cell wall biosynthesis was markedly downregulated during the conidiation stage. Further, cell walls of the ΔAoBck1 and ΔAoMkk1 mutants were severely damaged, and the Woronin body failed to respond to cellular damage. In particular, the mutants lost the ability to produce mycelial traps for nematode predation. Taken together, AoBck1 and AoMkk1 play a conserved role in mycelial growth and development, CWI, conidiation, multi-stress tolerance, trap formation, and pathogenicity. We highlighted the role of AoBck1 and AoMkk1 in regulating the Woronin body response to cellular damage and cell nucleus development in A. oligospora

Polar-facing slopes showed stronger greening trend than equatorial-facing slopes in Tibetan plateau grasslands

The orientation of slopes in alpine zones creates microclimates, e.g. equatorial-facing slopes (EFSs) are generally drier and warmer than are polar-facing slopes (PFSs). The vegetation growing in these microhabitats responds divergently to climatic warming depending on the slope orientation. We proposed a spatial metric, the greenness asymmetric index (GAI), defined as the ratio between the average normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) on PFSs and EFSs within a given spatial window, to quantify the asymmetry of greenness across aspects. We calculated GAI for each non-overlapping 3 × 3 km2 (100 × 100 Landsat pixels) grid, and seamlessly mapped it on Tibetan Plateau (TP) grassland using NDVI time series from the Landsat-5, -7 and -8 satellites. PFSs were greener than EFSs (GAI > 1) in warm and dry areas, and EFSs were greener than PFSs (GAI < 1) in cold and wet areas. We also detected a stronger greening trend (0.0040 vs 0.0034 y−1) and a higher sensitivity of NDVI to temperature (0.031 vs 0.026 °C−1) on PFSs than EFSs, leading to a significant positive trend in GAI (0.00065 y−1, P < 0.01) in the TP from 1991 to 2020. Our results suggest that global warming exacerbated the greenness asymmetry associated with the slope orientation: PFSs are more sensitive to warming and have been greening at a faster rate than EFSs. The gradient of EFSs and PFSs provided a “natural laboratory” to study interaction of water and temperature limitations on vegetation growth. Our study is the first to detect the effect of aspect on the greening trend in the TP. Future research needs to clarify the full biotic and abiotic determinants for this spatial and temporal asymmetry of greenness across aspects with the support of extensive field measurements and refined high-resolution NDVI products.This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China 42271323 and 41971282, the Sichuan Science and Technology Program 2021JDJQ0007, the Spanish Government project TED2021-132627B-I00 funded by the Spanish MCIN, AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR, the Fundación Ramón Areces project CIVP20A6621 and the Catalan government project SGR2021-1333.N

Aspect Matters : Unraveling Microclimate Impacts on Mountain Greenness and Greening

Altres ajuts: the Fundación Ramón Areces grant CIVP20A6621Mountains are vital ecosystems, yet predicting plant growth there is complex due to diverse microclimates on slopes. Equatorial-facing slopes (EFSs) are drier and warmer, and polar-facing slopes (PFSs) are wetter and colder, than their regional macroclimates. Analyzing Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer normalized difference vegetation index from 2003 to 2021, we identified a clear geographic pattern of differences in greenness on the two opposite aspects: EFSs were greener than PFSs in cold areas and were browner in dry areas, mainly determined by the relative importance of limitations of temperature and water. PFSs had stronger greening trends than did EPSs, leading to a weakening difference in greenness between EPSs and PFSs in temperature-limited areas, and an intensifying difference in water-limited areas. This suggests the alleviation of temperature limitation and exacerbation of water limitation. Montane ecosystems constitute a "natural laboratory" for deepening our understanding of the temporal evolution of the climatic control of vegetation growth with a space-for-time substitution

CEPC Conceptual Design Report: Volume 2 - Physics & Detector

The Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) is a large international scientific facility proposed by the Chinese particle physics community to explore the Higgs boson and provide critical tests of the underlying fundamental physics principles of the Standard Model that might reveal new physics. The CEPC, to be hosted in China in a circular underground tunnel of approximately 100 km in circumference, is designed to operate as a Higgs factory producing electron-positron collisions with a center-of-mass energy of 240 GeV. The collider will also operate at around 91.2 GeV, as a Z factory, and at the WW production threshold (around 160 GeV). The CEPC will produce close to one trillion Z bosons, 100 million W bosons and over one million Higgs bosons. The vast amount of bottom quarks, charm quarks and tau-leptons produced in the decays of the Z bosons also makes the CEPC an effective B-factory and tau-charm factory. The CEPC will have two interaction points where two large detectors will be located. This document is the second volume of the CEPC Conceptual Design Report (CDR). It presents the physics case for the CEPC, describes conceptual designs of possible detectors and their technological options, highlights the expected detector and physics performance, and discusses future plans for detector R&D and physics investigations. The final CEPC detectors will be proposed and built by international collaborations but they are likely to be composed of the detector technologies included in the conceptual designs described in this document. A separate volume, Volume I, recently released, describes the design of the CEPC accelerator complex, its associated civil engineering, and strategic alternative scenarios

CEPC Conceptual Design Report: Volume 2 - Physics & Detector

The Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) is a large international scientific facility proposed by the Chinese particle physics community to explore the Higgs boson and provide critical tests of the underlying fundamental physics principles of the Standard Model that might reveal new physics. The CEPC, to be hosted in China in a circular underground tunnel of approximately 100 km in circumference, is designed to operate as a Higgs factory producing electron-positron collisions with a center-of-mass energy of 240 GeV. The collider will also operate at around 91.2 GeV, as a Z factory, and at the WW production threshold (around 160 GeV). The CEPC will produce close to one trillion Z bosons, 100 million W bosons and over one million Higgs bosons. The vast amount of bottom quarks, charm quarks and tau-leptons produced in the decays of the Z bosons also makes the CEPC an effective B-factory and tau-charm factory. The CEPC will have two interaction points where two large detectors will be located. This document is the second volume of the CEPC Conceptual Design Report (CDR). It presents the physics case for the CEPC, describes conceptual designs of possible detectors and their technological options, highlights the expected detector and physics performance, and discusses future plans for detector R&D and physics investigations. The final CEPC detectors will be proposed and built by international collaborations but they are likely to be composed of the detector technologies included in the conceptual designs described in this document. A separate volume, Volume I, recently released, describes the design of the CEPC accelerator complex, its associated civil engineering, and strategic alternative scenarios

CEPC Conceptual Design Report: Volume 2 - Physics & Detector

The Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) is a large international scientific facility proposed by the Chinese particle physics community to explore the Higgs boson and provide critical tests of the underlying fundamental physics principles of the Standard Model that might reveal new physics. The CEPC, to be hosted in China in a circular underground tunnel of approximately 100 km in circumference, is designed to operate as a Higgs factory producing electron-positron collisions with a center-of-mass energy of 240 GeV. The collider will also operate at around 91.2 GeV, as a Z factory, and at the WW production threshold (around 160 GeV). The CEPC will produce close to one trillion Z bosons, 100 million W bosons and over one million Higgs bosons. The vast amount of bottom quarks, charm quarks and tau-leptons produced in the decays of the Z bosons also makes the CEPC an effective B-factory and tau-charm factory. The CEPC will have two interaction points where two large detectors will be located. This document is the second volume of the CEPC Conceptual Design Report (CDR). It presents the physics case for the CEPC, describes conceptual designs of possible detectors and their technological options, highlights the expected detector and physics performance, and discusses future plans for detector R&D and physics investigations. The final CEPC detectors will be proposed and built by international collaborations but they are likely to be composed of the detector technologies included in the conceptual designs described in this document. A separate volume, Volume I, recently released, describes the design of the CEPC accelerator complex, its associated civil engineering, and strategic alternative scenarios