Isoprene emission and photosynthesis during heat waves and drought in black locust

Extreme weather conditions, like heat waves and drought, can substantially affect tree physiology and the emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC), including isoprene. To date, however, there is only limited understanding of BVOC emission patterns during prolonged heat and coupled heat–drought stress as well as post-stress recovery. To assess the impacts of heat and heat–drought stress on BVOC emissions, we studied gas exchange and isoprene emissions of black locust trees under controlled environmental conditions. Leaf gas exchange of isoprene, CO2 and H2O was quantified using branch chambers connected to a protontransfer-reaction mass spectrometer and an infrared gas analyzer. Heat and heat–drought stress resulted in a sharp decline of photosynthesis and stomatal conductance. Simultaneously, isoprene emissions increased six- to eight-fold in the heat and heat–drought treatment and resulted in a carbon loss that was equivalent to 12 % and 20 % of assimilated carbon at the time of measurement. Once temperature stress was released at the end of two 15 days long heat waves, stomatal conductance remained reduced, while isoprene emissions and photosynthesis recovered quickly to values of the control trees. Further, we found isoprene emissions to co-vary with net photosynthesis during non-stressful conditions, while during the heat waves, isoprene emissions could be solely described by non-linear functions of light and temperature. However, when isoprene emissions betweentreatments were compared under the same temperature and light conditions (e.g., T = 30° C, PAR = 500 µmol m−2 s−1), heat and heat–drought stressed trees would emit less isoprene than control trees. Ourfindings suggest that different parameterizations of light and temperature functions are needed in order to predict tree isoprene emissions under heat and combined heat–drought stress

Parity, age at first childbirth and the prognosis of primary breast cancer.

Reproductive factors are known to be aetiologically important in breast cancer, but less is known regarding their effect on breast cancer prognosis. We have investigated the prognostic effect of age at first birth and total parity using data from the Danish Breast Cancer Cooperative Group that, since 1977, has collected population-based information on tumour characteristics, treatment regimes and follow-up status on Danish women with breast cancer. Details of pregnancy history were added from the Danish Civil Registration System and the National Birth Registry. Included in the study were 10,703 women with primary breast cancer. After adjusting for age and stage of disease (tumour size, axillary nodal status and histological grading), the number of full-term pregnancies was found without prognostic value. However, women with primary childbirth between 20 and 29 years experienced a significantly reduced risk of death compared with women with primary childbirth below the age of 20 years [20-24 years: relative risk (RR) = 0.88, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.78-0.99; 25-29 years: RR = 0.80, 95% CI 0.70-0.91]. Further adjustment for oestrogen receptor status did not influence these results. The effect was not modified by age at diagnosis, tumour size or nodal status. In conclusion, low age at first childbirth, but not parity, was associated with a poor prognosis of breast cancer. We speculate whether women who develop breast cancer despite an early first full-term pregnancy might represent a selected group with a more malignant disease

On the variability of the leaf relative uptake rate of carbonyl sulfide compared to carbon dioxide: Insights from a paired field study with two soybean varieties

Carbonyl sulfide (COS) has been proposed as a promising tracer for the estimation of the gross primary productivity (GPP) from ecosystem to global scale in recent years. Despite substantial work at spatial scales from leaf to regions, the uncertainty of COS-based GPP estimates are poorly known compared to widely used GPP estimates derived from the net ecosystem CO2 exchange. One key uncertainty in this context is the leaf relative uptake (LRU) of the COS with respect to the GPP, which must be known a priori. To investigate the influence of environmental factors, like drought, on the variability of the LRU, we conducted an experiment using ecosystem flux measurements of COS, CO2 and H2O from two eddy covariance towers above a soybean field, growing a commercial cultivar and a chlorophyll deficient mutant variety, in two separate plots. Our findings suggest that the LRU does not only differ between plant varieties due to differences in the ratio of the internal to ambient CO2 mole fraction and the internal resistance to COS, but also changes in response to drought. We also found the internal resistance to COS uptake to be a significant factor in controlling the total COS flux for both varieties, but more so for the commercial cultivar. Our study indicates that species-specific differences in the LRU need to be investigated further, and that environmental stress might complicate the usage of COS as a tracer for predicting GPP at ecosystem and global scale

Isotope shift calculations for atoms with one valence electron

This work presents a method for the ab initio calculation of isotope shift in atoms and ions with one valence electron above closed shells. As a zero approximation we use relativistic Hartree-Fock and then calculate correlation corrections. The main motivation for developing the method comes from the need to analyse whether different isotope abundances in early universe can contribute to the observed anomalies in quasar absorption spectra. The current best explanation for these anomalies is the assumption that the fine structure constant, alpha, was smaller at early epoch. We test the isotope shift method by comparing the calculated and experimental isotope shift for the alkali and alkali-like atoms Na, MgII, K, CaII and BaII. The agreement is found to be good. We then calculate the isotope shift for some astronomically relevant transitions in SiII and SiIV, MgII, ZnII and GeII.Comment: 11 page

Modular Invariance and Uniqueness of Conformal Characters

We show that the conformal characters of various rational models of W-algebras can be already uniquely determined if one merely knows the central charge and the conformal dimensions. As a side result we develop several tools for studying representations of SL(2,Z) on spaces of modular functions. These methods, applied here only to certain rational conformal field theories, may be useful for the analysis of many others.Comment: 21 pages (AMS TeX), BONN-TH-94-16, MPI-94-6

Isoprene emission and photosynthesis during heatwaves and drought in black locust

Extreme weather conditions like heatwaves and drought can substantially affect tree physiology and the emissions of isoprene. To date, however, there is only limited understanding of isoprene emission patterns during prolonged heat stress and next to no data on emission patterns during coupled heat–drought stress or during post-stress recovery. We studied gas exchange and isoprene emissions of black locust trees under episodic heat stress and in combination with drought. Heatwaves were simulated in a controlled greenhouse facility by exposing trees to outside temperatures +10 °C, and trees in the heat–drought treatment were supplied with half of the irrigation water given to heat and control trees. Leaf gas exchange of isoprene, CO2 and H2O was quantified using self-constructed, automatically operating chambers, which were permanently installed on leaves (n = 3 per treatment). Heat and combined heat–drought stress resulted in a sharp decline of net photosynthesis (Anet) and stomatal conductance. Simultaneously, isoprene emissions increased 6- to 8-fold in the heat and heat–drought treatment, which resulted in a carbon loss that was equivalent to 12 and 20 % of assimilated carbon at the time of measurement. Once temperature stress was released at the end of two 15-day-long heatwaves, stomatal conductance remained reduced, while isoprene emissions and Anet recovered quickly to values of the control trees. Further, we found that isoprene emissions covaried with Anet during nonstress conditions, while during the heatwaves, isoprene emissions were not related to Anet but to light and temperature. Under standard air temperature and light conditions (here 30 °C and photosynthetically active radiation of 500 µmol m−2 s−1), isoprene emissions of the heat trees were by 45 % and the heat–drought trees were by 27 % lower than in control trees. Moreover, temperature response curves showed that not only the isoprene emission factor changed during both heat and heat–drought stress, but also the shape of the response. Because introducing a simple treatment-specific correction factor could not reproduce stress-induced isoprene emissions, different parameterizations of light and temperature functions are needed to describe tree isoprene emissions under heat and combined heat–drought stress. In order to increase the accuracy of predictions of isoprene emissions in response to climate extremes, such individual stress parameterizations should be introduced to current BVOC models