Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2024
Authors
Inger MartinussenAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
Priming of Norway spruce (Picea abies) inducible defenses is a promising way to protect young trees from herbivores and pathogens. Methyl jasmonate (MeJA) application is known to induce and potentially prime Norway spruce defenses but may also reduce plant growth. Therefore, we tested β-aminobutyric acid (BABA) as an alternative priming chemical to enhance spruce resistance, using 2-year-old Norway spruce plants. We compared inducible defense responses, i.e. traumatic resin duct formation and accumulation of defensive metabolites, in bark and xylem tissues of BABA- or MeJA-treated plants before and after wounding. We also evaluated the effect of these chemical treatments on Norway spruce resistance to the pathogenic bluestain fungus Grosmania penicilliata. BABA did not induce defense responses or pathogen resistance, it even reduced concentrations of total terpenes in the treated plants. In contrast, MeJA induced traumatic resin duct formation, accumulation of flavonoids, pathogen resistance, and did not affect plant growth. For the first time, flavan-3-ols (catechins) were shown to have a primed response to MeJA treatment in Norway spruce. Our results indicated that BABA is not a suitable alternative priming chemical to MeJA in Norway spruce.
Abstract
Pollarding in agroforestry systems was traditionally an important practice for fodder acquisition in Western Norway, as well as in many other parts of the world. The practice has long been in decline, but to maintain cultural landscapes and biodiversity enhancement from pollarding, farmers now receive a public grant for each tree they pollard. In this interdisciplinary study we investigate which ecosystem services modern pollarding practices provide, under the influence of the current pollarding policy. We have performed both in-depth interviews and a quantitative survey targeting all pollarding farmers in the county of Vestland in Western Norway. We find that bioresources obtained from the branches from pollarding are to some extent still taken into use, mainly in the form of tree fodder for farm animals and firewood, but a lot of the branches remain unused. Biodiversity benefits are obtained from preserving old trees that often are located on agricultural land as solitary trees, as these trees provide important habitats, particularly for species growing on the bark, such as lichens and mosses, or within the decaying wood, such as, for example, fungi and insects. The modern practice of letting branches rot in the field provide habitats for insects and hence additional benefits to biodiversity. For the farmers, the main motivations to pollard are the cultural, aesthetic and historical values of pollarded trees. They see few disadvantages with pollarding, and most of them plan to continue in the future. The grant provides an incentive for pollarding, but our results indicate that the practice would continue without it, although less than now, especially with the establishment of new pollards.
Abstract
“rswap” is an R package under development for SWAP 4.2 with the goal of simplifying, automating, and improving user interaction with the model. The package functions by detecting and translating SWAP input files into R-compatible dataframes, allowing for easy and automated modifications to parameters. Modified model inputs can then be re-written to files and run in SWAP from the R console using "rswap". SWAP model output can be automatically imported into the R environment and visualized using a variety of (interactive) graphing functions. If observational data is provided by the user, then the package can adjust output settings to match (variables and depth). Modelled and observed data can then be graphically compared in-line and “goodness-of-fit” statistics can be generated and plotted. Additionally, model runs can be saved and interactively compared with each other, functions are thoroughly documented with runnable examples, and a baseline runnable model setup can be automatically initialized. Further planned developments to the package include support for parallel running of model runs, enabling rapid automated sensitivity analysis, scenario analysis, as well as automated “hard calibration” routines and parameter estimation. Through this functionality, “rswap” can connect the SWAP model to an integrated development environment (IDE), such as “RStudio”, allowing users to efficiently perform all their work (setup, calibration, execution, analysis) in a single environment. Importantly, the packages allows for direct use of SWAP with the vast array of research software on the R platform. “rswap” is an open-source project originally developed for use in OPTAIN (optain.eu) and has been applied in multiple case studies and thesis projects.
2023
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Claire CoutrisAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Marit JørgensenAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Tomás Brůna Rishi Aryal Olga Dudchenko Daniel James Sargent Daniel Mead Matteo Buti Andrea Cavallini Timo Hytönen Javier Andrés Melanie Pham David Weisz Flavia Mascagni Gabriele Usai Lucia Natali Nahla Bassil Gina E. Fernandez Alexandre Lomsadze Mitchell Armour Bode Olukolu Thomas Poorten Caitlin Britton Jahn Davik Hamid Ashrafi Erez Lieberman Aiden Mark Borodovsky Margaret WorthingtonAbstract
Blackberries (Rubus spp.) are the fourth most economically important berry crop worldwide. Genome assemblies and annotations have been developed for Rubus species in subgenus Idaeobatus, including black raspberry (R. occidentalis), red raspberry (R. idaeus), and R. chingii, but very few genomic resources exist for blackberries and their relatives in subgenus Rubus. Here we present a chromosomelength assembly and annotation of the diploid blackberry germplasm accession “Hillquist” (R. argutus). “Hillquist” is the only known source of primocane-fruiting (annual-fruiting) in tetraploid fresh-market blackberry breeding programs and is represented in the pedigree of many important cultivars worldwide. The “Hillquist” assembly, generated using Pacific Biosciences long reads scaffolded with high-throughput chromosome conformation capture sequencing, consisted of 298Mb, of which 270Mb (90%) was placed on 7 chromosome-length scaffolds with an average length of 38.6Mb. Approximately 52.8% of the genome was composed of repetitive elements. The genome sequence was highly collinear with a novel maternal haplotype-resolved linkage map of the tetraploid blackberry selection A-2551TN and genome assemblies of R. chingii and red raspberry. A total of 38,503 protein-coding genes were predicted, of which 72% were functionally annotated. Eighteen flowering gene homologs within a previously mapped locus aligning to an 11.2Mb region on chromosome Ra02 were identified as potential candidate genes for primocane-fruiting. The utility of the “Hillquist” genome has been demonstrated here by the development of the first genotyping-by-sequencing-based linkage map of tetraploid blackberry and the identification of possible candidate genes for primocane-fruiting. This chromosome-length assembly will facilitate future studies in Rubus biology, genetics, and genomics and strengthen applied breeding programs.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered