Over 85% of land plants engage in symbiotic relationships with mycorrhiza-forming soil fungi that colonise their roots. These associations, termed mycorrhizal symbioses, involve the exchange of fungal-acquired nutrients and water for photosynthetically fixed plant carbon. Mycorrhizal symbioses are thus considered a promising nature-based solution to making agricultural practices more sustainable, particularly by reducing the need for chemical fertiliser applications on soils while maintaining crop yields. In order to implement the widespread use of mycorrhizal fungi in agriculture, a complete awareness of their range of plant hosts is needed. Mucoromycotina Fine Root Endophytes (MFRE) are a group of mycorrhiza-forming fungi that, over the last decade, have been shown to be phylogenetically and functionally distinct from the common Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF). Fungal morphologies similar to those of MFRE have been described in early light microscopy studies on roots stained for mycorrhiza. However, owing to limitations in the tools used to identify fungal endophytes until now, these structures were routinely misidentified as belonging to AMF. As such, the true range of plant hosts colonised by MFRE remains unclear. Here, we provide the first molecular evidence of MFRE colonisation within the roots of winter wheat, winter barley, spring wheat and strawberries. Root samples were collected from an Oxfordshire farm (UK) and were analysed for fungal symbionts using a workflow involving PCR with the NS1/EF3 universal fungal primer set and molecular cloning. Partial DNA sequences of the 18S ribosomal RNA gene were obtained and were analysed using BLAST. Our findings shed light on the true distribution of plant-MFRE associations and give rise to new questions regarding their functional significance within agricultural plants.

Plant hormones are master regulators of developmental and genetic mechanisms to deal with diverse environmental cues. During phosphate (Pi) limitation, in vascular plants, the phytohormone metabolism is modified to coordinate morphological and molecular mechanisms to overcome such stress. However, the transcriptional program underlying hormonal signaling in response to low Pi availability in early branches of land plant phylogeny remains unclear. To shed light on this topic, we explored the transcriptional dynamics of key genes involved in auxin, cytokinin, ethylene, jasmonate, gibberellin and abscisic acid metabolism in the early divergent land plant Marchantia polymorpha, upon Pi starvation. Our RNAseq approach revealed major changes in genes associated with auxin and ethylene biosynthesis upon Pi scarcity, while cytokinin synthesis is transcriptionally repressed under the same conditions. Interestingly, genes involved in auxin and ethylene signaling such as MpARF1 and MpARF2 are upregulated as well as the MpERF. In contrast, MpARRb is down-regulated in agreement with the changes observed in cytokine biosynthetic genes. Moreover, genes involved in the synthesis of jasmonates were highly upregulated under low Pi, but those related to signaling did not change in expression. Altogether our data led us to suggest that auxin and ethylene act as positive regulators of rhizoid development under Pi limitation, whereas cytokinin may act as a negative regulator. The transcriptional behavior of sech hormone-related genes in Marchantia is similar to that previously described controlling root hair development in A. thaliana, Z. maize and O. sativa in response to Pi scarcity.

Katanin, is a microtubule severing protein that orchestrates microtubule organization throughout the plant cell cycle. Taking into consideration the role of the microtubule cytoskeleton in the stomatal development, the Arabidopsis thaliana katanin mutants, fra2, lue1 and bot1 were studied to observe how the absence of function/malfunction of katanin affects stomatal development. Katanin mutants bore less mature stomata and more young stomata and meristemoids forming clusters. The size of the mature stomata differed from col-0, with the katanin mutants having shorter guard cells as well as smaller pore apertures. Also a unique type of cells was observed in the fra2 mutant, the persistent guard mother cells (GMCs); where the stomatal ontogenesis has been altered at the GMC stage and did not divide symmetrically to form a stoma. Another, rather significant observation was that, the cell walls of some epidermal cells in the mutants appeared to be incomplete. As far as the cell wall-matrix components distribution is concerned, callose distribution did not display significant differences compared to col-0, while pectins and hemicelluloses were differentially dispersed. Microtubules in cytokinetic GMCs were long, bended and connected to the nuclei, while microtubule arrays in katanin mutant leaf epidermis were aberrant and stomatal complexes displayed astral microtubule arrays as it was observed in the wild type. In conclusion, the malfunction of katanin appears to affect the development of stomata in the epidermis of young leaves in Arabidopsis thaliana. The cell wall matrix distribution differed in the katanin mutants in comparison to col-0, possible affecting the function of the stomata, since katanin mutant stomata had a reduced pore aperture.

Light and temperature signalling in Arabidopsis share strong parallels through the involvement of photoreceptors, phytohormones and transcription factors activity, suggesting common nodes between gene regulatory networks of these two signalling pathways. This is, further, supported by the phenocopy of thermomorphogenic responses to Shade Avoidance Responses (SAR) in Arabidopsis. We investigated the response of shade and high temperature in tomato (a dicot) and rice (a monocot). Similar to Arabidopsis, we observed shade induced elongation growth in both tomato and rice seedlings. However, high ambient temperature (HT) response differed across the three species. Contrary to hypocotyl elongation in Arabidopsis under HT, tomato seedlings did not show significant change in hypocotyl length while rice showed reduction in seedling length. We, then, investigated the underlying transcriptional responses of shade and high temperature across the three species using tissue-specific comparative transcriptome profiling by RNA sequencing. Differential expression analysis identified 1692 (shade) and 2664 (HT) differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in Arabidopsis, 2686 (shade) and 3614 (HT) DEGs in tomato while 2944 (shade) and 5549 (HT) DEGs in rice. We found that approximately 10-15% DEGs were shared between shade and high temperature in these three species while 50-60% DEGs were unique to high temperature and 25-30% DEGs were unique to shade. Thus, despite sharing the phenotypic response and some common signalling pathways, the global transcriptional response of shade and high temperature in Arabidopsis are very unique. Further, high ambient temperature showed more pronounced impact on the transcriptional profile of all the three species compared to shade. Gene Ontology enrichment analysis revealed different hormones (auxin, gibberellin, brassinosteroid) biosynthesis and signalling, growth, development and cell cycle were major enriched categories in all the three species. Currently, we are establishing the conserved and diverged signalling pathways across the species employing orthologous gene relationship, and generating species-specific gene regulatory networks in response to shade and high temperature.

Climatic changes along with other environmental factors affect many plant physiological processes including synthesis and release into the environment of biologically active metabolites referred to as allelochemicals. The latter, in turn, could affect the ability of plant-acceptors to adapt to abiotic stress factors. Today drought is recognized to be the most challenging abiotic stress causing annual yield losses worldwide about 17%. It is expected that further warming will lead to a sharp increase in the deficit of water in many regions of the world.

The present study focused on the interaction between pre-sowing seed priming with the synthetic analogs of allelochemicals and soil drought on wheat physiological performance and allelopathic potential. The mixture of cinnamic, salicylic and ascorbic acids (0.01, 0.1 and 1 mM) was used as a priming agent. The soil moisture was regulated by watering pots to 20%, 40% and 60% of field capacity. The macronutrient content in the rhizosphere soil was also measured.

The results of our studies indicated complex interactions between allelopathy and soil drought on physiological and allelopathic characteristics of the target plants. Mild allelopathic stress applied to seeds made seedlings more resistant to subsequent drought stress and contributed to the increase of their allelopathic potential. Intensification of drought stress resulted in the decrease of production of allelopathic inhibitors in the tissues of wheat seedlings and enhancement of concentrations allelopathic stimulants and organic carbon in the rhizosphere soil. Changes in allelopathic activity of the rhizosphere soil closely correlated with the changes in organic carbon, nitrates, iron and phosphorus. While soil reaction, concentration of ammonia, manganese, potassium, sulfur displayed no correlation with soil allelopathic activity. The phenomena of cross-synergism and cross-antagonism between the interacting stress factors have been discussed. The observed ability of wheat seedlings to modify allelopathic and nutritional regime in the soil surrounding their roots in response to pre-sowing seed priming and drought stress suggested that plant organisms could directly influence the magnitude of effects of the stress factors through feedback regulation.

Stimulating and increasing of seeds field germination, activating the growth of the root system and increasing productivity is the actually tasks, that can be solved by priming the seeds of Asparagus officinalis L.

The aim of the research was to determine the influence of low-temperature and hydrothermal, succinic acid and microelements solutions treatment on germination energy, seed germination and yield study of asparagus hybrids.

Samples of hybrids Atlas-15 and WB 210-15 were cooled to temperatures of –70 or –196°C with different way and then heated on air at 22ºC or soaked for 24 hours in water, in solutions of microelements according to Murashige&Skoog (1–3 mg/l), in succinic acid (1–3 mg/l).

The use of low-temperature treatments did not affect the seeds germination. Yield study of growing asparagus seedlings obtained from cooled to –70°C seeds showed a higher number of shoots and roots, their weight compared with the control after 120 days cultivation. Freezing of seeds to liquid nitrogen temperatures led to a decrease in all studied parameters.

Treatment the seeds with microelements and succinic acid did not affect on the studied indicators after cultivation. Hydropraiming of seeds and its further cultivation at optimal temperature conditions promoted significantly higher indicators of emergence of asparagus seeds compared to the control values.

It can be concluded that to improve the qualities of asparagus seeds hybrid should used pretreatment at low temperatures (–70°C) or hydropraiming for the day before sowing in soil conditions.

The health risk assessment of heavy metals in food crops fumigated with pesticides as the only source of contamination are mostly overlooked. This study determined the concentrations of heavy metals (Cd, Pb, Cr, Cu and Zn) in some food crops and soil fumigated with pesticides from agricultural farms and their health risk in human. The mean concentrations of heavy metals in different parts of the crops ranged from 0.12-2.03, 1.73 -23.34, 1.60-1150.50, 0.67 -19.50, 0.09 -6.14-mg/kg for Zn, Pb, Cu, Cr, and Cd respectively. The concentrations of Cd, Pb, and Cr in the investigated crops were above the WHO, (2011) permissible limits. Heavy metals concentration varied significantly in different parts of most of the studied crops and were in decreasing trend of Cu>Pb>Cr>Cd>Zn . The mean concentration of heavy metals in the corresponding soils of all the crops fumigated with pesticides from agricultural farms were higher than adjacent control soil which has not been fumigated with pesticides. Most of the crops showed bio accumulation factor (BAF) >1 values for Cd, Pb and Zn and BAF value was maximum for copper (141.75) in Oryza sativa. Pollution indices showed all the investigated crops were contaminated for Cd, Pb and Cr and are likely to pose potential health risk to humans. The estimated daily intake for Cd, Pb had exceeded the USEPA, (2006) oral reference dose daily limit. Hazard Quotient >1 was observed only from the consumption of Oryza sativa (3.504) for Cu and could likely cause potential health risk in human. More so, Hazard Index showed that the inhabitants may experience adverse health risk through the consumption of Oryza sativa (4.666), Zea mays (1.475), capsicum annuum (1.132) for all the studied metals. Therefore, the need for monitoring of heavy metals in the edible part of crops and soil to see if they exceed the permissible limits. Indiscriminate use of these chemical pesticides most be regulated and use of bio pesticides cannot be overemphasized.

The comparative study on the effects of nitrapyrin and the mixture of natural siliceous minerals on physiological processes of some economically important crops with different pathways of carbon fixation grown under high nitrogen fertilization conditions, as well as on soil microbiota and the content of macronutrients was conducted in the 5-years field experiments. The results obtained revealed a significantly higher inhibitory effect of siliceous minerals on the supply of nitrate forms of nitrogen to corn and winter wheat grown on different types of soils, amended with urea (60-100 kg / ha) during the whole period of the study. Microbiological analysis showed that application of siliceous minerals significantly decreased the number of nitrifiers as well as the number of micromicetes producing phytotoxic allelochemicals compared with the other treatments. The concentration of phytotoxic phenolics was also lower in soil amended with the siliceous minerals as compared to the other plots. The application of nitrapyrin significantly reduced the concentration of chlorophyll b and carotenoids, but slightly increased the content of chlorophyll a in the leaves of wheat and corn plants. While application of siliceous minerals stimulated accumulation of chlorophyll b in the leaves of the both crops indicating intensification of growth processes. Application of nitrapyrin led to the reduction in the content of aspartate and some aromatic amino acids, but stimulated the accumulation of arginine and lysine. Such metabolic changes suggested disintegration of nitrogen and phosphate metabolism in the studied crops. Crops treated with siliceous minerals had higher glutamic acid concentration, which indicated the intensification photosynthetic processes. Thus, the use of natural siliceous minerals is more advantageous than traditional nitrification inhibitors such as nitrapyrin in terms of their effectiveness, persistence in various types of soils and beneficial effect on soil microbiota. Their production is cheaper and harmless to the environment.

Olive growing has been facing major constraints due to intensification, resulting in an increase of use of pesticides and fertilizers and, consequently in the degradation of natural resources, loss of biodiversity and landscape values. This has created an urgent need to develop models for managing complex agroecosystems that integrate factors affecting food quality, sustainability and biodiversity to provide a supporting technique to understand the consequences of agricultural management for ecosystems services. We are developing an advanced base-agent simulation (ABS) applied to the olive grove to preview and evaluate the effects of farming practices on the abundance of predaceous species of olive pests. ABS is a modelling technique where agents represent animals (predaceous arthropods, in our case) acting in their environment. Our model is based on an ABS system developed in Denmark (ALMaSS) that can include highly detailed farm management and spatial structures. In this work we will present the conceptual model for one of the selected species, Haplodrassus rufipes (Araneae: Gnaphosidae), and some early stage results of the computer simulation of the ABS model for this species. At a later stage, our model will be tested with real observed data collected from selected study sites located in Portugal in order to produce a useful tool for decision making. This is a joint work of a multidisciplinary team involving agronomists, entomologists, ecologists, mathematicians and software engineers.

This work was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia through the project PTDC/ASP-PLA/30003/2017 - OLIVESIM - Managing ecosystem services in olive groves using advanced landscape agent-based Models

Cadmium ions are toxic to living organisms and cause oxidative stress. Looking for anti-toxicants with antioxidant, antiradical and chelating activity is promising therefore. Fomes fomentarius is one of the most common wood-destroying fungi in Eurasia; though its chemical composition and biological effects were not studied sufficiently.

This work is aimed to study separate and joint effects of fungal extracts and Cd²⁺ (250 μM) on barley seedlings. Cd²⁺ caused 95% decrease in root length compared to control (water) and fungi extract (2 mg / ml) - 25%. Twice diluted extract stimulated root growth by 12%. The changes in shoot length were not so prominent: 44% decrease in the case of Cd²⁺ and 36% in fungi extract (2 mg / ml), and 20% stimulation at lower extract concentration.

The joint action of Cd²⁺ and extracts (1 mg / ml) has shown that the root length was 30% of control, which is 6 times higher than in the case of Cd2⁺. The shoot length was one third higher compared to Cd²⁺ and reached 71% of the control.

Thus, addition of tinder fungus extract (1 mg / ml) reduced the negative effect of Cd²⁺, but did not completely block it. Perhaps this effect was associated with the high content of phenolic compounds in the extract (3.5 μg / ml) and their antioxidant activity. The ABTS* test showed that extract inhibited the formation of radicals by 51%, which is comparable to standard antioxidant rutin. We suggest that Fomes fomentarius extract could be tested further as a bio-based product, reducing toxic effect of heavy metals.