palaeoenvironmental information in geological time and also a baseline reference for understanding future climatic change. The inverse relationship between atmospheric CO2 partial pressure (pCO2) and stomatal frequency in many species of plants has been widely used to estimate palaeoatmospheric CO2 (palaeo-CO2) levels. In contrast to the negative correlations detected for most other species tha...
Heterostyly is a conspicuous floral polymorphism in which non-random mating is usually enforced by a strong diallelic self-incompatibility system that ensures intermorph mating by preventing self and intramorph mating. Populations of heterostylous species contain either two (distyly) or three (tristyly) floral morphs that differ reciprocally in the relative positions of stigmas and anthers, a c...
Vitis vinifera ( grape ) is one of the most economically significant fruit crops in the world. The availability of the recently released grape genome sequence offers the opportunity to identify and analyze some important gene families in this species. Subtilases are a group of subtilisin-like serine proteases that are involved in many biological processes in plants. However, no comprehensive st...
Variation in plant phenology is one of the most sensitive ecological responses to climate change. Changes to species’ phenology can have a wide range of impacts on ecological processes, agriculture, forestry, food supply, and human healthy. Most studies that evaluated species responses to global warming have shown progressive advances in spring phenology. However, unchanged and delayed spring ...
The genus Pestalotiopsis is a highly creative genus which has been shown to produce more than 300 chemically novel, diverse, bioactive metabolites. Species of Pestalotiopsis commonly occur as plant pathogens or endophytes and have been the subject of considerable novel compound discovery research. Most of these novel compounds discovered from Pestalotiopsis were derived from unnamed species of ...
Eriocalyxin B, an ent-kaurene diterpenoid, possesses potent bioactivity of antitumor and anti-autoimmune. Related studies have been devoted to elucidating the underlying mechanisms of the bioactivities of EriB, among which the NF-κB signaling is largely involved. Though extensive investigations of the mechanism involved in the inhibition of NF-κB signaling by EriB have been reported, the ...
Broad bean (Vicia faba L.) is an important leguminous crop worldwide. It is extensively used as a grain, a vegetable, a fodder etc. because of its nutrient-rich seeds. In China, broad bean is widely cultivated in Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Qinghai provinces, and the planting area and total production both account for over half of those worldwide. Like oth...
Polycyclic polyprenylated acylphloroglucinols (PPAPs) are a special class of complex natural products that have only been isolated from plants of the family Guttiferae so far. Biogenetically, the acylphloroglucinol cores are presumably derived from a characteristic polyketide-type biosynthesis and their prenylation is realized through an enzyme-catalyzed addition to afford monocyclic polyprenyl...
The temperate woody bamboos, i.e., tribe Arundinarieae are widely distributed in Asia, North America, and Africa, with China as the center of diversification at the species and generic levels. This tribe includes economically important species, such as moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis (Carrière) J. Houzeau), and the staple bamboos for the giant panda (e.g. Fargesia spp.). Species delimita...
