Norfolk Plant Sciences welcomes major milestone decision on purple GM tomatoes

Business Announcement

JOHN INNES CENTRE

 

IMAGE: NORFOLK PLANT SCIENCES (NPS) HAS DEVELOPED GENETICALLY MODIFIED (GM) PURPLE TOMATOES CONTAINING HIGH LEVELS OF ANTIOXIDANTS AND ANTHOCYANINS view more 

CREDIT: ANDREW DAVIES - JOHN INNES CENTRE

A spinout company’s dream of bringing genetically modified (GM) purple tomatoes to the gardens and plates of American home growers has moved a crucial step closer following a decision by United States regulators. 

Norfolk Plant Sciences Ltd welcomed the decision by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) which means US home growers should be able to purchase seeds and grow the nutritionally enhanced high-anthocyanin purple tomato from spring 2023.  

A Regulatory Status Review (RSR) issued on Wednesday September 7 states that the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), “has determined that [Norfolk Plant Sciences’] modified tomato is unlikely to pose an increased plant pest risk relative to its comparator.”  

According to this decision, the purple tomato is no longer subject to the regulations limiting “Movement of Organisms Modified or Produced through Genetic Engineering.” 

NPS is a spinout company from the John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Laboratory two world-leading research institutes based at Norwich Research Park. The company was established by Professors Cathie Martin and Jonathan Jones as the UK’s first GM crop company. Its aim is to find ways of commercialising their research into plants with enhanced health-giving compounds. 

The decision follows a long wait for Professor Martin who developed the anthocyanin rich purple tomato in 2008 by engineering a precise genetic “on switch,” derived from an edible flower.  

“This is fantastic, I never thought I would see this day. We are now one step closer to my dream of sharing healthy purple tomatoes with the many people excited to eat them,” she said. 

“The bittersweet thing is that the tomatoes will be on sale in America and not the UK as well. But the plus side is that by focusing on home growers we will be consumer oriented, and we will be able to get feedback and interest needed to develop other products.” she said.  

Hundreds of people in the US have already expressed interest via the Big Purple Tomato website in buying tomatoes and seed once they become available. 

Professor Jonathan Jones of The Sainsbury Laboratory said: “When Cathie and I founded NPS nearly 15 years ago to bring to market health-promoting, genetically enhanced purple tomatoes, invented in the UK, we never thought it would take so long to obtain regulatory approval. This is a red-letter day for crop improvement, with approval of a beneficial product by USDA, after careful scrutiny of a detailed information dossier that describes its properties.  

“We also look forward to sensible regulatory frameworks for such products in the UK, and effective methods to protect our major crops from disease, using genetics instead of chemistry.” 

Anthocyanins are antioxidants associated with a host of health benefits and are important to an anti-inflammatory diet.  

Independent studies show that antioxidants and anthocyanins can reduce incidence of cancer, improve cardiovascular function, and improve health and well-being. Lab studies also suggest these healthy compounds could help alleviate irritable bowel syndrome. 

Nathan Pumplin, CEO of Norfolk Plant Sciences’ US-based commercial business, stated, “this decision shows how the updates to APHIS’s regulatory framework will enable independent scientists and small companies to develop and compete on the market with better products, to the benefit of consumers and climate. This decision is a big milestone, which brings us much closer to a commercial launch of purple tomatoes. We are optimistic that we can begin limited distribution of purple tomatoes in the US in 2023.” 

Although purple-skinned tomato varieties exist, they do not accumulate useful levels of these healthy compounds within the fruit flesh.  

While it is possible to use nutritional supplements to increase intake of these compounds, there is increasing evidence to show that they work much better when consumed within foods. 

Chronic diseases are a worldwide problem, killing twice as many people as infectious diseases. The World Health Organisation states that improved diet is one of the major changes that people can make to help prevent these diseases. 

 

New published study finds hospital hand hygiene performance rates improve the most when facilities partner with AHHMS vendor

Study reviewed 243 million hand hygiene opportunities over 58 units within 10 hospitals in North America

Peer-Reviewed Publication

GOJO INDUSTRIES

 

IMAGE: VISUAL ABSTRACT OF THE STUDY "THE IMPACT OF AUTOMATED HAND HYGIENE MONITORING WITH AND WITHOUT COMPLEMENTARY IMPROVEMENT STRATEGIES ON PERFORMANCE RATES" view more 

CREDIT: GOJO INDUSTRIES

A new study by researchers at GOJO Industries, recently published in the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology (ICHE), demonstrates healthcare facilities that actively partner with their automated hand hygiene monitoring system (AHHMS) vendor are able to achieve greater improvement in hand hygiene performance – a backbone of infection control programs.

“With data from 58 units in 10 hospitals throughout North America – 243 million hand hygiene opportunities – this study makes an important contribution to understanding hand hygiene performance-rate improvement efforts,” said Jim Arbogast, Ph.D., the lead author of the study and Vice President of Hygiene Sciences and Public Health Advancements at GOJO Industries. “The evidence is clear that clinician-based support from their AHHMS vendor is a critical component that hospitals can’t overlook in their hand hygiene performance efforts. Healthcare facilities shouldn’t install an AHHMS and forget about it.”

The study, The impact of automated hand hygiene monitoring with and without complementary improvement strategies on performance rates, was published online on August 22 in ICHE. Hand hygiene performance rates were estimated using the PURELL Smartlink® Activity Monitoring System and showed greater sustained increases in hand hygiene performance when the hospital worked in collaboration with the vendor to implement the system and initiate complementary improvement interventions. Major findings of the study include:

• AHHMS in combination with clinician-based vendor support and hospital-led unit-based initiatives (Vendor + Hospital group) led to statistically significant improvements in hand hygiene performance compared with the Vendor-only, Hospital-only, or AHHMS-alone groups (>46% increase; P < 0.006). 1
• Hospital units in the Vendor-plus-Hospital group achieved a 76% increase in hand hygiene performance compared to the Vendor-only group (46.9/26.7=1.76), a 46% increase compared to the Hospital-only group (46.9/32.1=1.46), and a 48% increase over the AHHMS-alone group (46.9/31.7=1.48). 1

“The use of AHHMS has been growing over the past decade as hospitals increasingly recognize it as a valuable tool in the fight to improve healthcare worker hand hygiene,” said co-author Lori Moore, MPH, BSN, RN, CPPS, Clinical Educator, GOJO Industries. “It’s been shown to provide substantially more quantitative data than direct observations and without observer bias. It provides a real-time view for infection control staff to see how well their hand hygiene performance improvement strategies are working – and if they aren’t, they can quickly adjust course.”

"This multi-year study of multiple healthcare facilities is crucial for understanding hand hygiene because, unlike single facility studies, it directly assesses how reproducible hand hygiene rates are. I am unaware of any other multi-facility trial of this size in the literature,” said co-author Albert Parker, biostatistician at the Center for Biofilm Engineering and research professor, Montana State University.

"As hospitals navigate out of the acute phase of the pandemic, many are refocusing on basic, yet important, measures like hand hygiene,” said co-author Megan DiGiorgio, MSN, RN, CIC, FAPIC, Senior Clinical Manager, GOJO Industries. “Because our study utilized modeled data, hospitals interested in AHHMS will have an idea of what they can expect in their own facilities when employing AHHMS with complementary strategies."

These findings were originally accepted as a poster at the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) Decennial conference in 2020. 2

 

1. Arbogast, J.W., Moore, L.D., DiGiorgio, M., Robbins, G., Clark, T. L., Thompson, M. F., Wagner, P. T., Boyce, J. M., Parker, A. E. The impact of automated hand hygiene monitoring with and without complementary improvement strategies on performance rates. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. Published online August 22, 2022. doi:10.1017/ice.2022.141

2. Arbogast, J., Moore, L., DiGiorgio, M., Boyce, J., & Parker, A. (2020). The Effect of Automated Hand Hygiene Monitoring Systems and Other Complementary Behavior-Change Strategies on Performance. Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, 41(S1), S451-S452. doi:10.1017/ice.2020.1122

 

About GOJO Industries

GOJO Industries helps the world experience greater health and wellness by leveraging our 75 years of experience to continually introduce improved ways to keep hands, and the surfaces they frequently touch, clean. The clearest example of this commitment is our PURELL® brand – a badge of hand and surface hygiene that is implicitly trusted in hospitals, restaurants, schools, businesses, airports, entertainment venues, and homes throughout the world. That clear focus paired with three generations of family leadership willing to continually invest in our business allows us to create true sustainable value that benefits society and continue our growth trajectory. For more information on GOJO Industries, please visit GOJO.com.

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JOURNAL

Infection Control

DOI

10.1017/ice.2022.141 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The impact of automated hand hygiene monitoring with and without complementary improvement strategies on performance rates

COI STATEMENT

The following co-authors are employed by GOJO Industries Inc, Akron, Ohio: James W. Arbogast, Lori D. Moore, Megan DiGiorgio, Greg Robbins, Tracy L. Clark, Maria F. Thompson, Pamela T. Wagner.

More people confident they know finances – despite the evidence

Research suggests financial literacy declining in America

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Financial literacy declined in America between 2009 and 2018, even while a growing number of people were overconfident about their understanding of finances, a new study finds.

 

The average score on a test of objective financial knowledge declined steadily when different groups of Americans were surveyed four times between 2009 and 2018.

 

And the percentage of people who believed they were above average in financial literacy – but actually scored lower than average on the test – increased from about 15% in 2009 to nearly 21% in 2018.

 

“The results raise the question of whether we’re doing enough or doing the right things to educate the public about the basics of finances needed to run a household,” said Sherman Hanna, co-author of the study and professor of consumer sciences at The Ohio State University.

 

“Not only are scores on a measure of financial knowledge declining, but a growing number of people think they know more than they do.”

 

Hanna conducted the study with Kyoung Tae Kim of the University of Alabama and Sunwoo Lee of York University in Toronto.  The results appear in the latest issue of the Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning.

 

The researchers used data from the National Financial Capability Study (NCFS), which is run by a private corporation, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.  The NCFS interviews Americans from every state every three years about their financial knowledge and behavior.

 

This new study included data from the 2009, 2012, 2015 and 2018 surveys, each of which included between 25,000 and 29,000 Americans.

 

The surveys asked five multiple-choice questions to measure objective financial knowledge. The questions are related to interest rates, inflation, bond prices, mortgages and financial risks.

 

The researchers took the results of the survey and then controlled for characteristics like age, race and ethnicity, and education to see if changes in the composition of the respondents from survey to survey may have influenced the findings.

 

But even with the controls, financial knowledge did decline in all four waves of the surveys analyzed, Hanna said.

 

The decline in knowledge was confirmed in several different ways.

 

One of the multiple-choice options on all the questions was “don’t know,” which allowed participants to respond without guessing.  The researchers found that the number of “don’t know” responses increased slightly between 2009 and 2018, even with the controls.

 

“We were seeing more people who admitted they just didn’t have a clue about how to answer some questions,” Hanna said.

 

Respondents were also asked to rate themselves on a scale of 1-7 on their “overall financial knowledge.” In this case, the results showed respondents in 2012 and 2015 thought they knew more about finances than those in 2009, controlling for other characteristics.

 

But those surveyed in 2018 were not significantly different from those in 2009 in how much they thought they knew about finances.

 

The researchers calculated how overconfident respondents were in their financial knowledge by comparing how well they scored on the objective test with how highly they rated themselves on their financial literacy.

 

The overall level of overconfidence bounced around a bit between the four surveys, with no clear trend. But when the researchers looked at the percentage of people who were overconfident, that did rise from 15% in 2009 to about 21% in 2015 and stayed at about the same level in 2018.

 

“It is interesting that we have more Americans who are overconfident in their financial abilities at the same time they give more ‘don’t know’ responses to questions in the survey. We need more research to figure out why that is.”

Although the results did show concerning trends about the decline in Americans’ financial literacy, the data cannot answer why this is happening, Hanna said.

 

One reason may be the well-documented decrease in math skills in the United States.

 

“To a great extent, financial literacy depends on math ability,” Hanna said.  “If you can’t do simple math, it is difficult to figure out how much money you would earn in a savings account at a certain interest rate.”

 

In addition, the questions on the survey may be less relevant to the lives of most Americans than they used to be, Hanna said.

 

“Many Americans are struggling to pay rent, let alone being able to afford a mortgage, which one of the questions is about.  Another question is about investing, when many people have to worry more about paying credit card debt than investing extra savings,” he said.

 

Hanna said it may be more worthwhile to find ways to help the public that don’t rely on detailed financial knowledge. For example, many companies now have defaults for employees that invest a certain amount of their salaries into 401Ks, rather than force workers to actively choose whether and how to invest.

 

“Financial knowledge is good, but our ultimate goal should be for better financial outcomes. We need to find ways to help people make better choices,” he said.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning

DOI

10.1891/JFCP-2021-0049 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Has Financial Knowledge Increased in the United States?

University of South Florida awarded $20 million NSF grant to protect coral reef and mangrove ecosystems

Researchers will focus on Biscayne Bay region in Miami, Mesoamerican Barrier Reef Complex in Belize and the U.S. Virgin Islands

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA

 

IMAGE: MAYA TROTZ, USF view more 

CREDIT: USF

TAMPA, Fla. (Sept. 8, 2022) – The National Science Foundation has awarded a $20 million grant to a University of South Florida-lead team of researchers to develop a standardized approach to the protection and replenishment of coral reef and mangrove ecosystems, which serve as a barrier in protecting our coasts.

Led by Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Maya Trotz, the team includes USF experts in environmental engineering, anthropology and marine science, as well as collaborators from six academic institutions. They’re working to develop scalable and equitable engineering practices to enhance coastal sustainability by combining natural features, such as coral reefs and mangrove forests, with built infrastructure, such as seawalls and floodwater pumps, to promote resilience towaves, storm surges and sea-level rise – threats that can cause property damage, erosion and loss of life.

The U.S. Coral Reef Conservation Act promotes the study, management, protection and restoration of coral reefs. Similar acts in Florida apply to mangroves. Work on reef and mangrove restoration continues to grow in the U.S. and across the globe.

“Reefs and mangroves play critical roles in protecting coastal communities. By rigorously valuing their social and economic benefits, we open new opportunities to invest in these habitats and ensure their benefits to people and nature,” Trotz said. “Not only will this project address the environmental questions of our time, it will also provide advice on how ordinary people everywhere can participate in finding solutions to our coastal crisis.”

The research aims to quantify the social and ecological factors required to develop effective policy changes and advance public and private investment in disaster risk prevention and reduction.

With its low-lying topography and coral reef and mangrove habitat, the research team will focus on the Biscayne Bay region in Miami, which is one of the most highly susceptible areas to climate and weather disasters, as well as the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef Complex in Belize and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The project is part of the National Science Foundation’s Coastlines and People Hubs for Research and Broadening Participation program. The research team includes experts from Boston University, Stanford University, University of Miami, University of California Santa Cruz, University of Virgin Islands and East Carolina University.

NASA's Hubble finds spiraling stars, providing window into early universe

Researchers find the spiral may be feeding star formation in a nearby stellar nursery

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

 

IMAGE: THE MASSIVE STAR CLUSTER NGC 346, LOCATED IN THE SMALL MAGELLANIC CLOUD, HAS LONG INTRIGUED ASTRONOMERS WITH ITS UNUSUAL SHAPE. NOW RESEARCHERS USING TWO SEPARATE METHODS HAVE DETERMINED THAT THIS SHAPE IS PARTLY DUE TO STARS AND GAS SPIRALING INTO THE CENTER OF THIS CLUSTER IN A RIVER-LIKE MOTION. THE RED SPIRAL SUPERIMPOSED ON NGC 346 TRACES THE MOVEMENT OF STARS AND GAS TOWARD THE CENTER. SCIENTISTS SAY THIS SPIRALING MOTION IS THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY TO FEED STAR FORMATION FROM THE OUTSIDE TOWARD THE CENTER OF THE CLUSTER. view more 

CREDIT: ILLUSTRATION: NASA, ESA, ANDI JAMES (STSCI)

Nature likes spirals – from the whirlpool of a hurricane, to pinwheel-shaped protoplanetary disks around newborn stars, to the vast realms of spiral galaxies across our universe.

Now astronomers are bemused to find young stars that are spiraling into the center of a massive cluster of stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.

The outer arm of the spiral in this huge, oddly shaped stellar nursery called NGC 346 may be feeding star formation in a river-like motion of gas and stars. This is an efficient way to fuel star birth, researchers say.

The Small Magellanic Cloud has a simpler chemical composition than the Milky Way, making it similar to the galaxies found in the younger universe, when heavier elements were more scarce. Because of this, the stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud burn hotter and so run out of their fuel faster than in our Milky Way.

Though a proxy for the early universe, at 200,000 light-years away the Small Magellanic Cloud is also one of our closest galactic neighbors.

Learning how stars form in the Small Magellanic Cloud offers a new twist on how a firestorm of star birth may have occurred early in the universe's history, when it was undergoing a "baby boom" about 2 to 3 billion years after the big bang (the universe is now 13.8 billion years old).

The new results find that the process of star formation there is similar to that in our own Milky Way.

Only 150 light-years in diameter, NGC 346 boasts the mass of 50,000 Suns. Its intriguing shape and rapid star formation rate has puzzled astronomers. It took the combined power of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) to unravel the behavior of this mysterious-looking stellar nesting ground.

"Stars are the machines that sculpt the universe. We would not have life without stars, and yet we don't fully understand how they form," explained study leader Elena Sabbi of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. "We have several models that make predictions, and some of these predictions are contradictory. We want to determine what is regulating the process of star formation, because these are the laws that we need to also understand what we see in the early universe."

Researchers determined the motion of the stars in NGC 346 in two different ways. Using Hubble, Sabbi and her team measured the changes of the stars' positions over 11 years. The stars in this region are moving at an average velocity of 2,000 miles per hour, which means that in 11 years they move 200 million miles. This is about 2 times the distance between the Sun and the Earth.

But this cluster is relatively far away, inside a neighboring galaxy. This means the amount of observed motion is very small and therefore difficult to measure. These extraordinarily precise observations were possible only because of Hubble's exquisite resolution and high sensitivity. Also, Hubble's three-decade-long history of observations provides a baseline for astronomers to follow minute celestial motions over time.

The second team, led by Peter Zeidler of AURA/STScI for the European Space Agency, used the ground-based VLT's Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument to measure radial velocity, which determines whether an object is approaching or receding from an observer.

"What was really amazing is that we used two completely different methods with different facilities and basically came to the same conclusion, independent of each other," said Zeidler. "With Hubble, you can see the stars, but with MUSE we can also see the gas motion in the third dimension, and it confirms the theory that everything is spiraling inwards."

But why a spiral?

"A spiral is really the good, natural way to feed star formation from the outside toward the center of the cluster," explained Zeidler. "It's the most efficient way that stars and gas fueling more star formation can move towards the center."

Half of the Hubble data for this study of NGC 346 is archival. The first observations were taken 11 years ago. They were recently repeated to trace the motion of the stars over time. Given the telescope's longevity, the Hubble data archive now contains more than 32 years of astronomical data powering unprecedented, long-term studies.

"The Hubble archive is really a gold mine," said Sabbi. "There are so many interesting star-forming regions that Hubble has observed over the years. Given that Hubble is performing so well, we can actually repeat these observations. This can really advance our understanding of star formation."

The teams' findings appear Sept. 8 in The Astrophysical Journal.

Observations with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope should be able to resolve lower-mass stars in the cluster, giving a more holistic view of the region. Over Webb's lifespan, astronomers will be able to repeat this experiment and measure the motion of the low-mass stars. They could then compare the high-mass stars and the low-mass stars to finally learn the full extent of the dynamics of this nursery.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington, D.C.

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JOURNAL

The Astrophysical Journal

DOI

10.3847/1538-4357/ac8004 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

The internal line-of-sight kinematics of NGC 346: the rotation of the core region

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Sep-2022

Soil microbiota can boost the growth of invasive plant species and provide defence against herbivores

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TURKU

 

IMAGE: THE SOIL MICROBIOTA IMPACTS THE GROWTH OF GARDEN LUPINE. IN THE FRONT OF THE PICTURE IS A PLANT WITH GREEN LEAVES WHOSE MEDIUM CONTAINS MICROBES FROM A FINNISH LUPINE POPULATION AND IN THE MIDDLE IS A PLANT WITH BROWNING LEAVES WHOSE MEDIUM WAS HEATED TO REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF MICROBES. view more 

CREDIT: SATU RAMULA

Soil microbes can have a great impact on the spread of harmful invasive species as they can either hinder or facilitate the plant’s growth. Researchers at the Department of Biology of the University of Turku, Finland, studied the role of soil microbiota in the success of garden lupine, which is an invasive species in the Finnish nature.

Lupinus polyphyllus, commonly known as the garden lupine, is a perennial herb native to North America. It was brought to Europe as an ornamental plant, but it escaped the gardens and is now considered an invasive species in many countries, including Finland. What makes the garden lupine interesting and a successful invading species are the root nodule bacteria which convert atmospheric nitrogen for the plant’s use. Nitrogen is needed for growth and in producing phytochemical compounds against herbivores.

“This symbiosis with bacteria benefits the garden lupine especially in nutrient-poor environments, such as sandy roadsides, where the plant often grows in abundance. This partly explains why garden lupine has managed to take up so much space in nutrient-poor areas where it can outgrow its local competitors that do not have such a symbiotic association  with bacteria,” explains Adjunct Professor Satu Ramula from the Department of Biology at the University of Turku, Finland.

Soil microbiota can also affect the smell of the plant

The researchers planted garden lupines originating from North American and Finnish populations in nutrient-poor soil containing soil microbes from local lupine populations or in soil where the amount of microbes had been reduced.

The researchers discovered that, regardless of their country of origin, the garden lupines benefited from the soil microbes. The plants grew larger than the ones in the control group which had less soil microbes in their medium.

“In addition to growth, the soil microbes affected the smell of individual plants by altering the composition of the volatile organic compounds emitted by the leaves. Especially the plants that grew in the medium containing natural soil microbes produced volatiles that earlier studies have proven to act as deterrents to snails,” says Postdoctoral Researcher Aino Kalske.

In order to study how the plant defended itself against herbivores, the researchers offered the plants’ leaves to copse snails, the garden lupine’s natural enemy. The experiment conducted in a laboratory setting provided surprising results. The plants’ defence against herbivores depended on the soil microbes in the growth medium.

“The copse snails ate less of the Finnish garden lupines than those originating from the North American populations when both plants had been grown in with the natural soil microbes. In plants that had been grown with reduced soil microbiota, we observed no differences in leaf consumption between the populations of different origins,” describes Kalske.

The results indicate that soil microbiota has a larger impact than previously thought on plants as well as on the organisms depending on them. Microbes not only contribute to the plants’ growth but also to their defence against herbivores. Soil microbiota is extremely abundant and just a tea spoon of soil can contain millions of microbes. However, the composition of the microbiota varies according to the local flora and soil type.

The researchers are currently studying whether the invasion success of the garden lupine is associated with soil microbes in nature.

CAPTION

The soil microbes alter the smell of the garden lupine. The smell is studied by collecting the volatile organic compounds emitted by the leaves. The plants are enclosed in oven bags, and filtered air flows through the bags collecting the smell to the trapping tubes. The smell consists of several individual compounds which are separated with gas chromatography.

CREDIT

Satu Ramula

CAPTION

Damage caused by feeding copse snails (photo of a garden lupine growing in nature). The damage does not weaken a large, mature garden lupine, but can be fatal to seedlings, as the damage can reduce the plant’s growth and therefore prevent the garden lupine from spreading.

CREDIT

Satu Ramula

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JOURNAL

Journal of Ecology

DOI

10.1111/1365-2745.13975 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

ARTICLE TITLE

Soil microbiota explain differences in herbivore resistance between native and invasive populations of a perennial herb

Climate simulation reveals the regional differences and controlling factors of precipitation isotope changes in Asian monsoon and arid regions for the past 300,000 years

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SCIENCE CHINA PRESS

 

IMAGE: LOCATIONS OF THE ARID CENTRAL ASIA REGION (CA), MONSOONAL SOUTH ASIA (SA) AND EAST ASIA (EA), AS WELL AS ANNUAL CYCLES OF PRECIPITATION OXYGEN STABLE ISOTOPE RATIO, PRECIPITATION AND SURFACE AIR TEMPERATURE IN THE CA, SA, AND EA REGIONS. view more 

CREDIT: ©SCIENCE CHINA PRESS

Stable isotopes in precipitation are important indicators for studying changes in the earth's water cycle and reconstructing the paleoclimate history. Previous studies have shown that the precipitation stable isotopes in Asia recorded in stalagmites and other sediments have prominent periodic change patterns on the 10,000-year scale (orbital scale) in geological periods, but in the scientific community there are still controversies about the climatological significance indicated by the precipitation isotope changes in different parts of Asia.

In an article entitled “Model-based distinct characteristics and mechanisms of orbital-scale precipitation δ18O variations in Asian monsoon and arid regions during late Quaternary”, which was just published in National Science Review (NSR), scientists from China and USA revealed distinctly different variation characteristics and their controlling factors of precipitation oxygen stable isotope ratio (δ18Op) at the orbital scale in the arid Central Asia (CA), monsoonal South Asia (SA) and East Asia (EA) (see Fig. 1). This study provides new insights for understanding the regional differences and formation mechanisms of long-term changes of precipitation isotopes in Asia.

In this study, a transient simulation covering the past 300,000 years was carried out with an isotope-enabled climate model, under time-varying climate forcing conditions including astronomical insolation, atmospheric greenhouse gases and global ice sheets. The modeling results indicate that the variations of the CA, SA and EA annual δ18Op exhibit significant but asynchronous 23,000-year cycles (precession cycles). The δ18Op changes of the respective rainy season in CA (November-March) and SA (June-September) also have significant precession cycles, while the δ18Op change of the rainy season in EA (May-September) does not show precession cycles (Fig. 2), suggesting that the annual δ18Op in the CA and SA regions mainly depends on the δ18Op variation of their rainy seasons, but it is different in the EA region.

The precession-induced insolation changes in different months are the fundamental reason for the periodic and asynchronous variations of annual precipitation isotopes in the CA, SA and EA regions, but the physical processes involved are different (Fig. 3). For the CA region where annual precipitation is dominated by the winter (rainy season) rainfall and snowfall, the rainy-season temperature effect and water vapor transport by the westerly circulation are identified as the key precession-scale processes linking the October-February boreal mid-latitude insolation to the rainy-season or annual δ18Op. In the SA region where annual precipitation is dominated by the summer monsoon, the rainy-season precipitation amount effect and upstream depletion of the monsoonal water vapor isotope serve as the main mechanisms linking the rainy-season or annual δ18Op to the April-July insolation variation at the precession scale. For the EA region, however, the precession-scale annual δ18Op is mainly controlled by the late-monsoon (August-September) and pre-monsoon (April-May) water vapor transport patterns, which are driven by the July-August insolation and the global ice volume, respectively.

 “Our results suggest that the climatic implications of the orbital-scale Asian δ18Op variations are sensitive to their geographic locations, because they are determined by the combined effects of the precession-induced changes in the local climate elements and regional circulation patterns,” according to the explanation by Dr. Xiaodong Liu, the lead author from the Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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See the article:

Model-based distinct characteristics and mechanisms of orbital-scale precipitation δ18O variations in Asian monsoon and arid regions during late Quaternary https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwac182

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JOURNAL

National Science Review

DOI

10.1093/nsr/nwac182 

CAPTION

Power spectrum analysis results of the annual and rainy-season δ18Op, precipitation (Precip) and surface air temperature (Temp) series in the CA, SA and EA regions in the past 300,000 years.

CREDIT

©Science China Press

CAPTION

Time series of the CA (a), SA (b), EA (c) annual δ18Op and the corresponding insolation in different months, as well as the phase relationships between the δ18Op minima (d) and climate forcing factors (e) in the precession band for the past 300,000 years.

CREDIT

©Science China Press