scholarly journals Area from image analyses accurately estimates dry‐weight biomass of juvenile tissue from the moss Ceratodon purpureus

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley P. Burtscher ◽  
Marna A. List ◽  
Adam C. Payton ◽  
Stuart F. McDaniel ◽  
Sarah B. Carey
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley P. Burtscher ◽  
Marna A. List ◽  
Adam C. Payton ◽  
Stuart F. McDaniel ◽  
Sarah B. Carey

SummaryMosses have long served as models for studying many areas of plant biology. Investigators have used two-dimensional measurements of juvenile growth from photographs as a surrogate for dry-weight biomass. The relationship between area and biomass, however, has not been critically evaluated.Here we grew axenic tissue cultures of ten Ceratodon purpureus isolates to study the relationship between these parameters. We measured area and biomass on replicate cultures with two distinct starting inoculum sizes each week for three weeks and examined the correlation between area and biomass as well as the influence of variation in inoculum size on both parameters.We found a strong correlation between area and biomass after two weeks of growth. Furthermore, we found inoculum size affected biomass during the first week of growth but not subsequent weeks and inoculum size had no detectible effect on area.These analyses provide experimental confirmation that area is a suitable proxy for biomass and provide clear guidelines for when inoculum size variation may affect downstream growth estimates.


1999 ◽  
Vol 133 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
NIGEL G. HALFORD

The most important harvested organs of crop plants, such as seeds, tubers and fruits, are often described as assimilate sinks. They play little or no part in the fixation of carbon through the production of sugars through photosynthesis, or in the uptake of nitrogen and sulphur, but import these assimilated resources to support metabolism and to store them in the form of starch, oils and proteins. Wild plants store resources in seeds and tubers to later support an emergent young plant. Cultivated crops are effectively storing resources to provide us with food and many have been bred to accumulate much more than would be required otherwise. For example, approximately 80% of a cultivated potato plant's dry weight is contained in its tubers, ten times the proportion in the tubers of its wild relatives (Inoue & Tanaka 1978). Cultivation and breeding has brought about a shift in the partitioning of carbon and nitrogen assimilate between the organs of the plant.


Author(s):  
N. H. Sarkar ◽  
Dan H. Moore

Mouse mammary tumor virus (MTV) is believed to contain about 0.8% single stranded ribonucleic acid (RNA). This value of RNA content was estimated on a dry weight basis. The subject of this report is an attempt to visualize the RNA molecules of MTV particles.MTV particles were isolated from RIII mouse (tumor incidence approximately 80%) milk according to the method described by Lyons and Moore. Purified virions from 5 ml of milk were finally suspended in 0.2 ml of PBS, pH 7.4 and was mixed with an equal volume of pronase (5 mg/ml). This mixture was incubated at 37°C for an hour. RNA was extracted three times using freshly prepared cold phenol. It was then treated three times with cold ethyl ether to remove any trace of phenol. The RNA thus extracted was divided into two parts. One part was diluted four fold with 8M urea to avoid aggregation of the molecules. The other part was left untreated. Both samples were then mixed with an equal volume of 1M ammonium acetate, adjusted to pH 8.0 with NH3 containing chymotrypsin at a concentration of 0.01%.


Author(s):  
Songquan Sun ◽  
Richard D. Leapman

Analyses of ultrathin cryosections are generally performed after freeze-drying because the presence of water renders the specimens highly susceptible to radiation damage. The water content of a subcellular compartment is an important quantity that must be known, for example, to convert the dry weight concentrations of ions to the physiologically more relevant molar concentrations. Water content can be determined indirectly from dark-field mass measurements provided that there is no differential shrinkage between compartments and that there exists a suitable internal standard. The potential advantage of a more direct method for measuring water has led us to explore the use of electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) for characterizing biological specimens in their frozen hydrated state.We have obtained preliminary EELS measurements from pure amorphous ice and from cryosectioned frozen protein solutions. The specimens were cryotransfered into a VG-HB501 field-emission STEM equipped with a 666 Gatan parallel-detection spectrometer and analyzed at approximately −160 C.


Author(s):  
R.D. Leapman ◽  
S.Q. Sun ◽  
S-L. Shi ◽  
R.A. Buchanan ◽  
S.B. Andrews

Recent advances in rapid-freezing and cryosectioning techniques coupled with use of the quantitative signals available in the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) can provide us with new methods for determining the water distributions of subcellular compartments. The water content is an important physiological quantity that reflects how fluid and electrolytes are regulated in the cell; it is also required to convert dry weight concentrations of ions obtained from x-ray microanalysis into the more relevant molar ionic concentrations. Here we compare the information about water concentrations from both elastic (annular dark-field) and inelastic (electron energy loss) scattering measurements.In order to utilize the elastic signal it is first necessary to increase contrast by removing the water from the cryosection. After dehydration the tissue can be digitally imaged under low-dose conditions, in the same way that STEM mass mapping of macromolecules is performed. The resulting pixel intensities are then converted into dry mass fractions by using an internal standard, e.g., the mean intensity of the whole image may be taken as representative of the bulk water content of the tissue.


1963 ◽  
Vol 03 (02) ◽  
pp. 175-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Bergman ◽  
Rune Söremark

SummaryBy means of neutron activation and gamma-ray spectrometry the concentrations in the human mandibular articular disc of the following elements have been determined: Na, Mn, Cu, Zn, Rb, Sr, Cd, W, and Au. The discs were obtained at necropsy from seven men and nine women, ranging in age from 56 to 71 years.The activation was carried out in a thermal neutron flux of about 1.7 XlO12 neutrons × cm−2 × sec.−1 for about 20 hours. A chemical group separationwas performed before the gamma-ray spectrometry. Quantitative data based on the dry weight of the cartilage samples were obtained by comparing the photo-peak area of the identified elements with those of appropriate standards.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
SUPRIYA DIXIT ◽  
R. K. GUPTA

Currently, a real challenge for the workers in the agricultural research field is to stop or reduce the use of expensive agrochemicals/ chemical fertilizers which are hazardous to the environment as well as human health. Present study was aimed to improve the growth and obtain optimum yield of Vigna crop with eco-friendly, non-toxic way and to reduce the use of agrochemical/chemical fertilizer application in agricultural activities. A pot experiment was conducted to study the effect of chemical fertilizer (DAP) and biofertilizer ( Rhizobium strain) separately and in combination on seed germination and seedling growth (at 30 days) based on morphological parameters such as seedling length (cm), fresh weight (g), dry weight (g) and leaf area (cm)2 of Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek. After one month (30 Days) observations, it was found that seedling length, fresh and dry weights and leaf area were maximum in T4 and minimum in T15, T7 and T8 favored improved seedling length and leaf area whereas T7, T8, and T9 favored improved fresh and dry weights as compared to control.


Author(s):  
I.M. Ritchie ◽  
C.C. Boswell ◽  
A.M. Badland

HERBACE DISSECTION is the process in which samples of herbage cut from trials are separated by hand into component species. Heavy reliance is placed on herbage dissection as an analytical tool ,in New Zealand, and in the four botanical analysis laboratories in the Research Division of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries about 20 000 samples are analysed each year. In the laboratory a representative subsample is taken by a rigorous quartering procedure until approximately 400 pieces of herbage remain. Each leaf fragment is then identified to species level or groups of these as appropriate. The fractions are then dried and the composition calculated on a percentage dry weight basis. The accuracy of the analyses of these laboratories has been monitored by a system of interchanging herbage dissection samples between them. From this, the need to separate subsampling errors from problems of plant identification was, appreciated and some of this work is described here.


Author(s):  
K.H. Widdup ◽  
T.L. Knight ◽  
C.J. Waters

Slow establishment of caucasian clover (Trifolium ambiguum L.) is hindering the use of this legume in pasture mixtures. Improved genetic material is one strategy of correcting the problem. Newly harvested seed of hexaploid caucasian clover germplasm covering a range of origins, together with white and red clover and lucerne, were sown in 1 m rows in a Wakanui soil at Lincoln in November 1995. After 21 days, the caucasian clover material as a group had similar numbers of emerged seedlings as white clover and lucerne, but was inferior to red clover. There was wide variation among caucasian clover lines (48-70% seedling emergence), with the cool-season selection from cv. Monaro ranked the highest. Recurrent selection at low temperatures could be used to select material with improved rates of seedling emergence. Red clover and lucerne seedlings produced significantly greater shoot and root dry weight than caucasian and white clover seedlings. Initially, caucasian clover seedlings partitioned 1:1 shoot to root dry weight compared with 3:1 for white clover. After 2 months, caucasian clover seedlings had similar shoot growth but 3 times the root growth of white clover. Between 2 and 5 months, caucasian clover partitioned more to root and rhizome growth, resulting in a 0.3:1 shoot:root ratio compared with 2:1 for white clover. Both clover species had similar total dry weight after 5 months. Unhindered root/ rhizome devel-opment is very important to hasten the establishment phase of caucasian clover. The caucasian clover lines KZ3 and cool-season, both selections from Monaro, developed seedlings with greater shoot and root growth than cv. Monaro. KZ3 continued to produce greater root growth after 5 months, indicating the genetic potential for improvement in seedling growth rate. Different pasture estab-lishment techniques are proposed that take account of the seedling growth characteristics of caucasian clover. Keywords: establishment, genetic variation, growth, seedling emergence, Trifolium ambiguum


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