Rediscovered or reconsidered: the presumed extinct ferns and lycophytes of tropical Queensland, Australia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Raymond Field ◽  
Matt A. M. Renner

The veracity of records of the 11 presumed Extinct or missing ferns and lycophytes from the Wet Tropics Bioregion of northern Queensland is investigated by examination of original materials and by intensive field searches of their recording sites. Two of the species, namely Hymenophyllum whitei and Oreogrammitis leonardii, were rediscovered. One of the species, Lastreopsis dissecta, is taxonomically problematic. Another taxon, Lindsaea pulchella var. blanda, is excluded as an erroneous record. The remaining seven species, namely Didymoglossum exiguum, Haplopteris dareicarpa, Huperzia serrata, Hymenophyllum lobbii, Lemmaphyllum accedens, Pseudodiphasium volubile and Tmesipteris lanceolata, all having been recorded by Karel Domin, appear to be questionable records and their presence in Australia requires ongoing consideration unless they are relocated or can be otherwise excluded.

Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 1112
Author(s):  
Yan Yang ◽  
Liangfang Dai ◽  
Decai Wu ◽  
Limin Dong ◽  
Yisheng Tu ◽  
...  

Huperzia serrata is a traditional herb and endangered Chinese medicinal material, which has attracted much attention due to its production of Huperzine A (HupA). In vitro propagation of H. serrata is considered a new way to relieve the resource pressure of H. serrata. In this study, three different genotypic wild H. serrata were used for in vitro propagation. Then, the antioxidant activity and the content of HupA in the regenerated H. serrata were investigated. The results showed the survival rate of the explant was increased to 25.37% when using multiple sterilization processes. The best induction medium for H. serrata was the Schenk and Hildebrandt (SH) medium supplemented with 0.5 mg·L−1 Naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) and 0.1 mg·L−1 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), where the regeneration rate of the explant was to 57.04%. The best proliferation medium was the SH medium with NAA (1.0 mg·L−1), as the biomass of in vitro tissue increased 164.17 ± 0.41 times. High-performance liquid chromatography analysis showed that the in vitro culture of three genotypes could produce HupA and the content of HupA was 53.90–87.17 µg·g−1. The antioxidant experiment showed that the methanol extract of in vitro H. serrata had higher antioxidant activity than that of wild H. serrata. This study provides a reliable in vitro H. serrata culture protocol and laid an important foundation for the antioxidant capacity of the thallus and the content of HupA.


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 892
Author(s):  
Lingli Cui ◽  
Hamza Armghan Noushahi ◽  
Yipeng Zhang ◽  
Jinxin Liu ◽  
Andreea Cosoveanu ◽  
...  

As the population ages globally, there seem to be more people with Alzheimer’s disease. Unfortunately, there is currently no specific treatment for the disease. At present, Huperzine A (HupA) is one of the best drugs used for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and has been used in clinical trials for several years in China. HupA was first separated from Huperzia serrata, a traditional medicinal herb that is used to cure fever, contusions, strains, hematuria, schizophrenia, and snakebite for several hundreds of years in China, and has been confirmed to have acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activity. With the very slow growth of H. serrata, resources are becoming too scarce to meet the need for clinical treatment. Some endophytic fungal strains that produce HupA were isolated from H. serrate in previous studies. In this article, the diversity of the endophytic fungal community within H. serrata was observed and the relevance to the production of HupA by the host plant was further analyzed. A total of 1167 strains were obtained from the leaves of H. serrata followed by the stems (1045) and roots (824). The richness as well as diversity of endophytic fungi within the leaf and stem were higher than in the root. The endophytic fungal community was similar within stems as well as in leaves at all taxonomic levels. The 11 genera (Derxomyces, Lophiostoma, Cyphellophora, Devriesia, Serendipita, Kurtzmanomyces, Mycosphaerella, Conoideocrella, Brevicellicium, Piskurozyma, and Trichomerium) were positively correlated with HupA content. The correlation index of Derxomyces with HupA contents displayed the highest value (CI = 0.92), whereas Trichomerium showed the lowest value (CI = 0.02). Through electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), it was confirmed that the HS7-1 strain could produce HupA and the total alkaloid concentration was 3.7 ug/g. This study will enable us to screen and isolate the strain that can produce HupA and to figure out the correlation between endophytic fungal diversity with HupA content in different plant organs. This can provide new insights into the screening of strains that can produce HupA more effectively.


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita F. Keir ◽  
Richard G. Pearson ◽  
Robert A. Congdon

Remnant habitat patches in agricultural landscapes can contribute substantially to wildlife conservation. Understanding the main habitat variables that influence wildlife is important if these remnants are to be appropriately managed. We investigated relationships between the bird assemblages and characteristics of remnant riparian forest at 27 sites among sugarcane fields in the Queensland Wet Tropics bioregion. Sites within the remnant riparian zone had distinctly different bird assemblages from those of the forest, but provided habitat for many forest and generalist species. Width of the riparian vegetation and distance from source forest were the most important factors in explaining the bird assemblages in these remnant ribbons of vegetation. Gradual changes in assemblage composition occurred with increasing distance from source forest, with species of rainforest and dense vegetation being replaced by species of more open habitats, although increasing distance was confounded by decreasing riparian width. Species richness increased with width of the riparian zone, with high richness at the wide sites due to a mixture of open-habitat species typical of narrower sites and rainforest species typical of sites within intact forest, as a result of the greater similarity in vegetation characteristics between wide sites and the forest proper. The results demonstrate the habitat value for birds of remnant riparian vegetation in an agricultural landscape, supporting edge and open vegetation species with even narrow widths, but requiring substantial width (>90 m) to support specialists of the closed forest, the dominant original vegetation of the area.


2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (18) ◽  
pp. 5784-5790 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jieyin Sun ◽  
Hiroyuki Morita ◽  
Guoshen Chen ◽  
Hiroshi Noguchi ◽  
Ikuro Abe

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