TY - JOUR A1 - Olas, Justyna Jadwiga A1 - Fichtner, Franziska A1 - Apelt, Federico T1 - All roads lead to growth BT - imaging-based and biochemical methods to measure plant growth JF - Journal of experimental botany N2 - Plant growth is a highly complex biological process that involves innumerable interconnected biochemical and signalling pathways. Many different techniques have been developed to measure growth, unravel the various processes that contribute to plant growth, and understand how a complex interaction between genotype and environment determines the growth phenotype. Despite this complexity, the term 'growth' is often simplified by researchers; depending on the method used for quantification, growth is viewed as an increase in plant or organ size, a change in cell architecture, or an increase in structural biomass. In this review, we summarise the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying plant growth, highlight state-of-the-art imaging and non-imaging-based techniques to quantitatively measure growth, including a discussion of their advantages and drawbacks, and suggest a terminology for growth rates depending on the type of technique used. KW - biomass KW - growth KW - imaging KW - kinematics KW - morphometrics KW - phenomics KW - phenotyping KW - relative expansion rate of growth (RER) KW - relative growth KW - rate (RGR) Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erz406 SN - 0022-0957 SN - 1460-2431 VL - 71 IS - 1 SP - 11 EP - 21 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lehmann, Anika A1 - Zheng, Weishuang A1 - Ryo, Masahiro A1 - Soutschek, Katharina A1 - Roy, Julien A1 - Rongstock, Rebecca A1 - Maaß, Stefanie A1 - Rillig, Matthias C. T1 - Fungal traits important for soil aggregation JF - Frontiers in microbiology N2 - Soil structure, the complex arrangement of soil into aggregates and pore spaces, is a key feature of soils and soil biota. Among them, filamentous saprobic fungi have well-documented effects on soil aggregation. However, it is unclear what properties, or traits, determine the overall positive effect of fungi on soil aggregation. To achieve progress, it would be helpful to systematically investigate a broad suite of fungal species for their trait expression and the relation of these traits to soil aggregation. Here, we apply a trait-based approach to a set of 15 traits measured under standardized conditions on 31 fungal strains including Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, and Mucoromycota, all isolated from the same soil. We find large differences among these fungi in their ability to aggregate soil, including neutral to positive effects, and we document large differences in trait expression among strains. We identify biomass density, i.e., the density with which a mycelium grows (positive effects), leucine aminopeptidase activity (negative effects) and phylogeny as important factors explaining differences in soil aggregate formation (SAF) among fungal strains; importantly, growth rate was not among the important traits. Our results point to a typical suite of traits characterizing fungi that are good soil aggregators, and our findings illustrate the power of employing a trait-based approach to unravel biological mechanisms underpinning soil aggregation. Such an approach could now be extended also to other soil biota groups. In an applied context of restoration and agriculture, such trait information can inform management, for example to prioritize practices that favor the expression of more desirable fungal traits. KW - soil aggregation KW - traits KW - saprobic fungi KW - random forest KW - biomass KW - density KW - leucine amino peptidases Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2019.02904 SN - 1664-302X VL - 10 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ilic, Ivan K. A1 - Tsouka, Alexandra A1 - Perovic, Milena A1 - Hwang, Jinyeon A1 - Heil, Tobias A1 - Löffler, Felix A1 - Oschatz, Martin A1 - Antonietti, Markus A1 - Liedel, Clemens T1 - Sustainable cathodes for Lithium-ion energy storage devices based on tannic acid-toward ecofriendly energy storage JF - Advanced sustainable systems N2 - The use of organic materials with reversible redox activity holds enormous potential for next-generation Li-ion energy storage devices. Yet, most candidates are not truly sustainable, i.e., not derived from renewable feedstock or made in benign reactions. Here an attempt is reported to resolve this issue by synthesizing an organic cathode material from tannic acid and microporous carbon derived from biomass. All constituents, including the redox-active material and conductive carbon additive, are made from renewable resources. Using a simple, sustainable fabrication method, a hybrid material is formed. The low cost and ecofriendly material shows outstanding performance with a capacity of 108 mAh g(-1) at 0.1 A g(-1) and low capacity fading, retaining approximately 80% of the maximum capacity after 90 cycles. With approximately 3.4 V versus Li+/Li, the cells also feature one of the highest reversible redox potentials reported for biomolecular cathodes. Finally, the quinone-catecholate redox mechanism responsible for the high capacity of tannic acid is confirmed by electrochemical characterization of a model compound similar to tannic acid but without catecholic groups. KW - biomass KW - electrochemistry KW - energy storage KW - redox chemistry KW - sustainability KW - tannic acid Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/adsu.202000206 SN - 2366-7486 VL - 5 IS - 1 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Dietze, Elisabeth A1 - Mangelsdorf, Kai A1 - Andreev, Andrei A1 - Karger, Cornelia A1 - Schreuder, Laura T. A1 - Hopmans, Ellen C. A1 - Rach, Oliver A1 - Sachse, Dirk A1 - Wennrich, Volker A1 - Herzschuh, Ulrike T1 - Relationships between low-temperature fires, climate and vegetation during three late glacials and interglacials of the last 430 kyr in northeastern Siberia reconstructed from monosaccharide anhydrides in Lake El’gygytgyn sediments JF - Climate of the Past N2 - Landscapes in high northern latitudes are assumed to be highly sensitive to future global change, but the rates and long-term trajectories of changes are rather uncertain. In the boreal zone, fires are an important factor in climate-vegetation interactions and biogeochemical cycles. Fire regimes are characterized by small, frequent, low-intensity fires within summergreen boreal forests dominated by larch, whereas evergreen boreal forests dominated by spruce and pine burn large areas less frequently but at higher intensities. Here, we explore the potential of the monosaccharide anhydrides (MA) levoglucosan, mannosan and galactosan to serve as proxies of low-intensity biomass burning in glacial-to-interglacial lake sediments from the high northern latitudes. We use sediments from Lake El'gygytgyn (cores PG 1351 and ICDP 5011-1), located in the far north-east of Russia, and study glacial and interglacial samples of the last 430 kyr (marine isotope stages 5e, 6, 7e, 8, 11c and 12) that had different climate and biome configurations. Combined with pollen and non-pollen palynomorph records from the same samples, we assess how far the modern relationships between fire, climate and vegetation persisted during the past, on orbital to centennial timescales. We find that MAs attached to particulates were well-preserved in up to 430 kyr old sediments with higher influxes from low-intensity biomass burning in interglacials compared to glacials. MA influxes significantly increase when summergreen boreal forest spreads closer to the lake, whereas they decrease when tundra-steppe environments and, especially, Sphagnum peatlands spread. This suggests that low-temperature fires are a typical characteristic of Siberian larch forests also on long timescales. The results also suggest that low-intensity fires would be reduced by vegetation shifts towards very dry environments due to reduced biomass availability, as well as by shifts towards peatlands, which limits fuel dryness. In addition, we observed very low MA ratios, which we interpret as high contributions of galactosan and mannosan from biomass sources other than those currently monitored, such as the moss-lichen mats in the understorey of the summergreen boreal forest. Overall, sedimentary MAs can provide a powerful proxy for fire regime reconstructions and extend our knowledge of long-term natural fire-climate-vegetation feedbacks in the high northern latitudes. KW - molecular tracers KW - organic aerosols KW - emission factors KW - carbonaceous aerosols KW - pollen records KW - core PG1351 KW - biomass KW - holocene KW - levoglucosan KW - charcoal Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-799-2020 SN - 1814-9332 SN - 1814-9324 VL - 16 IS - 2 SP - 788 EP - 818 PB - Copernicus Publications CY - Göttingen ER -