Stem erect, 3. Hairy, 1. Seed, 2. 9:847. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2018.00847, Cuypers, A., Plusquin, M., Remans, T., Jozefczak, M., Keunen, E., Gielen, H., et al. Half-shade tolerant, 3. (2019). Physiological traits related to carbon gain can directly affect fitness and differences in traits between exotic and native plants may indicate a strategy for competition and invasion (McAlpine et al. Hydromorphic. The blue false coloring identifies indents deleted from area calculations. in plant physiological phenotyping for specific, well-defined traits. Each row was scored horizontally across the agar with a sterile blade to ensure accurate placement of seeds. Plants were grown, seed to seed, for 7 generations from a single initial stock. 2012). Equip. Hooks, 4. PLoS One 19:13. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0191492, PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar, Alves-Silvia, E., Santos, J., and Cornelissen, T. (2018). 1. The mean concentration of GSH in leaves pooled from the all generations of A. thaliana was about 112 nM, with no statistically significant difference between treatments (Figure 8). Chronic radiation exposure as an ecological factor: hypermethylation and genetic differentiation in irradiated Scots pine populations. BMC Plant Biol. Liana, 2. One seed from each generation of a treatment group was placed in a row. In addition to the 452 operating nuclear reactors whose impact on the environment must be regulated (IAEA, 2019), there are 54 more under construction. Front. At Chernobyl, for example, it is challenging to establish cause and effect for such data for the following reasons; (a) in the contaminated areas around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant because of the short half-life of much of radioactivity released dose rates in the immediate days and weeks after the accident were very much higher than they have been in subsequent years (Hinton et al., 2007) and it is a difficult task to disentangle the effects of the unique acute high doses of radiation experienced by organisms in the past at Chernobyl from those produced later by exposure to chronic low dose rates (the effects of acute high doses of radiation on plants are heritable), (b) the ‘exclusion zone’ is now environmentally unusual not just in the presence of radioactivity, (c) establishing control sites that are identical but uncontaminated is genuinely difficult (most environmental variables can change on small spatial scales so even nearby ‘controls’ can be significantly different in many ways), and (d) measurements of the relevant traits in plants at sites before radioactive contamination occurred, i.e., before the ‘treatment’ occurred, are infrequent. Received: 21 November 2019; Accepted: 18 March 2020; Published: 15 April 2020. After uploading of images, LAMINA identified leaf pixels, overlaid digital grids and performed calculations for each endpoint. In the results reported here, there were instances in particular generations when plants exposed to IR at c.40 μGy/h were developmentally or morphologically statistically significantly different to one or more of the control groups. (Control n = 12, CdCl2 n = 12, 137Cs n = 24). Do the findings on the health effects of prolonged exposure to very high levels of natural radiation contradict current ultra-conservative radiation protection regulations? Suborbicular, 40. Research comparing morphological and physiological traits between phenotypes has been performed in a single plant with different leaf types and/or different plants of the same species that display phenotypic or ecotypic differen-tiation (Clausen et al. doi: 10.1016/S0531-5131(02)00291-1. LAMINA outputs were an image file from each scan (Figure 3) and a ‘csv’ file with numerical data. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.05.014, Little, M. P., Azizova, T. V., Bazyka, D., Bouffler, S. D., Cardis, E., Chekin, S., et al. After harvest, each generation of seeds was stored in 1.5 ml Eppendorf tubes and transferred immediately to a refrigerator and kept at 4°C. Bacilli are commonly used as plant growth-promoting agents but can be limited in effectiveness to certain crop and soil environments. Prediction of the sensitivity of plants to chronic gamma irradiation. Laboratory data generated under controlled conditions has significant weaknesses, especially in not being able replicate the complexity of the real field sites that have to be regulated and managed with all their idiosyncrasies but it can, at least to some extent, be complementary to field data through enabling an improved control over dose, dose history, and interacting environmental variables. (2001) and plotted against time. Thus, for the traits we measured under controlled conditions we found no significant long-term differences induced in A. thaliana at the population level by exposure to IR at c.40 μGy/h. An estimate of the dose rate field was made based on emission energies from 137Cs, and assuming a disk of compost with an area of 375 cm2, a depth of 4.3 cm, 100 kBq of evenly distributed 137Cs (an activity representing the middle of the range of those used in the experiment) and take account of attenuation. Truncate, 44. In the early stages of development this was in part because of slightly different days on which photographs were taken but, ultimately, G5 flowered significantly earlier than G4 and G7. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvrad.2012.01.013, Gicquel, M., Esnault, M.-A., Jorrín-Novo, J. V., and Cabello-Hurtado, F. (2011). Radiation and the patterns of nature: sensitivity of natural plant populations to ionising radiation seems to follow known ecological patterns. The number of leaves suitable for scanning varied between generations and treatments and although it was not intended as an endpoint it is notable that there were no significant long-term trends in leaf numbers for scanning across the generations. Ionizing radiation treatment was initiated in generation 3, so plants in generation 4 were in their 2nd generation of exposure. Rarely dominant, 3. This is not to say that there are no effects of chronic exposure to low-level IR at the dose rates used. For the mouse, maintenance of a constant body temperature is a major physiological problem. Cong. Spherical, 5. Hygromorphic: delicate plants of shade and semishade. Suitability of Solanum lycopersicum L. ‘Microtom’ for growth in bioregenerative life support systems: exploring the effect of high-LET ionising radiation on photosynthesis, leaf structure and fruit traits. With this exception, in each generation there were no significant differences between treatments in the rate of development. Indirect measure of seed dimensions and weight. Short-term cold stress can induce the increased expression of key enzyme-encoding genes involved in secondary metabolite synthesis, thereby increasing secondary metabolite concentration. plants. In plants, these traits include more or larger seeds, reduced seed dispersal, more robust plants, and decreased chemi - cal and morphological defenses. 21, 615–626. Arena, C., Turano, M., Mele, B. H., and Cataletto, P. R. (2017). Rosette, 36. The earliest age at which a plant can flower in the field (typically in Europe, but check sources of information). A, Abiotic conditions directly affect plant physiological traits. Unifoliate, 45. Approximately every 2–5 days photographs were taken (at a focal length of 24 mm and resolution of 5,184 × 3,456 pixels) from directly above each of the nine containers of growing plants until the end of seven generations of growth (Figure 2B). Int. All datasets generated for this study are included in the article/Supplementary Material. A species-sensitivity analysis based on the FREDERICA database suggested a 10 μGy/h screening dose rate for any ecosystem (Brown et al., 2008) but was intended to cater for organisms long-known to be more sensitive to IR than higher plants. Stress tolerant: species with only little growth and morphological and/or physiological adaptations to conditions that may in either very rare or overabundant. Jordan (1986) noted the ecological foundations of this suggestion, given the differences in life cycle, investment in particular organs and so on, that link to it. 1. Evolution: An Introduction. A useful way of conceptualizing living systems is as autocatalytic nested hierarchies that function across biological levels (Farnsworth et al., 2017). Seeds were washed for 2 min in 70% ethanol and 50% NaClO. Yes (unknown factor) 2. A significance level of 0.05 was used for each test. (2001). The reasons for this are not clear – experimental conditions were as for the other generations but there were, perhaps, some subtle differences in growth conditions. Physiological Trait Physiological traits are the physical traits of an individual, such as fingerprint, hand and palm geometry, ear, facial pattern, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), retina, palm vein and finger vein authentication, voice/speech, Odor, ECG, Iris. The % methylation of DNA extracted from leaves of plants chronically exposed, in the growth medium, to CdCl2 at 10 μM and to ionizing radiation from Cs-137 at a dose rate of c.40 μG/y for two generations. Obcordate, 18. Woodwell, G. M. (1967). For our experimental plants most of the environmental factors that affect plant growth were essentially constant or changed between two constant states (e.g., light/dark) and the plants were not exposed, as far as could be ascertained, to significant herbivory or disease. doi: 10.1016/j.radphyschem.2014.05.016, Smith, J. T., Willey, N. J., and Hancock, J. T. (2012). Isolated, 1. AH helped to design and carried out the experiments, and provided the technical support. Cadmium stress: an oxidative challenge. LAMINA ID tags (e.g. (2013). It has long been suggested that plant radiosensitivity correlates with nuclear volume (Sparrow and Miksche, 1961; Sparrow and Woodwell, 1962), often specifically the interphase chromosomal volume. γ-measurements of treated compost showed that activity dispensed for each generation varied slightly (G3 = 90 kBq, G4 = 90 kBq, G5 = 75.3 kBq, G6 = 107 kBq, G7 = 107 kBq). Anatomic modification for physical defense: 1. Anemochory, 2. Received: 21 November 2019; Accepted: 18 March 2020; Published: 15 April 2020. The particular growth conditions our plants experienced mean, however, that care must be taken in speculating about the implications of the results reported here for plants in particular field locations. Fundamental to the way in which organisms cope with environmental variation, phenotypic plasticity encompasses all types of environmentally induced changes (e.g. New York, NY: Garland Science. (2012). 61, 305–314. P. tinctorious on physiological traits and hormonal regulation of Cistus plants; and iii) to analyze the changes in the relationships among physiological, morphological, and orna‐ mental parameters under water deficit and mycorrhizal inoculation. Competitor, 2. Environmental regulatory efforts, at least in the first instance, usually focus on impacts that affect function at the level of individual, population or community. The predicted effects of chronic ionizing radiation exposure on GSH concentration and redox status (Eh) in plants exposed to a dose rate of c.40 μGy/h from 137Cs for five generations (300 days). (2018). 8, 594–597. Dry indehiscent, 2. Plant Adaptations. ROS production/antioxidant capacity are the commonest measures of IR-induced stress (Smith et al., 2012) and a reminder that there can also be physiological buffers between genotype and phenotype. The results indicate that effects on traits at lower biological levels in particular are possible at this dose rate and provide novel evidence that the loose association between genotype and phenotype characteristic of plant stress responses buffers the population from functionally adverse impacts. Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation. A model for high throughput functional genomics in plants. Water was added every 1–3 days as necessary until seed set, when watering ceased. (B) A calculation, using the Nernst equation, of changes in Eh that would occur over 300 days under the scenario in A which produces a final GSH concentration of 100 nM. A biological perspective is necessary to understand how there might be effects on some measured traits but that this is not significant at the population level. 105, 78–82. Root analysis was carried out using the Java freeware, ImageJ, which allows for the manual tracing of roots and calculates length along a specified scale (a ruler was included in each image). In G4 the leaves of positive controls had a significantly lower area than the other two treatments, and in G7 there was a significant difference between the negative and positive control, and between the negative control and the IR exposed plants. Ionizing radiation (IR) regulations, long focussed primarily on humans, have only relatively recently considered effects on the environment, including flora and fauna (ICRP, 2003). 30, 1–16. One hundred mg of powder was used from each sample, mixed with 0.3 ml 5% 5-sulfosalicylic acid (SSA) to clear the sample of other proteins, centrifuged at 18,000 RPM for 10 min in a temperature-controlled centrifuge and the supernatant used for the analyses. Plant Sci. The model is dynamic and accounts for the replenishment of GSH. Neutral. 1. Science 134, 282–283. J. Exp. How to use physiological in a sentence. When the stage was on the same day in all plants there is no error bar. (A) Camera on mount above location to which trays were moved from the growth cabinet. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. (B) An example of a photograph taken from directly above growing Arabidopsis plants. Fleshy: at least one fruit tissue is succulent at maturity. For plant science this is unfortunate, not only because chronic low doses are most relevant to the regulation of routine releases from nuclear sites but also because they are most relevant for understanding; (1) the role that ancient background radiation might have had in the evolution of plant stress responses, (2) for growing plants in space, and (3) complementing recent radiobiology studies on low level radiation and human health (Vaiserman et al., 2018). Medium-lived perennials (>50y and <150y), 6. Scleromorphic: firm and stiff leaves with thickened epidermis and cuticula but with mechanisms to promote water transport under beneficial conditions. How many leaves are enough? Frozen leaves were ground to a fine powder in a pestle and mortar chilled in liquid nitrogen. Based on plant biomass and leaf area measurements, we calculated plant morphological traits: root : shoot ratio (RSR, ratio of below‐ to above‐ground (AGB) biomass, g g −1), specific leaf area (SLA; leaf area per unit leaf mass, cm 2 g −1), leaf area ratio (LAR; total leaf area per whole plant mass, cm 2 g −1). doi: 10.1016/j.jenvrad.2008.01.008, Bylesjö, M., Segura, V., Soolanayakanahally, R. Y., Rae, A. M., Trygg, J., Gustafsson, P., et al. Frequently dominant, 2. This analogy might be helpful – a dose rate of c.40 μGy/h is about 50 times background – because there might be some effects though not at the population scale, some species might be sensitive at this dose rate and transfer up the foodchain might be significant. The error bars show the range of days the stage was observed. Quantitative trait locus (QTL) studies combining next-generation sequencing techniques can advance our understanding of the genetic basis of complex traits. Radiation-induced effects on plants and animals: findings of the united nations Chernobyl forum. For analysis of root growth, plants of A. thaliana from each experimental treatment were grown for 10 days in half-strength MS agar in square petri dishes. 5, 293–297. The availability of suitable native plant species for local animal husbandry development and ecological restoration is limited on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Fruit, 3. The results therefore provide new insights into the effects of chronic low-level IR-exposure at different biological levels over a number of generations under controlled conditions. (2016). Even though after 10 days the mean root length produced by seeds from plants previously exposed to ionizing radiation was less than that of other treatments there were no statistically significant differences in root length (Figure 7). Richard A. Richards CSIRO Plant Industry, G P O Box 1600, Canberra, ACT, 2601. Ovoid, 1. Physiological traits related to drought tolerance in Brassica M.M. Cellular mechanisms of cadmium-induced toxicity: a review.