Skip to main content

Australian pine trees invading Florida

Invasive Australian pines that crowd out native plants in Florida present a particular conundrum. In the Sunshine State, it can be very difficult to tell the look-alike Casuarina species and subspecies from one another. Correct identification is important to the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists who want to import Casuarina-quelling insects from the invasive tree's Australian homeland to stop the plants' uncontrolled advance in Florida. But until they know who’s who among the confusing Casuarina trees, researchers won’t be able to precisely match the helpful insects with the exact Casuarina with which they evolved in Australia. Perfect matches may be critical to the insects’ success in the United States.

Researchers are working on DNA fingerprints so they can accurately identify lookalike species and subspecies of invasive Australian pines. (Credit: Photo courtesy of Amy Ferriter, South Florida Water Management District, Bugwood.org). To solve the identity puzzle, ARS botanist and research leader John Gaskin is analyzing DNA taken from Casuarina trees growing in Australia, where their identification is certain. He’s comparing that to DNA from the Casuarina trees currently running amok in south Florida. Technicians Kim Mann and Jeannie Lassey, who work with Gaskin in the ARS Pest Management Research Unit in Sidney, Mont., extract DNA from leaves that Gaskin collected in 2006 from Casuarina trees growing along Australia’s eastern coast. They’re also working with Casuarina specimens gathered elsewhere in Australia by four co-investigators: Matthew Purcell and Bradley Brown of the ARS Australian Biological Control Laboratory in Indooroopilly, Australia; Gary Taylor of the University of Adelaide in Australia, and Greg Wheeler of the ARS Invasive Plant Research Laboratory in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. The study is the first to use DNA to definitively identify Casuarina trees in Florida. Gaskin expects to have final results sometime this year.
Credits: USDA.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Charging Implanted Heart Pumps Wirelessly

Mechanical pumps to give failing hearts a boost were originally developed as temporary measures for patients awaiting a heart transplant. But as the technology has improved, these ventricular assist devices commonly operate in patients for years, including in former vice-president Dick Cheney, whose implant this month celebrates its one-year anniversary. Prolonged use, however, has its own problems. The power cord that protrudes through the patient's belly is cumbersome and prone to infection over time. Infections occur in close to 40 percent of patients, are the leading cause of rehospitalization, and can be fatal. Researchers at the University of Washington and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center have tested a wireless power system for ventricular assist devices. They recently presented the work in Washington, D.C. at the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs annual meeting, where it received the Willem Kolff/Donald B. Olsen Award for most promising research in
Post a Comment
Read more

Regulated deficit irrigation, new recommendations for grape cultivation

The inland areas of the Pacific Northwest, where rainfall averages only 4 to 12 inches per year, present growing challenges for vineyard owners and wine grape producers. The arid conditions in this part of the country have not been conducive for vineyard owners who produce and market high-quality wine grapes. To promote healthy grape production when nature fails to deliver, vineyard managers in the area typically employ an irrigation practice known as “regulated deficit irrigation”. More than 60% of the wine grapes in the state of Washington are grown using this drip irrigation method. Unfortunately, the current irrigation methods are replete with problems that can cause over-irrigation and compromised grape quality. Recently, researchers at Washington State University’s Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center completed a study that should provide vineyard managers new techniques for producing healthy and long-lasting grape crops. Joan R. Davenport was the lead author of th
2 comments
Read more

Turning Cancer Cells Back To Normal Than Killing Them

Using the latest gene sequencing tools to examine so-called epigenetic influences on the DNA makeup of colon cancer, a Johns Hopkins team says its results suggest cancer treatment might eventually be more tolerable and successful if therapies could focus on helping cancer cells get back to normal in addition to strategies for killing them. In a report published June 26 in Nature Genetics, the investigators focused on a particular epigenetic biochemical signature known as methylation, which silences genes. Although not part of a gene's central DNA sequence, it is copied when a cell divides, perpetuating its activity. By comparing the epigenomes of eight human tissue samples -- three from noncancerous colon tissue, three from colon tumors and two from polyps (early-stage colon cancer) -- the team found that in all the colon tumors the defining characteristic was a universally "chaotic" pattern of methylation. In noncancerous tissue, they found methylation occurring in wel
4 comments
Read more