seed dormancy has a critical role in ecological adaptation of wild plant species such as hordeum spontaneum, a wild relative of barley. in this study, 192 ecotypes of hordeum spontaneum maintained in national plant gene bank of iran (npgbi) originating from different climatic zones of the country were evaluated. morphological, phenological and physiological traits were recorded in the field. af...

Seed performance after dispersal is highly dependent on parental environmental cues, especially during seed formation and maturation. Here we examine which environmental factors are the most dominant in this respect and whether their effects are dependent on the genotypes under investigation. We studied the influence of light intensity, photoperiod, temperature, nitrate, and phosphate during se...

In the wild, seed dormancy promotes fitness by preventing germination before conditions are optimal for plant growth. During crop domestication, however, seed dormancy was selected against to ensure uniform germination upon sowing. Despite this, too little dormancy can be problematic, especially in cereal crops where it causes yield losses due to preharvest germination. Seed dormancy has long b...

The understanding of seed dormancy, germination and longevity are important goals in plant biology, with relevant applications for agriculture, food industry and also human nutrition. Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) are key molecules involved in the release of dormancy, when their concentrations fall within the so called 'oxidative window.' The mechanisms of ROS distribution and sensing in seeds,...

Postma, F. M. 2016. Selection during Early Life Stages and Local Adaptation in Arabidopsis thaliana. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 1425. 51 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-554-9687-6. Organisms are often adapted to their local environment, but the role of early life stages in adaptive differentiation ...

The life of a plant is characterized by major phase transitions. This includes the agriculturally important transitions from seed to seedling (germination) and from vegetative to generative growth (flowering induction). In many plant species, including Arabidopsis thaliana, freshly harvested seeds are dormant and incapable of germinating. Germination can occur after the release of dormancy and ...

aim and background: capparisspinosa l. is considered as one of the most significant plant species in the capparaceae. this plant is one of the most important medicinal plants and has a great ability to stabilize sand dune. seeds of this plant have germination problems. the aim of this research is to determine germination percentage of capparisspinosa according to different duration of chilling ...

Environmental signals drive seed dormancy cycling in the soil to synchronize germination with the optimal time of year, a process essential for species' fitness and survival. Previous correlation of transcription profiles in exhumed seeds with annual environmental signals revealed the coordination of dormancy-regulating mechanisms with the soil environment. Here, we developed a rapid and robust...

Summer annuals overwinter as seeds in the soil seed bank. This is facilitated by a cold-induced increase in dormancy during seed maturation followed by a switch to a state during seed imbibition in which cold instead promotes germination. Here, we show that the seed maturation transcriptome in Arabidopsis thaliana is highly temperature sensitive and reveal that low temperature during seed matur...

Dormancy mechanisms in seeds and buds arrest growth until environmental conditions are optimal for development. A genotype-specific period of chilling is usually required to release dormancy, but the underlying molecular mechanisms are still not fully understood. To discover transcriptional pathways associated with dormancy release common to seed stratification and bud endodormancy, we explored...