Sweet persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb.) exhibits insufficient freezing tolerance (FT) in comparison with other temperate fruit trees. Information about FT of sweet is scarce. In this study, was analyzed three persimmons cultivars, ‘Fuyu’, ‘Taishuu’, and ‘Romang’, using an electrolyte leakage method for two successive years (Year 1, November 2017 to April 2018; Year 2, 2018 2019). Current-year s...

BACKGROUND Specific allergen from various pollen types has been found to be carried through the outdoor air, not only by intact pollen grains, but also by much smaller, paucimicronic particles. There is no complete agreement on whether, for birch (Betula), the seasonal appearance of atmospheric pollen allergen follows the fluctuation pattern of the pollen season. METHODS Assessment of birch-p...

For up to 18 yr we monitored salinity and the concentrations of nutrients, organic matter, plant pigments, and suspended particles in the Rhode River (a subestuary of Chesapeake Bay, USA) to examine long-term trends and relabonships to watershed discharges. There was no clear evldence of increasing eutrophlcation. Chlorophyll concentration did not show a long-term trend, although pheopigments i...

The course of infection of a malaria parasite (Plasmodium mexicanum) is highly variable in its host, the fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis). However, a seasonal trend is superimposed on this variation such that gametocyte production is intensified during mid- to late summer. Host testosterone levels follow a similar seasonal fluctuation and are variable among individual lizards. We sought t...

Seasonal patterns in immunity are frequently observed in vertebrates but are poorly understood. Here, we focused on a natural piscine model, the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), and asked how seasonal immune allocation is driven by physical variables (time, light, and heat). Using functionally-relevant gene expression metrics as a reporter of seasonal immune allocation, we syn...

Milk contains 3-6% of fat, of which the dominant component is triacylglycerol (TAG). Over 100 TAG groups can be readily detected in any non-enriched milk sample by LC-MS; most TAG groups contain several isomers (TAG molecules with different fatty acid composition), which cannot be fully resolved chromatographically by any single stationary phase. TAG profile of mature milk from 19 cows was surv...

The 'choice' of whether to enter diapause or to develop directly has profound effects on the life histories of insects, and may thus have cascading consequences such as seasonal morphs and other less obvious forms of seasonal plasticity. Present knowledge of the control of diapause and seasonal morphs at the physiological and molecular levels is briefly reviewed. Examples, mainly derived from p...