The relationship between nutrients leached onto the leaf surface and the colonization of plants by bacteria was studied by measuring both the abundance of simple sugars and the growth of Pseudomonas fluorescens on individual bean leaves. Data obtained in this study indicate that the population size of epiphytic bacteria on plants under environmentally favorable conditions is limited by the abun...

Although Salmonella enterica apparently has comparatively low epiphytic fitness on plants, external factors that would influence its ability to survive on plants after contamination would be of significance in the epidemiology of human diseases caused by this human pathogen. Viable population sizes of S. enterica applied to plants preinoculated with Pseudomonas syringae or either of two Erwinia...

Dry remains of the herbal species plantain ( Plantago major ), wormwood Artemisia vulgaris ) and reed grass Calamagrostis acutiflora were used as a natural source for isolation β- mannanase producing strains. They isolated by using carob gum single carbon energy. Each chosen plant was found to be colonized with dominant epiphytic group microorganism, although plants had been collected in same l...

An undisturbed natural reserve area iocated in a tropical montane rain forest at about 1800 m altitude in Sri Lanka served as a study site to investigate and assess the natural background concentration levels of As, Cd, Co, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn in plants representing different taxonomic groups (divisions) in the plant kingdom. The plants selected were: the lichen,Usnea barbata (old man's beard);Po...

Stanhopea tigrina is a Mexican endemic orchid reported as a threatened species. The naturally occurring microorganisms present in S. tigrina are unknown. In this work, we analyzed the diversity of endophytic and epiphytic culturable fungi in S. tigrina according to morphological and molecular identification. Using this combined approach, in this study we retrieved a total of 634 fungal isolates...

Epiphytic lichens were surveyed in the “Bosco Siro Negri” Integral Nature State Reserve (province of Pavia, Lombardy, NW Italy), which hosts a well-preserved fragment oak-elm floodplain forest (Natura 2000 Habitat 91F0). The core woodland hosted only four species on tree boles, i.e. Lepraria finkii plus specialists Coenogonium pineti, Diarthonis spadicea, and Opegrapha vermicellifera. An additi...

We propose a graphical language that enables the specification of assistance systems for a given application, by means of a set of rules. We implemented it through the SEPIA environment, mainly composed of an assistance editor aimed at assistance designers, and a generic assistance engine able to execute the specified assistance for the target-application end-users, without a need to modify thi...

Different species of aquatic macrophytes have strongly contrasting effects on the oxygen dynamics of the waters they inhabit. We conducted laboratory experiments to test the hypothesis that macroinvertebrates inhabiting stands of the floating-leaved water-chestnut (Trapa natans), which causes severe hypoxia, are more resistant to low oxygen concentrations (0.5–1 mg L−1) than those that inhabit ...