Woody plants can cause localized increases in resources (i.e., resource islands) that can persist after fire and create a heterogeneous environment for restoration. Others have found that subcanopies have increased soil organic matter, nitrogen, and carbon and elevated post-fire soil temperature. We tested the hypothesis that burned sagebrush subcanopies would have increased seedling establishm...

Western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis ssp. occidentalis Hook) encroachment into mountain big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata spp. vaseyana (Rydb.) Beetle) steppe has reduced livestock forage production, increased erosion risk, and degraded sagebrush-associated wildlife habitat. Western juniper has been successfully controlled with partial cutting followed by prescribed burning the next fall, ...

To differentiate non-allergic chronic rhinosinusitis (vasomotor rhinitis) from allergic rhinitis, a characteristic protein in the nasal discharge was studied. The subjects consisted of 10 patients with perennial allergic rhinitis to house dust, 10 patients without perennial rhinitis without antigen (clinically defined as non-allergic chronic rhinosinusitis) and 5 normal volunteers without nasal...

Woody plant encroachment has degraded grassland and savanna ecosystems worldwide by decreasing herbaceous production and diversity, and altering these physiognomies toward woodlands. This study evaluated the long-term efficacy of fire and herbicide restoration strategies used in the southern Great Plains to reduce Honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) dominance, restore a grassland/savanna physi...

BACKGROUND Perennial ryegrass is a highly heterozygous outbreeding grass species used for turf and forage production. Heterozygosity can affect de-Bruijn graph assembly making de novo transcriptome assembly of species such as perennial ryegrass challenging. Creating a reference transcriptome from a homozygous perennial ryegrass genotype can circumvent the challenge of heterozygosity. The goals ...

Woody plants can cause localized increases in resources (i.e., resource islands) that can persist after fire. We tested the hypothesis that burned sagebrush subcanopies would have increased seedling establishment and performance of post-fire seeded perennial bunchgrasses compared to burned interspaces. We utilized five study sites in southeastern Oregon. The area was burned in a wildfire (2007)...

House dust mite allergens express protease activity and it has been suggested that this property has pathogenic effects by increasing airway absorption. In accordance, house dust mite allergens may increase mucosal permeability in vitro. The objective of the present study was to examine nasal absorption of desmopressin (1-deamino-8-D-arginine vasopressin) in patients with perennial house dust m...

Enhanced rhizosphere degradation uses plants to stimulate the rhizosphere microbial community to degrade organic contaminants. We measured changes in microbial communities caused by the addition of two species of plants in a soil contaminated with 31,000 ppm of total petroleum hydrocarbons. Perennial ryegrass and/or alfalfa increased the number of rhizosphere bacteria in the hydrocarbon-contami...

At the species level, plants can respond to climate changes by changing their leaf traits; however, there is scant information regarding the responses of morphological, physiological and anatomical traits of plant functional types (PFTs) to aridity. Herein, the leaf traits of five PFTs representing 17 plant species in temperate grasslands were examined along a large-scale aridity gradient in no...

Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) and tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) are two major turfgrass species in the United States. Their improvement via biotechnology approaches depend on the tissue culture response, particularly in vitro plant regeneration. To understand more of the regeneration event, scanning electron microscopy was performed and somatic embryogenesis was revealed in...