In January/February 2006, heavy snowfalls in Bavaria (Germany) lead to a series of infrastructural damage of catastrophic nature. Since on many collapsed roofs the total snow load was not exceptional, serious engineering deficiencies in roof construction and a sudden rise in the total snow load were considered to be the trigger of the events. An analysis of the then meteorological conditions re...

Hypometabolism in land snails is an adaptive mechanism enabling survival in unfavourable environmental conditions such as the cold, frost, heat and drought. Both estivation and winter torpor are evoked by changes in ambient temperature, and humidity. Moreover, winter torpor is evoked by a decrease in photoperiod. But there is a growing body of evidence that maintenance in hypometabolic state an...

Plants grown through the winter are subject to selective pressures that vary with each year's unique conditions, necessitating tolerance of numerous abiotic and biotic stress factors. The objective of this study was to identify molecular markers in winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) associated with tolerance of two of these stresses, freezing temperatures and snow mold-a fungal disease complex...

developed from populations that have evolved under more severe winter conditions before plantain could Improved cultivars of narrow leaf plantain (Plantago lanceolata become a viable forage for less temperate regions. NatuL.) have received increasing attention as possible pasture species for the northeastern USA because of their productivity during drought ralized populations of narrow-leaf pla...

During winter, larvae of the Antarctic midge, Belgica antarctica (Diptera, Chironomidae), must endure 7-8 months of continuous subzero temperatures, encasement in a matrix of soil and ice, and severely desiccating conditions. This environment, along with the fact that larvae possess a high rate of water loss and are extremely tolerant of desiccation, may promote the use of cryoprotective dehydr...

Wood frogs (Rana sylvatica) exhibit marked geographic variation in freeze tolerance, with subarctic populations tolerating experimental freezing to temperatures at least 10-13 degrees Celsius below the lethal limits for conspecifics from more temperate locales. We determined how seasonal responses enhance the cryoprotectant system in these northern frogs, and also investigated their physiologic...

Winter hardiness is a complex trait and poor winter hardiness limits commercial production of winter oat (Avena spp.). The objective of this study was to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) for fi ve winter-hardiness component traits in a recombinant inbred line population derived from a cross between the winter-tender cultivar Fulghum and the winter-hardy cultivar Norline. Crown freezing to...

The enhancement of winter hardiness is one of the most important tasks facing breeders of winter cereals. For this reason, the examination of those regulatory genes involved in the cold acclimation processes is of central importance. The aim of the present work was the functional analysis of two wheat CBF transcription factors, namely TaCBF14 and TaCBF15, shown by previous experiments to play a...

Low temperature is a primary determinant of plant growth and survival. Using accessions of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) originating from Scandinavia to the Cape Verde Islands, we show that freezing tolerance of natural accessions correlates with habitat winter temperatures, identifying low temperature as an important selective pressure for Arabidopsis. Combined metabolite and transcript p...