In highly variable environments, conditions can be so stressful in some years that entire populations forgo reproduction in favor of higher likelihood of surviving to breed in future years. In two out of five years, Clark's nutcrackers (Nucifraga Columbiana) in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem exhibited population-wide failure to breed. Clark's nutcrackers at the study site experienced substan...

BACKGROUND As part of the indigenous folk medicine in Japan, aqueous extracts of pine cones have been used for over a century to treat cancer and other illnesses and references to their use can be found in ancient Greek literature. However, the mechanisms by which such extracts work are largely unknown. MATERIALS AND METHODS Murine bone marrow (BM)-derived dendritic cells (DCs) and human mono...

Cones and young shoots were collected (in autumn, 1997–2002 and in May, 1998–2002, respectively) from trees of three Scotch pine populations located at the LWPE territory, in the centre of the Sosnovy Bor town, and at 30-km distance from the town in an ecologically safe site chosen considering the wind rose. A similar experiment was carried out earlier in the 30km Chernobyl NPP zone, where popu...

BACKGROUND Accurately quantifying key interactions between species is important for developing effective recovery strategies for threatened and endangered species. Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), a candidate species for listing under the Endangered Species Act, depends on Clark's nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) for seed dispersal. As whitebark pine succumbs to exotic disease and mountain p...

Recent work in model systems has demonstrated significant effects of rapid evolutionary change on ecological processes (eco-evolutionary dynamics). Fewer studies have addressed whether eco-evolutionary dynamics structure natural ecosystems. We investigated variation in the frequency of serotiny in lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), a widespread species in which postfire seedling density and ecosy...

We investigate the utility and scalability of new read cloud technologies to improve the draft genome assemblies of the colossal, and largely repetitive, genomes of conifers. Synthetic long read technologies have existed in various forms as a means of reducing complexity and resolving repeats since the outset of genome assembly. Recently, technologies that combine subhaploid pools of high molec...

We measured the terpenoid chemistry, cone insect distribution, and the relationship between these two parameters in the seed cones of ponderosa pine. Analyses of mono-, sesqui-, and diterpenes from four separate sites revealed high amounts of terpenoid diversity and variation. The majority of this variation occurred among trees within sites, but differences were also seen among sites and among ...