data. Although there were some differences they concluded: “Because onset and end dates of the growing season were averaged over the entire Tibetan Plateau, the temporal resolution of the data was deemed sufficiently high for detailed analysis.” So they tested whether winter warming might affect the plants’ chilling requirements in this cold, highaltitude environment. They determined the beginn...

BACKGROUND Temperate fruit and nut trees require adequate winter chill to produce economically viable yields. Global warming has the potential to reduce available winter chill and greatly impact crop yields. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We estimated winter chill for two past (1975 and 2000) and 18 future scenarios (mid and end 21st century; 3 Global Climate Models [GCMs]; 3 greenhouse gas e...

In Mediterranean-type ecosystems plants are exposed to several adverse environmental conditions throughout the year, ranging from drought stress during the warm and dry summers to chilling stress due to the typical drop in temperatures during winters. Here we evaluated the ecophysiological response, in terms of photoinhibition and photoprotection, of the dioecious Mediterranean palm, Chamaerops...

Chilling reduces the number of Campylobacter on pork meat. The humidity during chilling is expected to have an influence on the reduction of Campylobacter. In this study, bellies taken from carcasses before chilling have been inoculated either with a mixture of C. jejuni isolates or C.coli isolates and chilled with blast chilling or conventional chilling combined with two levels of relative hum...

Environmental signals are important triggers in the life-cycle transitions and play a crucial role in the life-history evolution. Yet very little is known about the leading ecological factors contributing to the variations of life-history traits in perennial plants. This paper explores both the causes and consequences for the evolution of life-history traits (i.e., seed dormancy and size) in lo...

Chilling effects on respiration during the recovery period were studied in two maize (Zea mays L.) cultivars differing in their tolerance to chilling: Penjalinan, a chilling-sensitive cultivar, and Z7, a chilling-tolerant cultivar. Both cultivars were exposed to 5 degrees C for 5 d, after which measurements were taken at 25 degrees C. Chlorophyll fluorescence analysis in dark-adapted leaves sho...

The effects of chilling on the photosynthesis of a chilling-resistant species, pea (Pisum sativum L. cv Alaska) and a chilling-sensitive species, cucumber (Cucumis sativus L. cv Ashley) were compared in order to determine the differences in the photosynthetic chilling sensitivity of these two species. For these experiments, plants were chilled (5 degrees C) for different lengths of time in the ...

A number of abiotic shocks (e.g. heat-shock) applied before chilling have previously been shown to increase the chilling tolerance of cucumber and rice seedlings and of tomato fruit. The subsequent rate of radicle growth after chilling of these seedlings is a sensitive measure of chilling injury as is the subsequent increase in ion leakage from chilled discs of tomato pericarp fruit tissue. Dat...