Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec> <jats:title>Background</jats:title> <jats:p>When studying metallophytes and hyperaccumulator plants, it is often desired to assess the level of tolerance of a specific trace metal/metalloid in a putative tolerant species, to determine root and shoot accumulation of the trace metal/metalloid of interest, or to establish whether a trace metal/metalloid has an essential function. The use of hydroponics has proven to be a powerful tool in answering such questions in relation to the physiological regulation of metal/metalloids in plants. Carefully designing experiments requires considering nutrient solution formulation, dose rate regime, and environmental conditions, but this is often overlooked.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Aims</jats:title> <jats:p>This review aims to bring together key information for hydroponics studies in physiological, evolutionary, and genetics/molecular biological research of trace metal/metalloid tolerance and accumulation in plants, focussing on metallophytes and hyperaccumulator plants.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title> <jats:p>It is not possible to define a ‘universal’ nutrient solution that is both sufficient and non-toxic for all plants, although it is often possible, dependent on plant species under study and the research question to be addressed, to ‘adapt’ commonly used ‘standard formulations’. Well-designed and executed hydroponics experiments can yield powerful insights in the regulation of essential and toxic metal/metalloid trace elements, and this extends far beyond hyperaccumulator plants.</jats:p> </jats:sec>

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec> <jats:title>Background and aims</jats:title> <jats:p>Plant soil feedbacks (PSF) are reciprocal mechanisms through which interactions between plants and soil biota and affect future plant growth. When scaled up to the community level, PSFs are important determinants of above- and belowground community dynamics that influence long-term successional trajectories. Despite over three decades of ecological PSF research, we have a poor understanding of how common environmental processes like fire influence the strength and direction of PSFs. The aim of this study was to evaluate fire effects on PSFs between two common grassland species: <jats:italic>Schizachyrium scoparium</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>Rudbeckia hirta</jats:italic>.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Methods</jats:title> <jats:p>In this work we evaluated how fire effects on <jats:italic>S. scoparium</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>R. hirta</jats:italic> associated soil biota influenced feedbacks on plant growth using a two phase experiment. We tested this by first growing <jats:italic>S. scoparium</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>R. hirta</jats:italic> with the same soil inocula, and then simulating low intensity, grassland fires in a controlled greenhouse pot experiment (soil training). We then evaluated plant growth responses to burned and unburned inter- and intraspecific soil biota treatments (response phase).</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Results</jats:title> <jats:p>Fire effects on inocula neutralized negative feedbacks in <jats:italic>S. scoparium</jats:italic>, and caused negative feedbacks in <jats:italic>R. hirta</jats:italic>. This shows that environmental disturbance like fire can alter the strength and direction of PSFs in ways that modify plant growth and potentially influence plant fuel loads and community dynamics.</jats:p> </jats:sec><jats:sec> <jats:title>Conclusion</jats:title> <jats:p>That fire can alter the strength and direction of PSFs on plant growth suggests that fire effects on soil related processes may influence plant community dynamics and fire-fuel dynamics in fire recurrent grassland ecosystems. Further, this study shows that fire effects on PSFs vary between plant species.</jats:p> </jats:sec>