The aim of this diploma thesis is to draw up project documentation for new multifunctional building in the city of Vyškov. The discussed building is designed on flat terrain and has partial basement with four floors above ground. The basement contains technical facilities and storage area for building residents. The first floor contains commercial premises made of three stores: drugstore, flower shop and wine cellar. The second and third floor each contains two residential units. On the fourth floor is one spacious studio apartment.

Organism succession during ecosystem development has been well studied for aboveground plant communities while the associated pattern of change in microbial communities remains largely unknown. A study was conducted along developmental sand-dune chronosequences bordering Lake Michigan at Wilderness State Park and Altamaha river valley of southeast Georgia with the hypothesis that soil bacterial communities will follow a pattern of change that is associated with soil, plant, and ecosystem development. This study site included 5 replicate sites along 14 dunes ranging in age from 105 to 500,000 years since deposition. The microbial composition and diversity in the soil was studied using bacterial tag-encoded FLX amplicon pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. As hypothesized, Bray-Curtis ordination indicated that bacterial community assembly changed along the developmental gradient at both sites. However, there was no seasonal effect at Michigan sites despite likely differences in plant carbon inputs. At the Michigan site, soil Ca, Mg levels and pH showed a significant log-linear correlation with soil development (r = 0.83, 0.84 and 0.81, respectively). Bacterial diversity represented by Simpson’s reciprocal index (Simpson’s 1/D) showed a steady decline from the youngest to the oldest dunes with the largest decline (212 to 58) during the initial stages of soil development (105 to 450 years). The change in plant species abundance was higher in the youngest sites than the older sites. This change was significantly correlated with the change in microbial community distribution (p < 0.0001; r = 0.56). Similarly, at Georgia sites, soil development showed significant log-linear correlation with soil base cations (Ca and Mg) (r = 0.93and 0.95). However, diversity indices and PLFA failed to show any particular change in trend across the developing chronosequences. When the results from both sites were used to study bacterial spatial patterns, local geochemical features were found to be a dominant factor in driving bacterial community structure, while geographic distance as a single factor could contribute to some community variation at a scale (50 – 1700 km). The results suggest that soil nutrients and plant community could be a strong driving force in shaping microbial community assembly across a developing soil ecosystem.

Cryphonectria parasitica is the causal agent of chestnut blight, which devastated the American Chestnut tree population in the early 20th century. The discovery of hypoviruses that reduce the severity of the chestnut blight infection offers the potential for biological control. However, the spread of the hypoviruses is hampered by a diverse genetically controlled nonself-recognition system, vegetative incompatibility (vic). CPVIB-1 was identified as a transcription regulator playing an important role in the programmed cell death response to this stimulus. In this study, we have found that CPVIB-1 is ubiquitin-decorated which might lead to its degradation in the proteasome pathway. RNA-Seq and ChIP-Seq were used to further explore the downstream targets of CPVIB-1 that mediate the various metabolic changes that lead to the altered phenotype of the Δcpvib-1 mutant. Due to inaccuracies in the prior annotation, we performed a genome re-annotation to improve the accuracy using a MAKER2-two-pass pipeline. To validate the improvement a second pipeline, PEPA, was developed to compare quality metrics between the old and new annotations. Approximately 1/3 of the original annotations from 2009 were found to be inaccurate. Experimental confirmation by testing 27 predicted genes using a diagnostic PCR protocol to differentiate between prior and new transcript structures showed that over 80 % of tested genome locations supported for the new annotation. Using rapamycin treatment to mimic stimulation of the vic response and applying the RNA-seq and ChIP-seq data to this new information, we found that CPVIB-1 is related to TOR signaling pathways, promoting autophagy and the proteasome pathway, but repressing carbon metabolism, protein and lipid biosynthesis. In depth analysis of CPVIB-1-bound DNA targets showed that this protein is a member of the GAGA regulator family, a group of multifaceted transcription factors with diverse roles in gene activation and repression, maintenance of mitosis, and cell development. Following treatment with rapamycin the recognition sequence bound by CPBVIB-1 was altered leading to the regulation of different suite of genes with diverse metabolic functions. Ultimately, we have developed a revised model of TOR signaling pathway where TORC1 and TORC2 signaling pathways are connected by the action of CPVIB1.

No evaluations of plant and wildlife communities in Wetlands Reserve Program wetlands have been conducted in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. Therefore, I evaluated active and passive moist-soil management (MTYPE) and early and late draw-down on plant communities, waterbird use, and water quality on 18 WRP lands, Mississippi, 2007-2009. Active-early sites had greater waterfowl Vegetative Forage Quality (VFQI), percentage occurrence of grass, plant diversity, and structural composition than passively managed sites (P < 0.10). I modeled variation in densities of wintering waterbirds; the best model included VFQI*MTYPE and decreased % woody vegetation (wi ≥ 0.79). Additionally, waterbird densities varied positively with active-late management (R2 ≤ 0.27), as did duck species richness with flooded area (R2 = 0.66). I compared water quality parameters among managed wetlands and drainage ditches but did not detect differences due to variability. Therefore, wetland restoration on WRP lands should focus on active management and maximizing wetland area.

Suboptimal soil moisture during the growing season often limits growth and yield potential of corn. This study aimed to assess the impact of varying soil moisture regimes on corn growth at different growth phases involving vegetative, flowering, and grain-filling stages. Exposure to moisture stress (80% of the control) during the vegetative stage resulted in a 65% reduction in stomatal conductance and increased the canopy temperature by 5 oC, which led to a substantial decrease in total dry matter (56%). Moisture stress-induced reductions in silk length (19%) and fresh weight (34%), negatively affected kernel number (53%), and weight (54%). Unlike the flowering stage, extreme stress during grain-filling had a greater impact on kernel weight (19%) than the number (7%). During flowering, stress reduced kernel starch content with an increase in protein content. Our findings infer that improving the resilience of the corn flowering stage to soil moisture stress may help reduce the yield gap between irrigated and rainfed.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第24455号 / 理博第4954号 / 新制||理||1707(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科生物科学専攻 / (主査)教授 中野 伸一, 教授 木庭 啓介, 教授 中務 真人 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DGAM

Biological invasions threaten the ecological integrity of natural ecosystems. Anthropogenic introductions of non-native species can displace native flora and fauna, altering community compositions and disrupting ecosystem services. One often-overlooked vector for such introductions is the release of aquarium organisms into aquatic ecosystems. Following detrimental aquarium-release invasions by the "killer alga" Caulerpa taxifolia, aquarium hobbyists and professions began promoting the use of other genera of macroalgae as "safe" alternatives. The most popular of these marine aquarium macroalgae, the genus Chaetomorpha, is analyzed here for invasion risk. Mitigation strategies are also evaluated. I found that the propensity for reproduction by vegetative fragmentation displayed by aquarium strains of Chaetomorpha poses a significant invasion threat—fragments of aquarium Chaetomorpha are able to survive from sizes as small as 0.5 mm in length, or one intact, live cell. Fragments of this size and larger are generated in large quantities in online and retail purchases of Chaetomorpha, and introduction of these fragments would likely result in viable individuals for establishment in a variety of geographic and seasonal environmental conditions. Mitigation of invasion risk was assessed in two ways—rapid response to a potential introduction by chemical eradication and prevention through safe hobbyist disposal. I tested the effectiveness of five chemicals used as algicides and found that acetic acid was highly effective at limiting survival and growth of aquarium Chaetomorpha. Chlorine bleach, copper sulfate and rock salt were effective at limiting growth but were inconsistent or ineffective in reducing survival of algal fragments. The algicide Sonar limited neither survival nor growth. If aquarium strains of iii Chaetomorpha are released, chemical eradication presents a viable management strategy, particularly through the use of acetic acid. A more cost-effective strategy, however, would be preventing introductions; thus safe alternatives to release were determined for hobbyist disposal of unwanted or excess aquarium Chaetomorpha. Here I present the minimum exposure durations necessary to induce full mortality of aquarium Chaetomorpha through boiling, microwaving, freezing, desiccation and exposure to freshwater. Hobbyist disposal by any of these methods would constitute safe alternatives to introduction of the alga into natural environments. Such preventative measures will inform outreach campaigns in order to limit the potential for aquarium-release introduction.

No description available.

<p>The accurate diagnosis of disorders of consciousness presents substantial difficulty because of the reliance on behaviour-based assessment tools. A patient may be covertly aware but unable to indicate their state due to physical impairments. Neuroimaging researchers have begun to seek alternate methods of assessment that rely on brain responses rather than behavioural ones. To this end, mental imagery has been employed as a voluntary cognitive activity that can be measured with fMRI or EEG to indicate awareness. In this dissertation I examine the advantages and limitations of these two imaging techniques and argue that EEG is more suitable for this patient population. I expand upon existing mental imagery research by exploring additional tasks that have not been applied to this problem, in order to address three previously unanswered questions that are central to the development of imagery-based diagnostic tools. First, do individuals differ on which imagery tasks produce the most reliable activation? Second, can the robustness of brain activation during imagery be predicted from familiarity with the imagined activity? Third, do fMRI and EEG provide converging evidence about individual imagery performance? In order to answer these questions, 6 mental imagery tasks were examined using simultaneous EEG and fMRI recordings, in combination with participant ratings. The findings revealed that, of the mental imagery tasks studied, mental arithmetic consistently produced the most robust activation at the single subject level. Additionally, there was no relationship between participants’ familiarity with an activity and the level of brain activation during performance. The key finding demonstrated that EEG and fMRI were in agreement on both of these questions, lending support to the increasing use of EEG over fMRI in disorders of consciousness.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(農学) / 甲第24655号 / 農博第2538号 / 新制||農||1097(附属図書館) / 学位論文||R5||N5436(農学部図書室) / 京都大学大学院農学研究科農学専攻 / (主査)教授 白岩 立彦, 教授 中﨑 鉄也, 教授 丸山 伸之 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Agricultural Science / Kyoto University / DGAM