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Introduction
Publications
Publications (36)
Maize stalks support leaves and reproductive structures and functionally support water and nutrient transport; besides, their anatomical and biochemical characteristics have been described as a plant defense against stress, also impacting economically important applications. In this study, we evaluated agronomical and stem description traits in a s...
Higher hydroxycinnamate content makes maize tissues more recalcitrant to damage by insects, less digestible by ruminants, and less suitable for biofuel production. In a Genome Wide Association Analysis (GWAS) study carried out in a maize MAGIC population, we identified 24 SNPs associated with esterified cell wall-bound hydrox-ycinnamates, that repr...
Cover crops and mulches have become an alternative for soil management in vineyards due to the agronomic, environmental, and economic advantages, especially the possibility of weed control. Implicitly to this objective lies the idea of assessing the potential herbicide effect of the allelochemicals released by different cover crop and mulch species...
Cover crops are essential tools in agroecosystems for reducing the reliance on synthetic inputs and associated environmental risks. Alongside their benefits to soil fertility, cover crops can control weeds by their competitive and allelopathic attributes. Laboratory and field experiments were conducted to assess the allelopathic potential of two co...
Background
Besides the use of maize grain as food and feed, maize stover can be a profitable by-product for cellulosic ethanol production, whereas the whole plant can be used for silage production. However, yield is reduced by pest damages, stem corn borers being one of the most important yield constraints. Overall, cell wall composition is key in...
Background: Mechanical resistance due to higher hydroxycinnamate content makes maize tissues more recalcitrant to damage by insects, less digestible by ruminants, and less suitable for biofuel production. The integrated study of the maize functional genetic variability for each hydroxycinnamate component could be crucial to identify relevant geneti...
The use of allelopathic foliage incorporated into the soil as a bioherbicidal amendment is a promising weed management strategy which allows combining a cocktail of allelochemicals at low effective individual concentrations. In previous studies, the herbicidal potential of Ulex europaeus and Cytisus scoparius has been argued to be mediated by volat...
Background: Besides the use of maize grain as food and feed, maize stover can be a profitable by-product for cellulosic ethanol production, whereas the whole plant can be used in silage production. However, yield is reduced by pest damages, where stem corn borers are one of the most important factors limiting yield. Overall, cell wall composition i...
We compared two methods with different sample pretreatment, hydrolysis, and separation procedures to extract cell wall-bound phenolics. The samples were pith and rind tissues from six maize inbred lines reportedly containing different levels of cell wall-bound phenolics. In method 1, pretreated samples were extracted with a C18 solid-phase extracti...
Mediterranean Corn Borer (MCB), Sesamia nonagrioides Lef, is an important pest of maize in temperate areas causing significant stalk lodging and yield losses. The main focus of the current study were to determine possible changes in chemical traits (phenols, flavonoids, anthocyanins, sugars, fibers, and lignin) during plant development after the fl...
In northwestern Spain, where weather is rainy and mild throughout the year, Fusarium verticillioides is the most prevalent fungus in kernels and a significant risk of fumonisin contamination has been exposed. In this study, detailed information about environmental and maize genotypic factors affecting F. verticillioides infection, fungal growth and...
Genetic improvement is an emerging method to reduce the levels of fumonisin (FB) contamination in maize, but breeding advances depend on the development of suitable methods to accurately assess the performance of different cultivars. Our study focused on characterizing a local isolate of Fusarium verticillioides; comparing artificial inoculation te...
Acacia melanoxylon R. Br. (Blackwood) is a native Australian species that has invaded woodlands and degraded natural habitats in the north western Iberian Peninsula (Galicia), Spain. Several phenolic (p-hydroxybenzoic, vanillic, p-coumaric, syringic, protocatequic, ferulic acids) and flavonoids (catechin, luteolin, rutin, apigenin, and quercetin) w...
In the current study, the hydroxycinnamic acids in silks of diverse maize inbred lines differing in Fusarium resistance were determined at several times after inoculation with Fusarium graminearum or sterile water as control. The main objective was to determine the possible relationship between the hydroxycinnamic acid changes in silks and ear rot...
It is estimated that approximately 60 % of all analyses world-wide can be attributed to chromatography and mainly to HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography) techniques (Kellner et al., 1998). Hundred years ago there were set up some kind of chromatography techniques (column chromatography) but in the past few years the field of chromatography...
The leaf sheaths of selected inbred lines of maize (Zea mays L.) with variable levels of stem resistance to the Mediterranean corn borer Sesamia nonagrioides (Lefèvbre) were evaluated for antibiotic effect on insect development. Phytochemical analyses of leaf sheaths were conducted for cell wall phenylpropanoid content to gain a better understandin...
The objective of this research was to evaluate the effect of four phenols previously identified at higher concentrations in maize resistant genotypes (p-coumaric acid, ferulic acid, p-hydroxybenzaldehyde and vanillin) on the growth and development of S. nonagrioides larvae. Three different concentrations of each phenolic compound and a mixture of t...
The stem borer Sesamia nonagrioides (Lefèbvre) is the most important insect pest that attacks maize, Zea mays L., in northwestern Spain. Host plant resistance to this borer was investigated in relation to the cell wall phenylpropanoids content in the pith. Eight inbred lines that differ in resistance were analyzed. Three major simple phenolic acids...
The stem borer Sesamia nonagrioides (Lefèbvre) is the most important insect pest of maize, Zea mays L., in northwestern Spain. Among the metabolites present in maize, phenolic compounds could play an important role in resistance. The objective of this work was to determine whether a relationship between phenols and the amount of resistance exists....
The pink stem borer, Sesamia nonagrioides (Lefebvre), is one of the most important insect pests of maize (Zea mays L.) in northwestern Spain. The objectives of this work were to evaluate, at different times during the growth of maize, structural traits related to the entry point and tissues on which larvae feed and to determine the relationship bet...
As primary producers in any ecosystem, plants regulate the functioning of other components; thus, processes that regulate plant communities are of fundamental importance to ecosystem function [1–3]. Various ecosystem components often are related closely to each other, and factors that alter one component will have flow-through effects on other comp...
The allelopathic potential of four tree species on soil microbial populations and some herbaceous plants (two understory species and one general biotest species) was investigated. Effects of three nonindigenous tree species, Eucalyptus globulus Labill, Pinus radiata D.Don and Acacia melanoxylon R.Br., on microorganisms participating in the cycle of...
Allelopathy due to humus phenolics is a cause of natural regeneration deficiency in subalpine Norway spruce (Picea abies) forests. If inhibition of spruce germination and seedling growth due to allelochemicals is generally accepted, in contrast there is a lack of knowledge about phenolic effects on mycorrhizal fungi. Thus, this work tested effects...
Plant-produced phenolic compounds inhibit soil microbial activity and are suspected to be involved in the failure of natural regeneration of French subalpine Norway spruce (Picea abies) forests. This work evaluated relationships between phenolic compounds and soil microorganisms in humus collected in spruce forest during winter and summer seasons....
In forest plantations, many types of plant spp. grow together for long periods and hence, are ideal location for allelopathic research. The high yielding exotic spp. introduced to increase productivity of forests are most allelopathic than indigenous spp. These reduce the vegetation diversity and understorey flora due to inhibitory allelopathic eff...
Allelopathy has been widely investigated in forest ecosystems around the world. This ecological process takes part in the vegetation dynamics and partially explains the success or failure of seedling establishment and survival. Therefore, allelopathy could be a common cause of natural regeneration failure, due to adverse impact of understory specie...
Low molecular weight phenolic compounds have been identified in fresh leaves and in soils in which leaves of five varieties of Capsicum annuum L. were decomposing. Six phenolic compounds were tested in laboratory bioassays for their allelopathic effects on germination and seedling growth of six weeds. Ferulic acid, gallic acid, p-coumaric acid, p-h...
Among other factors, allelopathy due to phenolics is a cause of natural regeneration deficiency in subalpine spruce (Picea abies L. Karst.) forests. Turnover of these allelochemicals in soil with and without microorganisms is reported herein. Microflora not only appeared to be able to metabolize some aromatic compounds naturally occurring in soil (...
During one year, the evolution of eleven groups of micro-organisms has been monitored in the soil in a plantation of oakwood (Quercus robur, the autochthonous tree species) and three alien trees (Acacia melanoxylon, Eucalyptus globulus and Pinus radiata). The main differences could be attributed to the different water regimes and soil pH, but also...
A series of experiments were designed to evaluate the allelopathic potential of nine varieties of pepper (Capsicum annuum L.): 'sonar', lamuyo', 'atlantic', 'atol', 'padrón', 'amoia', 'torando', 'dulce italiano' and 'lipari' for their use in weed control. The leachates obtained from artificial washings of the aerial parts of the plants were bioassa...
The development of phytotoxicity of phyllodes from Acacia melanoxylon R.Br. was studied during their decomposition in four different plots in which the dominant species of tree was Quercus robur L., A. melanoxylon, Pinus radiata D. Don. and Eucalyptus globulus Labill. The toxicity of the extracts was estimated by measuring the effects on the germin...
The development of toxicity produced by vegetable litter of four forest species (Quercus robur L.,Pinus radiata D.Don.,Eucalyptus globulus Labill, andAcacia melanoxylon R.Br.) was studied during the decomposition process in each of the soils where the species were found. The toxicity of the extracts was measured by the effects produced on germinati...
Projects
Project (1)
The aim of the research line proposed is going into the knowledge of mechanisms of biochemical resistance in maize (Zea mays L.) to biotic stresses; mainly corn borer pests (Sesamia nonagrioides Lef.) and Fusarium diseases (Fusarium verticilloides Sacc., and F. graminearum Schwabe. Within the different maize resistance mechanisms, the role of the cell wall has been of increasing research interest over the last years because some components such as cellulose, hemicellulose or phenylpropanoids (such us lignin or hydroxycinnamates) may affect insect feeding or fungal growth due to nutritional and/or physical reasons. Previous studies have shown that the cell-wall composition, and particularly diferulates concentrations, showed higher concentration in inbred lines resistant to borers and fungi. Those compounds are extensively related with cell stiffness, growth cessation, digestibility, or even with interference in ethanol production.
In previous research we have carried out a divergent selection program in order to increase and decrease total diferulates concentration in maize plants. Up to date we have twelve cycles of selection for diferulates (6 for high and 6 for low) and 8 inbred lines (4 with low and 4 with high dfas) obtained from the same genetic background. We planned the evaluation of these materials attending to three different uses: use in crop protection, animal feeding and bioethanol production with the objective to define positive or negative interactions between uses. In addition, we will explore the role of other cell wall components such as cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin in the biotic stress resistance in order to evaluate the inter-relationship between cell wall components and resistance, and design new selection programs attending to these relationships.
The current material is the best to perform diverse genetic studies. In this case, in addition to continue with the selection program for diferulates, we will conduct two genetic approaches with the aim of identifying genes related to the synthesis of diferulates and other cell-wall components: QTLs mapping in multiparental populations and transcriptomics approaches.
Finally, in addition to determine the function of various metabolites in the passive-constitutive resistance, we also address the study of the inducible response after insect damage. We will study cell wall components after the damage; and at the same time if the quick response after damage and/or the response derived from a longer damage can change the antibiosis of the maize plants.
