Diego Comparini

• Senior Researcher at University of Florence

Due to the globalization of coffee trade, ensuring the safety and traceability of coffee has become a critical challenge, prompting global authorities to implement new traceability systems to enhance quality identification and protect consumers from fraud. Aroma is a crucial parameter in the evaluation and differentiation of coffees, influenced by...

Rice is one of the most important cereal crops worldwide. To boost its production in a sustainable manner, co‐cultivation with Azolla species is often used to supplement its nitrogen (N) demands. However, beyond N nutrition, the physiological and developmental effects of azolla on rice remain unclear. This study investigates these mechanisms by ana...

In this study, in order to verify the effects due to the addition of spirulina (Arthrospira platensis) in a food product, a wildflower honey was analyzed in terms of chemical composition, physicochemical properties and antioxidant activity before and after the addition of the spirulina. HS-SPME/GC–MS and HPLC/UV were applied to carry out the chemic...

Soil salinity, root sodium concentration, and transpiration rate are important environmental factors impacting plant growth and productivity. This study investigates the salt-coping strategies of two plant species under varying salinity levels: New Zealand spinach species grown at three salinity levels (i.e., 0, 100, and 200 mM NaCl) and three vari...

Chili is a globally significant spice used fresh or dried for culinary, condiment, and medicinal purposes. Growing concerns about food safety have increased the demand for high-quality products and non-invasive tools for quality control like origin tracing and safety assurance. Volatile analysis offers a rapid, comprehensive, and safe method for ch...

This article focuses on the comprehensive characterization of Italian honeys using various physico-chemical analyses and their volatile organic compounds (VOCs) fingerprint obtained through the PTR-ToF-MS technology. Honey characteristics, including pH, electrical conductivity, moisture content, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), and sugar content, were...

This article focuses on the comprehensive characterization of Italian honeys using various physico­chemical analyses and their volatile organic compounds (VOCs) fingerprint obtained through the PTR­ToF­MS technology. Honey characteristics, including pH, electrical conductivity, moisture content, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), and sugar content, were...

Abstract: Capsicum plant species are globally cultivated in warm and temperate regions, being important for agro­economic, biological and cultural aspects. While their worldwide spread and their ability of cross­pollination to easily hybridize play an important role in the formation of numerous species and vari­eties but also create confusion for t...

Capsicum plant species are globally cultivated in warm and temperate regions, being important for agro-economic, biological and cultural aspects. While their worldwide spread and their ability of cross-pollination to easily hybridize play an important role in the formation of numerous species and varieties but also create confusion for their classi...

Nowadays, the debate involving climate change concerns safeguarding the water resources of the planet, an extremely important topic also in agriculture. In particular, the problem of scarce water availability becomes more and more pressing every year and at the agronomic level it is necessary to make intelligent use of water without affecting the q...

The analysis of the electrophysiological activity of plants permits a real-time information of the plant status (e.g. light availability and water stress). However, even though it is clear that the role of the electrical signals in plant is crucial, especially in processes involving the propagation of rapid signals, a systematic approach for the in...

The fruit of chili pepper (Capsicum spp.) is used fresh or dried all over the world because of their unique pungency, color, taste, and aroma. Limited information is available about a hypothetical correlation between volatile organic compound (VOC) emission and spiciness of different pepper species and varieties. The aromatic profile and the pungen...

The present work aimed to assess the antimicrobial activity of twelve essential oils extracted from plant resins of trees that grow in several tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Eleven essential oils were extracted from resins of plant belonging to the Burseraceae family (the genera Boswellia, Commiphora, Canarium and Bursera); the rema...

Natural resins exude from trees as viscous liquids, which subsequently harden by evaporation and/or oxidation. Their compositions and textures are complex and vary during the solidification processes, producing a typical volatile fragrant fraction. Many techniques have been applied to the study of resins in order to obtain considerable chemical inf...

Background: In the present study high-brightness light emitting diodes (HB-LEDs) have been used to investigate the influence of different light spectra on garlic discoloration at different humidity and temperature. Many processes involved in the discoloration process of garlic/leek during storage at different conditions remain unanswered. For this...

Recently, thermal properties of the landscaped rooftops and walls have attracted the interest of researchers because of the potential to minimize energy consumption in urban areas and to aid summer-time thermal control. For this reason the creation of a plant-based shade for walls or above buildings is highly important. In this paper we evaluate us...

X-ray high resolution three-dimensional computed tomography (XHR3DCT) is a non-invasive technique to monitor the inner morphology of an object. It permits to obtain a series of horizontal stack of the structure that allows its 3D reconstruction of images by a computer post-processing analysis. This technology is commonly used for medical analysis o...

Al³⁺ toxicity in growing plants is considered as one of the major factors limiting the production of crops on acidic soils worldwide. In the last 15 years, it has been proposed that Al³⁺ toxicity are mediated with distortion of the cellular signaling mechanisms such as calcium signaling pathways, and production of cytotoxic reactive oxygen species...

The study applies acoustic means for the detection of belowground tuberous roots of sweet potato by developing a novel non-invasive sensing technology based on propagation of frequency-modulated sound through the soil and its detection with acoustic band-pass filtering devices. The presence of tuberous roots hidden in the bed of sandy soil was succ...

Impact of transition metals which catalyze the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), on activation of cell death signaling in plant cells have been documented to date. Similarly in green paramecia (Paramecium bursaria), an aquatic protozoan species harboring symbiotic green algae in the cytoplasm, toxicities of various metallic ions have bee...

Recently, applications of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for enhancing the efficiency of photosynthesis have attracted the attentions by many researchers and agriculturalists. In the present study, we proposed both empirical (experimental) and simulative evaluations of chlorophyll-targeting monochromic and white fluorescence-type LEDs as the light so...

Growth of roots are central to the physiology and ecology of terrestrial higher plants including forest trees and agricultural crops. Ecologists, ecohydrologists, and biogeochemists need detailed insights into belowground properties and processes where plant roots take place, including changes in water, salts, and other elements that can influence...

Ultrasonic waves (USW) are often applied in order to clean the surface of items such as glass ware and also to help dissolving chemicals in water or solvents. It is well known that USW produced in a fluid create a series of compression waves and partial vacuum bubbles are formed and collapse releasing extremely high energy. Here we report that a si...

Investigations carried out on maize roots under microgravity and hypergravity revealed that gravity conditions have strong effects on the network of plant electrical activity. Both the duration of action potentials (APs) and their propagation velocities were significantly affected by gravity. Similarly to what was reported for animals, increased gr...

Oxygen influx showed an asymmetry in the transition zone of the root apex when rootswere placed horizontally on ground. The influx increased only in the upper side, whileno changes were detected in the division and in the elongation zone. Nitric oxide (NO) was also monitored after gravistimulation, revealing a sudden burst only in the transition zo...

Oxygen influx showed an asymmetry in the transition zone of the root apex when roots were placed horizontally on ground. The influx increased only in the upper side, while no changes were detected in the division and in the elongation zone. Nitric oxide (NO) was also monitored after gravistimulation, revealing a sudden burst only in the transition...

BACKGROUND Proton transfer reaction-mass spectrometry (PTR-MS), in its recently developed implementation based on time-of-flight mass spectrometry (PTR-TOFMS), was used to rapidly determine the volatile compounds present in fruits of Capsicum spp.RESULTSWe analyzed the volatile organic compounds emission profile of freshly cut chili peppers belongi...

Erodium cicutarium L. plants disperse their seeds by a combination of two dispersal strategies: explosive dispersal, and self-burial dispersal. As the fruits dry, the stresses developed in the structure cause the sudden separation of the seeds that fly away from the plant. Then, once on the ground, the seeds respond to variations in the external hu...

A main question for the study of collective motion in living organisms is the origin of orientational polar order, i.e., how organisms align and what are the benefits of such collective behaviour. In the case of micro-organisms swimming at a low Reynolds number, steric repulsion and long-range hydrodynamic interactions are not sufficient to explain...

[This corrects the article on p. e29759 in vol. 7.].

Interactions between individuals that are guided by simple rules can generate swarming behavior. Swarming behavior has been observed in many groups of organisms, including humans, and recent research has revealed that plants also demonstrate social behavior based on mutual interaction with other individuals. However, this behavior has not previousl...

Probability distribution of the velocities of growing roots. A. Experiment, B. non-random growth model and C. random-growth model. The parameter values used in B are: , , , , , , , , , and . The parameter values used in C are: , , and . The three panels from the left show the representative distributions observed in single experiments and numerical...

Probability distributions of the distances of the root apices from their seeds: . A. Experiment, B. non-random growth model and C. random-growth model. The parameter values in B and C are as in Fig. S1. The three panels from the left show the representative distributions observed in single experiments and numerical realizations. The right panels sh...

Experiment with a growing group of maize roots. (MOV)

Experiment with a single growing maize root. (MOV)

Sinorhizobium meliloti is a soil bacterium that fixes atmospheric nitrogen in plant roots. The high genetic diversity of its natural populations has been the subject of extensive analysis. Recent genomic studies of several isolates revealed a high content of variable genes, suggesting a correspondingly large phenotypic differentiation among strains...