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Self-incompatibility (SI) poses a significant reproductive barrier, severely impacting the yield, quality, and economic value of Camellia oleifera. In this study, methyl jasmonate (MeJA) was employed as an exogenous stimulus to alleviate SI in C. oleifera. The research findings revealed that an exogenous dose of 1000 μmol·L−1 MeJA enhanced the germination and tube growth of C. oleifera self-pollen and greatly improved ovule penetration (18.75%) and fertilization (15.81%), ultimately increasing fruit setting (18.67%). It was discovered by transcriptome analysis that the key genes (CAD, C4H) involved in the lignin production process exhibited elevated expression levels in self-pistils treated with MeJA. Further analysis showed that the lignin concentration in the MeJA-treated pistils was 31.70% higher compared with the control group. As verified by pollen germination assays in vitro, lignin in the appropriate concentration range could promote pollen tube growth. Gene expression network analysis indicated that transcription factor bHLH may be pivotal in regulating lignin biosynthesis in response to MeJA, which in turn affects pollen tubes. Further transient knockdown of bHLH (Co_33962) confirmed its important role in C. oleifera pollen tube growth. In summary, the application of MeJA resulted in the stimulation of self-pollen tube elongation and enhanced fruit setting in C. oleifera, which could be associated with the differential change in genes related to lignin synthesis and the increased lignin content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herbaceous peony (Paeonia lactiflora Pall) is resistant to drought but not waterlogging. The main production areas of peony are prone to waterlogging, seriously affecting the growth and development of herbaceous peony. Polyamines have been observed to significantly enhance the ability of plants to defend and repair adverse damage and affect the synthesis and accumulation of the endogenous growth hormones indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) and abscisic acid (ABA). In this study, two herbaceous peony varieties ('Lihong', 'Qihualushuang') with different waterlogging tolerances were selected for artificial simulated waterlogging treatment to observe their morphological indexes and to determine their endogenous polyamine and hormone contents. Simultaneously, transcriptome sequencing and bioinformatics analysis were performed, focusing on screening differentially expressed genes in the polyamine metabolism pathway. The results showed that flood-tolerant varieties of herbaceous peony respond to waterlogging stress by continuously synthesizing spermidine (Spd) and spermine (Spm) through putrescine (Put) to counteract adversity. In the waterlogging-intolerant varieties, the expression of polyamine oxidase-related genes was annotated; their response to waterlogging stress was the simultaneous degradation of Spm and Spd to Put in the process of synthesis, and a decrease in the accumulation of Spm and Spd led to the early appearance of the symptoms of damage. In addition, polyamines influence key hormones that respond to plant adversity (IAA; ABA). The objective of this work was to initially analyze the mechanism of the polyamine signaling pathway in response to flooding in herbaceous peonies for further in-depth research on the mechanism of flooding tolerance in herbaceous peony, screen flood-tolerant varieties, and promote of their use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relative density of seabed determines its bearing capacity and affects the site selection, construction, and maintenance of offshore projects. As the modal-identification-based method for monitoring pile foundation scour depth does not account for the relative density of seabed, it cannot be implemented in engineering practice. Therefore, experiments and finite element simulations of a pile–soil model with different scour depths were conducted in this study to update and verify the modal-identification-based method to account for relative soil density using the Winkler foundation model. The results show that for a given scour depth, the average error decreased as the relative soil density increased, and for a given relative density, the average error decreased as the scour depth increased. The accuracy of the updated method was then improved according to the variation of the average error according to soil density and shown to exhibit strong engineering applicability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a facile facet regulation enabled by nanoarray architecture to achieve a high faradic efficiency of Fe2O3 catalyst for NRR. The α-Fe2O3 nanorod arrays (NAs) were directly grown on carbon cloth (CC) with specific (104) facet exposure. The highly exposed (104) facets provide abundant unsaturated Fe atoms with dangling bonds as nitrogen reduction reaction catalytically active sites. In addition, the NAs architecture enables the enhanced electrochemical surface area (ECSA) to fully manifest the active sites and maintain the mass diffusion. Thus, the selectively exposed (104) facets coupled with the high ECSA of NAs architecture achieve a high FE of 14.89% and a high yield rate of 17.28 µg h−1 cm−2. This work presents an effective strategy to develop highly efficient catalytic electrodes for electrochemical NRR via facet regulation and nanoarray architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]