University of New Hampshire

About: University of New Hampshire is a education organization based out in Durham, New Hampshire, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Solar wind. The organization has 9379 authors who have published 24025 publications receiving 1020112 citations. The organization is also known as: UNH.

Durum wheat genome highlights past domestication signatures and future improvement targets

Abstract: The domestication of wild emmer wheat led to the selection of modern durum wheat, grown mainly for pasta production. We describe the 10.45 gigabase (Gb) assembly of the genome of durum wheat cultivar Svevo. The assembly enabled genome-wide genetic diversity analyses revealing the changes imposed by thousands of years of empirical selection and breeding. Regions exhibiting strong signatures of genetic divergence associated with domestication and breeding were widespread in the genome with several major diversity losses in the pericentromeric regions. A locus on chromosome 5B carries a gene encoding a metal transporter (TdHMA3-B1) with a non-functional variant causing high accumulation of cadmium in grain. The high-cadmium allele, widespread among durum cultivars but undetected in wild emmer accessions, increased in frequency from domesticated emmer to modern durum wheat. The rapid cloning of TdHMA3-B1 rescues a wild beneficial allele and demonstrates the practical use of the Svevo genome for wheat improvement. Genome assembly of durum wheat cultivar Svevo enables genome-wide genetic diversity analyses highlighting modifications imposed by thousands of years of empirical selection and breeding.

Climate correlations between Greenland and Antarctica during the past 100,000 years

Abstract: THE ice cores recovered from central Greenland by the GRIP1,2 and GISP23 projects record 22 interstadial (warm) events during the part of the last glaciation spanning 20–105 kyr before present. The ice core from Vostok, east Antarctica, records nine interstadials during this period4,5. Here we explore links between Greenland and Antarctic climate during the last glaciation using a high-resolution chronology derived by correlating oxygen isotope data for trapped O2 in the GISP2 and Vostok cores. We find that interstadials occurred in east Antarctica whenever those in Greenland lasted longer than 2,000 years. Our results suggest that partial deglaciation and changes in ocean circulation are partly responsible for the climate teleconnection between Greenland and Antarctica. Ice older than 115 kyr in the GISP2 core shows rapid variations in the δ18O of O2 that have no counterpart in the Vostok record. The age–depth relationship, and thus the climate record, in this part of the GISP2, core appears to be significantly disturbed.