Gigabyte
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Preprints posted in the last 30 days, ranked by how well they match Gigabyte's content profile, based on 62 papers previously published here. The average preprint has a 0.05% match score for this journal, so anything above that is already an above-average fit.
Yokoi, K.; Kainoh, Y.; Kanda, M.; Kuwasaki, S.; Kimura, K.; Bono, H.
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Parasitoid wasps develop in or on other arthropods and have evolved a wide range of strategies for exploiting their hosts. Ascogaster reticulata is a solitary egg to larval endoparasitoid wasp belonging to the subfamily Cheloninae of Braconidae. We constructed a genome assembly using long-read sequence data. The assembled genome was 280.5 Mbp, consisting of 209 contigs. The N50 value and GC content ratio were 13.9 Mbp and 30.43%, respectively. The percentage of transposable elements and repetitive regions was 52.43%. The predicted number of genes is 27,261. Merqury revealed that the QV value and completeness of the genome were 61.79 and 99.3917%, respectively. BUSCO analysis detected approximately 99% of the core genes. These results suggest that the genome data were of sufficient quality for use as a reference genome. Therefore, these data can be utilized as a genomic resource for comparative studies within Braconidae and for future investigations into the biology and evolution of Cheloninae parasitoid wasps.
Yu, Y.; Li, Z.; Shan, X.; Fu, Y.; Fu, Y.; Zhang, Z.; Guo, X.; Wang, S.; Zhao, J.; Zhong, J.; Suo, L.; Lan, D.; Wang, J.
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Background: The yak (Bos grunniens) is an essential livestock species in high-altitude alpine ecosystems, serving key roles in meat, milk, and wool production as well as ecological maintenance. However, traditional yak breeding systems face several limitations, including fragmented herd data management, inefficient phenotypic collection, missing pedigree records, and high technical barriers to applying genomic technologies. These factors constrain the widespread application of modern genetic evaluation methods in yak breeding programs. Description: We developed the Yak Genomic Evaluation Platform (YGEP, https://yakbreeding.swun.edu.cn/en/), an integrated digital system for yak genetic selection and herd management. YGEP integrates three core analytical modules: pedigree reconstruction, genotype imputation and genomic breeding value estimation. Benchmarking on 706 yaks showed that GBLUP achieved a prediction accuracy of r = 0.96 for cannon bone circumference (CCB), and KBeagle reached 84.0% imputation accuracy with the combined reference panel. Conclusion: YGEP bridges the gap between advanced genomic analytics and practical yak breeding. By integrating pedigree reconstruction, genotype imputation, and GEBV estimation into a user-friendly cloud platform, YGEP effectively eliminates technical and data bottlenecks. Overall, it provides an accessible, scalable, and standardized solution to advance digital herd management and precision genetic improvement in alpine livestock.
Calla, B.; Sim, S. B.; Yeats, M. S.; Johnson, K. M.; Chavez-Congrains, K.; Kauwe, A. N.; Plough, L. V.; Geib, S. M.
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The Olympia oyster (Ostrea lurida) was once a major food source and a key component of coastal marine ecosystems and culture on the US West Coast. Overfishing and habitat contamination in the early to mid-20th century severely depleted populations of Olympia oysters, and the species is currently considered a species of concern. Although multiple restoration efforts are underway, progress understanding the species biology and recovery potential has been limited by the historical lack of genomic resources. Here, we report a chromosome-level assembly of the Olympia oyster. The assembly was built using Oxford Nanopore reads and Hi-C to obtain a highly contiguous 1.03 Gb-assembly consisting of 10 chromosomes. RNA from gills, mantle, adductor muscle, and a mix of brooding eggs and larvae were also sequenced as 150 nt long paired-end reads which were used to guide the genome annotation. Over 52 K genes were predicted in the genome, of which 34K were protein-coding. A BUSCO analysis on the assembly showed 98.9% of the mollusca_odb12 gene set were complete (with 2.1% duplicated, and 0.8% missing). The short RNA reads were also used to identify tissue-level gene expression signatures in adductor muscles, egg and brooding larvae, and mantle. Development-related genes were highly expressed in eggs and brooding larvae whereas many xenobiotic metabolism genes were present in mantle tissues, highlighting mantles role in the interaction of the oyster with external environments. This new genomic resource will greatly advance our understanding of this keystone mollusk and provide a critical tool for guiding restoration efforts and the development of sustainable commercial production.
Cai, Y.; Wang, C.; Li, M.; Yang, Y.; Cai, C.; Lu, S.; Chen, S.
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The hybrid grouper 'Yushuban' (Cromileptes altivelis [female] x Epinephelus fuscoguttatus [male]) has shown promising performance in aquaculture trials, yet no complete reference genome has been available for this hybrid. We generated two gapless, telomere-to-telomere (T2T) haplotype-resolved genome assemblies of a single individual by integrating short-read, PacBio HiFi, Oxford Nanopore ultralong-read and Hi-C data. The maternal (Yushu_Calti_1.0) and paternal (Yushu_Efusc_1.0) haplotypes are 1,077.33 Mb and 1,083.36 Mb in length, with N50 values of 45.46 Mb and 45.55 Mb, respectively. Across all platforms, over 99.4% of reads mapped to each assembly, and Merqury-based quality values reached 57.7413 and 59.2068 (PacBio). BUSCO recovered 99.78% and 99.75% of complete core genes. We predicted 27,248 and 27,566 protein-coding genes, of which 98.52% and 99.23% were functionally annotated, and annotated telomeric motifs and repetitive elements (46.12% and 47.18% of each genome). These assemblies fill a gap in grouper genomic resources and provide a foundation for genetic dissection, parental genome comparison and molecular breeding of this hybrid.
Birdes, C.; ECHE, C.; Vernette, C.; Marcuzzo, C.; Sarry, J.; Suin, A.; Kuchly, C.; Rogier, O.; Gaspin, C.; Milan, D.; Donnadieu, C.; Iampietro, C.; Klopp, C.; Tosser-Klopp, G.
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The goat research community benefits from one of the most comprehensive livestock genome assemblies, ARS1. However, the rich diversity of goat breeds suggests that a single individual genome is not enough to represent the species full genomic content. Third-generation sequencing technologies have recently made it possible to generate very high quality assemblies that should enable to elucidate unique and/or complex phenotype determinisms depending on genetic structural variations. In the SeqOccin project, nine goat breeds were selected to represent French goat genetic diversity: Alpine, Boer, Creole, Fosses, Poitevine, Provencale, Pyreneenne, Rove and Saanen. High-molecular-weight DNA was extracted from blood samples and subjected to long read whole-genome sequencing. There reads were used to generate de novo assemblies and were aligned onto the public reference to call structural variants. PacBio HiFi and parental Illumina reads were used to assemble phased haplotypes of the Alpine breed. For the other breeds, PacBio raw (CLR) or ONT reads were generated. Our work demonstrates the feasibility of assembling genomes with a reasonable amount of data and appropriate software packages, delivering one high-quality assembly and 8 standard goat assemblies that pave the way for pangenome construction and structural variant functional studies.
Karaikal, S. K.; Preble, R.; Waring, D. J.; Simoes, C. C.; Tecle, I. Y.; Menda, N.; Tantikanjana, T.; Zhang, J.; Eaton, K.; Corak, K.; Birkett, C.; Krill Brown, A.; Feldmann, M.; Lamm, C.; Thieme, M.; Peteti, P.; Manching, H.; Powell, A.; Hulse-Kemp, A. M.; Jannink, J.-L.; Mueller, L. A.
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Breedbase ( is a comprehensive, web-based, open-source breeding management and analysis software for plant breeding that was introduced to address gaps with existing software for plant breeding data. Breedbase is continually improved and developed, with new features being added as required by the breeding community. Since its inception, the capabilities of Breedbase were improved to better serve the diverse data modeling needs of additional crops beyond our original ensemble of cassava, banana, yam, sweet potato, tomato, rice, and wheat. We describe here major updates that have been made in the past 4 years, including (1) improved handling of repetitive measurements; (2) a redesigned experimental treatments interface; (3) a more fine-grained user permission system; (4) improved trial quality control workflows; (5) intercropping support; (6) the addition of a decision meeting feature that helps decision makers make the best selection with the available data; (7) transgenics and tracking tools and finally, (8) an improved field layout tool which consolidates several trials in one field. These new features integrate seamlessly with the previous feature set of Breedbase - making it one of the most feature rich breeding management softwares available.
ECHE, C.; Birdes, C.; Marcuzzo, C.; Sarry, J.; Suin, A.; Vernette, C.; Kuchly, C.; Gaspin, C.; Milan, D.; Donnadieu, C.; Iampietro, C.; Tosser-Klopp, G.; Klopp, C.
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The sheep research community benefits from a genome assembly that has been refined over the last 15 years. However, the rich diversity of sheep breeds suggests that a single individual genome is not enough to represent the species full genomic content. Third-generation sequencing technologies have recently made it possible to generate high quality assemblies that should enable to elucidate unique and/or complex phenotype determinisms depending on genetic structural variations. In the SeqOccin project, twelve breeds were selected to represent (mostly French) sheep genetic diversity: Basco-Bearnaise, Black Belly, Blanche du Massif Central, Corse, Ile de France, Lacaune, Manech Tete Noire, Noire du Velay, Ouessant, Rambouillet, Vendeen, Soay. High-molecular-weight DNA was extracted from blood samples and subjected to long read whole-genome sequencing. The reads were used to generate de novo assemblies and were aligned onto the public reference to call structural variants. PacBio HiFi and parental Illumina reads were used to assemble phased haplotypes of the Lacaune breed. For the other breeds, PacBio raw (CLR) or ONT reads were generated. Our work demonstrates the feasibility of assembling genomes with a reasonable amount of data and appropriate software packages, delivering one high-quality assembly and 11 standard sheep assemblies that pave the way for pangenome construction and structural variant functional studies.
Dillon, K. C.; Sprong, H.; Ronai, I.; Choudhary, S.; Grant, C.; de Paula Baptista, R.; Ray, D. A.; Glenn, T. C.
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Generating high-quality genome assemblies for small animals with large genomes is complex due to their small body size, DNA contamination, and repetitive elements. Ticks exemplify these complexities, while also being a global health threat to humans, domestic animals, and wildlife. Advances in long-read sequencing platforms now make it feasible to obtain large amounts of raw sequence data from individual specimens, but challenges remain. Key genome workflow challenges include error correction, assembly, transposable element annotation, and chromosome assignment and synteny. Here we examine three individual Dermacentor reticulatus ticks using deep Oxford Nanopore sequencing. Comparing and contrasting bioinformatic tools for raw read and assembly manipulation allows us to identify the parameters that provide a high-quality haploid genome assembly among 38 assemblies. We find Dorado error corrected raw read data from approximately two flow cells are needed, but limiting assembly coverage to 40x produces the highest quality assemblies. Then we examined the effects of optimal workflow parameters on downstream analyses of gene synteny and manual transposable element annotation of the three tick assemblies in comparison to an independent assembly of a fourth D. reticulatus individual from a different country. Gene synteny analysis allows chromosome assignment of scaffolds and transposable element identification was improved markedly with manual curation. Finally, we compared the genetic variation of D. reticulatus across two populations and found similar genetic diversity. Our study provides a clear workflow to obtain high-quality assemblies from Oxford Nanopore sequences and genetic characterization of a species with a large, complex, and repetitive genome.
Yin, J.; Agrawal, M.; Goel, P.; Solares, E. A.
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BackgroundSecondary haplotigs retained in a primary assembly inflate genome size and duplicate gene content, and their removal remains a necessary curation step for heterozygous diploid genomes. HapSolo (Solares et al. 2021) treats this step as an optimization problem: it searches three pairwise alignment thresholds (percent identity, query coverage, and the ratio of aligned query to aligned reference length) to minimize a cost defined over single-copy, duplicated, and missing conserved orthologs. The original implementation depended on a separate BUSCO v3 run for every contig, on Python 2.7 and pandas in its inner loop, on a single randomized forward-walk optimizer, and on OrthoDB v9 lineage datasets that are no longer distributed. ResultsHere we report HapSolo2, a reimplementation that replaces the per-contig BUSCO step with miniprot-based ortholog classification against OrthoDB v9, v10, or v12.2 lineage datasets, adds steepest descent and simulated annealing to the original random forward walk, and evaluates all walkers in batched CuPy array operations on a single GPU. On an avocado assembly of 5,122 contigs scored against 1,440 orthologs, 100,000 iterations of random walk and steepest descent ran 5.6- and 7.6-fold faster on one NVIDIA RTX A6000 than on 10 CPU processes. Across 45 runs on four diploid assemblies (Anopheles funestus, Persea americana, Vitis vinifera, and Amblyraja radi-ata; 212 Mb to 3.2 Gb) and three OrthoDB releases, the three optimizers reached best costs within 1.8% of one another. Independent assessment with BUSCO v6.1 showed that HapSolo2 reduced duplicated orthologs from 52.0% to 5.6% in P. americana, from 17.9% to 10.4% in V. vinifera, and from 7.8% to 2.8% in A. funestus, with completeness decreasing by at most 1.3 percentage points. On the avocado assembly, HapSolo2 reduced the cost reached by the original HapSolo from 0.2200 to 0.1036 and raised contig N50 from 3,366 kb to 4,608 kb. ConclusionsHapSolo2 makes ortholog-guided haplotig removal practical in minutes on a single workstation, independent of a BUSCO installation, and reproducible across OrthoDB releases. It is distributed as an installable Python package with a unified command-line pipeline, an assembly statistics and plotting tool, an Apptainer container, and archived copies of the legacy ortholog datasets.
Busuulwa, A.; Liesenfelt, T.; Mongue, A. J.; Lahiri, S.
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Thrips are known for being pests of many agricultural crops, as well as vectors of plant viruses. Yet despite their economic importance, genomic resources for this group remain limited, and no chromosome-level genome has been available for the genus Scirtothrips. One such species is the chilli thrips, Scirtothrips dorsalis Hood (Thysanoptera: Thripidae). This invasive and highly polyphagous pest is established across much of the world and transmits several tospoviruses. Genomic resources would provide a new means to understand the traits that make thrips difficult to manage. Here, we present a chromosome-level genome assembly for S. dorsalis. The assembly is 266.5 Mb, with 96.9% of the sequence anchored in 16 chromosome-scale scaffolds. It contains 20,557 genes, and repetitive elements account for 28.8% of the sequence, which is comparable to those of other sequenced Thripidae. A species tree based on 3,019 single copy orthologs placed S. dorsalis as sister to Scirtothrips hansoni, with Scirtothrips most closely related to Frankliniella, Megalurothrips, and Odontothrips. The mitochondrial genome is a single circular molecule of 15,207 bp in which the sequence of the published mini circle is integrated, in contrast to the bipartite mitogenome previously reported for the same cryptic species.
Shuvo, M. J.; Segelbacher, G.; Geue, J.
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Abstract Background Many ecologically important small invertebrates are preserved in ethanol, which compromises DNA integrity and severely limits their potential to be utilized in further genomic research. The lack of soil arthropod representation ultimately results in limited availability of reference genomes and population genomic inference from pooled sequencing (Pool-seq). Results We introduce PoLoCo (Pooled Low-Coverage), a reproducible workflow integrating pooled specimen draft genome assembly from ethanol-preserved specimens with population-level allele-frequency analysis. We assembled a 411 Mb draft genome of Entomobrya nivalis from pooled short reads, achieving 97.7% BUSCO completeness despite notable fragmentation. Comparison with the published reference genome showed partial genomic correspondence while also revealing reference-dependent differences in the retained SNP datasets. The application of PoLoCo to 82 retained pooled populations produced a final distance-thinned allele-frequency dataset suitable for population-scale genomic inference. Case-study execution documented the computational requirements of the major workflow components on standard HPC infrastructure, with the workflow, documentation, and software environments openly available in Zenodo. Conclusions PoLoCo demonstrates that draft genome assemblies and reproducible Pool-seq allele-frequency analyses can be performed with long-preserved sample material from the field. PoLoCo integrates reference construction, sync-based allele-frequency analysis, and benchmarking into a free and open workflow. It establishes a reproducibility benchmark for biodiversity genomics and yields a transferable workflow for ecological and evolutionary initiatives where high-quality DNA or long-read sequencing is not feasible.
McMaster, E. S.; Jones, A.
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Eucalyptus recurva (Mongarlowe Mallee) is Critically Endangered, with only six known adult individuals persisting across two sites in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. Its extreme rarity, uniquely long lifespan, and limited reproductive output make it a priority for conservation genomics. Here we report the first genome assembly of E. recurva: a haplotype-resolved, gapless, telomere-to-telomere (T2T) assembly produced from Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) long-read sequencing. Both haplotypes span 11 chromosomes (consistent with the conserved Eucalyptus karyotype of 2n = 22), with assembly sizes of 521.1 Mb (Hap 1) and 501.5 Mb (Hap 2), BUSCO completeness >99.6%, and quality values of >QV 62. Comparative analyses place E. recurva within section Maidenaria as sister to Eucalyptus viminalis and reveal high synteny between the two species. Inter-haplotype comparison identified 3.6 million SNPs and modest structural variation, suggesting that, despite extreme demographic bottlenecking, E. recurva retains meaningful genomic heterozygosity. We also characterise the chloroplast genome, which exhibits heteroplasmy, and report an apparently bipartite mitochondrial genome. This reference genome provides an essential resource for conservation management, population genetics, and the study of eucalypt genome evolution.
Alpay, B. A.; Lin, A.; Damiani, A. C.; Fontana, W.
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Rule-based languages have proven effective for modeling systems of interacting structured entities as typically encountered in chemistry and molecular biology. We present PyKappa, a rule-based modeling package written in Python whose interpreted nature enables interactive simulation and analysis, including by agentic AI. The package seeks to broaden the base of developers by utilizing a widely known programming language and serves as an easy-to-deploy teaching tool. Using PyKappa, we conduct a case study of phase separation.
DE MEEUS, T.; Ravel, S.; Kagbadouno, M.; BERTE, D.; SEGARD, A.; LEPAIS, O.
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Tsetse flies are strictly found is sub-Saharan Africa where they are responsible for the transmission and maintenance of African trypanosomiases in humans (HAT) and animals (AAT). Vector control has been recognized as an essential tool to fight against these diseases. Nevertheless, it requires the best possible knowledge of the biology of the targeted population. Population genetics tools can prove very useful to obtain such information but require the use of polymorphic and reliable genetic markers. In this paper we present the development of microsatellite markers using a new high-throughput sequencing based technology (SSRseq). We applied it on two species of tsetse flies from three HAT foci and obtained more accurate results as compared to microsatellite loci developed with classic methods. We could indeed use 9 to 14 SSRseq loci without the several problems generally met with classic microsatellites, as all were located in autosomes, without short allele dominance or stuttering and very few null alleles. SSRseq loci appeared much more polymorphic in tsetse flies as compared to other species (fungi, trees, bees, or fishes), which suggested much higher effective population sizes, much higher mutation rates of the genome or both, suggesting high capacities for evolutionary adaptation. With the 9-14 loci kept, we confirmed the propensity of these flies to move almost freely in the whole zones investigated, and also highlighted the possible evolutionary response of one of the unkept loci regarding vector control devices used in these HAT foci, which will require further studies. We suggest for further population structure studies to use only loci with less than 1% missing data, which proved being a good and fast selection strategy to get the most reliable results.
Whitt, L.; Akozbek, L.; Bentz, P. C.; Armstrong, E.; Harkess, A.; Carey, S. B.
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A complete reference genome for species with chromosomally-determined separate sexes should contain scaffolds for all sex chromosome homologs. However, sex chromosomes present distinct computational challenges compared to autosomes. Here we present a k-mer based analysis that utilizes whole-genome sequencing of a few sex-identified isolates: Cytogenetics-By-Sequencing (CBS) tools. Unlike other approaches that typically address one aspect of the sex chromosomes, CBS-tools strives to guide users from the discovery of the heterogametic sex through identifying the sex-determination region (SDR). The core of CBS-tools is automated quantification of sex-specific k-mers in order to predict the heterogametic sex. Using publicly-available datasets, CBS-tools correctly identified the known sex-system of the 31 species tested. Additionally, we used these k-mers to verify and correct phasing of sex chromosomes between haplotypes in species representing different sex-systems. Finally, we used these k-mers to delimit the SDR boundary using an interactive web platform. CBS-tools was developed with previously unexplored sex chromosome systems in mind, but is also suitable for well-examined sex chromosome pairs.
Almeida-Miron-Soldi, D.; Mesquita-de-Oliveira, I.; Pimentel, F. S. C.; Baron, D.
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Currently, a significant proportion of young people are discouraged by the teaching of botany and, consequently, show little interest in preserving local biodiversity. On the other hand, with the recurrent use of digital technologies (DTs), young people have shown significant interest in virtual devices. Our project's tested the hypothesis whether plants awareness disparity in public school students was overcome through active teaching and learning. Thus, the objective was to investigate the use of active methodology in a non-formal teaching environment (e.g., sensory garden, SG) in order to stimulate learning in plant organography based on its evaluation using digital games. Our proposal was investigated at the Lagoa do Sino campus (Buri/SP, Brazil) in partnership with the Public School System of the Municipality of Campina do Monte Alegre/SP, Brazil. Furthermore, students were divided into two teams, which applied qualitative methodologies, such as that one of these (Team A) had face-to-face contact with the SG, using the Problem-Based Learning (PBL) methodology, digital game and survey. Team B, on the other hand, will only have contact with the game. After collecting the data, we verified statistically significant differences between the teams using the Wilcoxon test and based on the latent traits evaluated. Given this, the literature points out that discouraging students influences their learning and, consequently, their education. In addition, our considerations are based on the latent trait knowledge of botany and, thus, we reject our null hypothesis and accept our alternative hypothesis. On the other hand, based on the latent trait of plant perception, we cannot affirm the acceptance or rejection of the hypotheses. It is worth noting that future studies should have a larger number of participants than this research in order to better evaluate what is intended.
Reynolds, L. P.; Hollenback, B. N.; Davidson, P. C.
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An increasing number of researchers, educators, and at-home growers are turning to hydroponics as an alternative method of food production, diversifying and strengthening the food supply chain. This has led to a substantial increase in the amount of academic work involving hydroponic production of plants for a variety of purposes, including but not limited to a more controlled and customizable environment than conventional production methods, utilizing hydroponics as a method of wastewater treatment, and investigating the vertical production of plants on a much smaller footprint than traditional commercial-scale production. Because so many unique stakeholders are interested in hydroponics for a variety of reasons, academic studies use a wide variety of hydroponic systems with varying levels of technology and automation, making comparisons across studies and systems challenging. A few institutions have sophisticated plant growth and research facilities, like those used by commercial companies, but these systems are often prohibitively expensive, costing upwards of $10,000 USD for a very limited amount of growing space for experimental trials. To enable more researchers, educators, and citizen scientists to conduct experiments and easily compare their results, this study details three pilot-scale hydroponic production systems (Kratky, NFT, and DWC), utilizing entirely off-the-shelf components, for under $5,000 USD each, that are capable of maintaining the desired consistent temperature and relative humidity levels, and have space for 216, 108 (6 irrigation loops), and 64 (16 irrigation bins) plants, respectively. The material lists and prices are provided along with assembly instructions and general guidelines for each hydroponic system. The testing and optimization process of environmental conditions within each growth system is also detailed, with suggested customizations for potential experimental setups. The authors developed these systems during their Masters and Doctoral degree programs, enabling improved hydroponic research at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. They hope that other aspiring hydroponic researchers can benefit from this work in the development and operation of their hydroponic systems, increasing research efficiency and collaboration opportunities in this field of study.
Ayimbire, A.; Akolgo, J. A.; Asampana, J. A.; Awineseligo, A. A.; Asumboya, G.; Akazotiyele, R.
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Populations are denser in the urban areas where there is inadequate arable land for farming. This calls for innovative use of limited spaces in sac farming to produce food to augment household nutrition. The study determined the feasibility of cultivating and comparing the performance of different frafra potato varieties in polypropylene sacs. A Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with six treatments, each having three replications, was used. Each treatment was a variety of frafra potato, cultivated on a polypropylene sac filled with nutrient-enriched soil. The data collected was analyzed using STATA 15.0. The results show that plants having leaves with the largest leaf area in 2021 (20.54 (8.41) cm2) and in 2022 (19.98 (7.83) cm2) were in the MAL variety. The greatest number of leaves (417.11 (255.26)) were produced by the WAP variety in 2021 but by the MAM variety (349.33 (154.63)) in 2022. Plants having the longest vines in 2021 were in the MAM strain (41.24 (22.01) cm) but in the NAT variety (39.93 (21.54) cm) in 2022. In 2021, the highest yield of tubers was 5.56 (0.23) t/ha in the MAL variety with the lowest yield (1.59 (1.27)) t/ha recorded in the LOV strain. In 2022, the NUP variety produced the highest yield (1.91 (0.40)) (t/ha) with the WAP strain producing the lowest (0.87 (0.50)) (t/ha). The data shows that it is feasible to cultivate frafra potatoes on polypropylene sacs. In the main, all the frafra potato varieties produced considerable quantities of vegetative organ biomass and root tubers with the MAL, NAT and NUP varieties performing better. Therefore, though further investigation is required to draw an appropriate conclusion, these varieties may be recommended for cultivation on polypropylene sacs to produce food for both humans and livestock consumption.
Abedi, F.; Keitel, C.; Khoddami, A.; Roberts, T. H.
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Knowledge of the influence of particle size, blending, and processing temperature on flour functionality is critical for the utilisation of emerging grains. This study investigated the flour pasting behaviour of four Australian native grains - Button Grass, Curly Mitchell Grass, Native Millet, and Weeping Grass - in relation to particle size, wheat flour substitution at various levels (0-30%), and elevated RVA temperatures (95-140 degrees Celcius). The pasting properties of flour fractions (fine, medium, and wholegrain) were analysed using a Rapid Visco Analyser, and water absorption capacity was also determined. Particle size effects were species-specific. Native Millet and wheat had higher viscosity in the finer fractions, whereas Weeping Grass exhibited maximum viscosity in the medium fraction. Button Grass and Curly Mitchell Grass showed limited sensitivity to particle size, indicating a stronger influence of intrinsic structure. Increasing substitution with native flours generally reduced viscosity, except for Weeping Grass, which was less affected and maintained stable viscosity. High-temperature rapid visco analysis revealed distinct thermal responses: most grains showed reduced final viscosity at elevated temperatures, whereas Weeping Grass maintained relatively high final viscosity across most temperatures. These findings demonstrate the diverse functional behaviour of Australian native grains and provide insights into their potential application in gluten-free and composite flour systems.
Reuter, M.; De Hayr, L.; Ang, C. C. W.; Willemsen, W.; Kay, G. A.; Schnettler, E.; Kohl, A.; Parry, R.
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Small RNA (sRNA) sequencing is widely used to study siRNA, miRNA and piRNA pathways and to profile sRNAs derived from viruses, transposons and host transcripts. However, many sRNA workflows rely on command-line mapping and separate software for downstream analysis and visualisation. We present sRNAMap, an HTML5/JavaScript application for mapping and analysing sRNA sequencing data. sRNAMap accepts either raw FASTA/FASTQ reads or pre-aligned BAM files. For raw reads, sRNAMap uses a k-mer-seeded alignment algorithm that runs directly in the browser using parallel Web Workers where supported. It generates strand-specific per-base coverage, 5'- and 3';-end profiles, read-length distributions and nucleotide-bias summaries, with optional library-size normalisation. It also quantifies characteristic read-overlap signatures, including 5';-to-5'; overlaps associated with ping-pong-like processing. Additional modules quantify phased sRNA production, non-templated 3'- and 5'-additions, and sequence diversity. Analyses can be saved and restored as JSON or exported as self-contained HTML reports containing figures and analysis metadata. Benchmarking against Bowtie 2 under approximately matched alignment settings using a representative virus-infected arthropod small-RNA dataset showed highly concordant mapping profiles. Per-position depth showed an R^2 of approximately 0.998, while 5';- and 3';-end counts showed R^2 values of approximately 0.97. sRNAMap is available at https://github.com/rhparry/sRNAMap under the MIT licence.