Search Results (1,766)

Climate change, rising water demand, and land use change are increasing the complexity of reservoir management. This study evaluates reservoir storage responses to hydroclimatic drought across 12 reservoirs in the Marmara, Susurluk, Meriç–Ergene, and Northern Aegean basins of northwestern Türkiye. Data from 27 meteorological stations were used to calculate the SPI, SPEI, and RDI at 1-, 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-month scales. Reservoir storage during 2013–2022 was evaluated seasonally using Random Forest (RF), Linear Models (LMs), and Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) under leave-one-year-out cross-validation (LOYO-CV). The agricultural-area NDVI and reservoir characteristics provided contextual information rather than direct measures of water withdrawal. Drought indices at 6–12-month scales were selected as dominant predictors for 11 of the 12 reservoirs. RF was the best performing model in 20 of 48 reservoir–season combinations, compared with 16 for LMs and 12 for GAMs, although performance varied among reservoirs and seasons. Basin mean and reservoir local drought series were strongly correlated (mean r = 0.88), whereas Local-IDW representation did not systematically improve performance. Nevertheless, dominant predictors changed in eight reservoirs, highlighting local hydroclimatic heterogeneity. The agricultural NDVI showed considerable temporal and spatial variability but was not interpreted as evidence of reservoir-specific withdrawals or anthropogenic causation. Overall, reservoir drought sensitivity reflects cumulative hydroclimatic conditions and pronounced seasonal and reservoir-specific variability. The integrated cross-validation and spatial sensitivity framework provides a rigorous basis for reservoir drought assessment and adaptive water resource management. Full article

Background: Kinesins are ATP-dependent molecular motors that mediate intracellular transport, cytoskeleton remodeling, and abiotic stress responses in plants. The KIN gene family remains poorly characterized in Prunus mume. This study aimed to explore the evolutionary features and cold-responsive functions of the PmKIN gene family. Methods: A systematic genome‑wide analysis was performed in P. mume. We performed phylogenetic classification, conserved domain detection, gene duplication and selection pressure analysis, cis-element prediction, tissue expression profiling, cold stress expression assay, and protein interaction network prediction. Results: Fifty PmKIN family members were defined and grouped into 10 subfamilies. K14 subfamily contained the largest number of members. All members harbor conserved motor domains, and segmental duplication drove the expansion of this gene family, which was overall constrained by purifying selection. The PmKIN homologous genes were highly conserved among Rosaceae species, including Prunus persica, Prunus armeniaca, Prunus avium, and Malus domestica. Our promoter analysis detected abundant cis-elements for light, hormone, cold, and drought signals in PmKIN genes, especially in the K14 and K7 subfamilies. These genes displayed tissue-biased expression, with roots and stems showing much higher transcript levels than fruits. Under low-temperature stress, the tolerant cultivar appeared to mount a relatively rapid PmKIN upregulation, whereas the sensitive one seemed to show a sluggish response and poor recovery. Three members (PmKIN22/27/35) were suggested to be potentially critical in low-temperature-response regulation. A 285-pair interaction network predicted PmKIN45 as the central hub, and functional predictions imply that PmKIN proteins may be linked to microtubules, hormone pathways, and stress signaling, possibly coordinating growth and low-temperature responses. Conclusions: This work screens candidate genes associated with low-temperature responses in P. mume, providing genetic resources for the molecular breeding of cold-resistant cultivars and expanded cultivation of P. mume and other ornamental horticultural species. Full article

Satellite-derived atmospheric CO₂ observations provide important information for regional carbon monitoring, but their sparse spatial and temporal coverage limits their use in data-sparse drylands. We reconstructed seamless monthly column-averaged atmospheric CO₂ (XCO₂) over Mongolia at 0.1° resolution from 2015 to 2023 by integrating OCO-2 retrievals with vegetation, meteorological, and socioeconomic predictors using a LightGBM–Optuna method. The model achieved an R² of 0.952, RMSE of 1.510 ppm, and MAE of 1.060 ppm. Detrended seasonal XCO₂ was then related to SPEI-3-derived mean drought intensity (MDI) and drought frequency (DF) across typical steppe, forest, and Gobi Desert regions. The results showed that summer was the main season of XCO₂ sensitivity to moisture limitation, but regional responses differed substantially. The typical steppe showed the strongest summer sensitivity; forest showed weak summer MDI sensitivity but greater relevance of repeated moisture-limited months; and spring XCO₂ variability in the Gobi Desert was more closely associated with MDI. These findings indicate that seasonal moisture limitation is associated with contrasting atmospheric CO₂ variability across Mongolia’s typical steppe, forest, and Gobi Desert regions, providing a regional atmospheric perspective on carbon–water interactions in arid and semi-arid drylands. Full article

The growing water demand and shift in climatic conditions accentuate drought impacts on regional water resources. This study applies a comparative MCDM framework based on Entropy weighting, TOPSIS and VIKOR to evaluate monthly drought conditions using multiple climatic variables. Erzurum Province in eastern Türkiye, characterized by a high-altitude continental climate and a snow-influenced hydrological regime, was selected as the study area. Twelve monthly climatic parameters covering the 2012–2024 period were analyzed. Within the 2012–2024 record, Seasonal Mann–Kendall tests indicated significant upward tendencies in temperature, mean vapor pressure, and total vapor pressure, whereas precipitation showed no statistically significant tendency. Given the relatively short observation period, these results represent mid-term tendencies and should not be interpreted as evidence of long-term climatic change. Entropy weighting yielded the highest weights for evaporation (0.3091), precipitation (0.1813), and temperature (0.1524), representing matrix information density rather than direct physical causation. Using the adopted literature-based classification thresholds, Entropy-TOPSIS classified 97 months (67.36%) as drought-affected, compared with 70 months (48.61%) for Entropy-VIKOR. Sensitivity analysis showed that these absolute drought frequencies varied with the selected threshold values. However, their underlying continuous scores exhibited strong inverse rank alignment (Spearman’s ρ = −0.917, p < 0.001), achieving an 81.25% categorical agreement (Cohen’s κ = 0.629). Sensitivity testing confirmed rank structure stability even upon excluding evaporation, though TOPSIS displayed greater parameter sensitivity than VIKOR. Standardized indices (SPI and SPEI) showed weak overall correspondence, aligning notably only at the 1-month scale. The results show that TOPSIS and VIKOR can rank monthly conditions similarly, but drought class assignments are sensitive to methodology and thresholds. In high-altitude and snow-affected environments like Erzurum, the combined consideration of multiple climate variables can contribute to a more cautious assessment of drought periods and support the sustainable management of water resources. Full article

Castor bean (Ricinus communis L.) is an important industrial oil crop worldwide. In China, western Jilin Province represents a major production region for this species, where spring drought severely constrains its yield and quality.This study aimed to comprehensively evaluate drought resistance in castor bean and explore its underlying mechanisms. A total of 40 common castor bean germplasms in Jilin Province were used as materials. Seedling drought resistance was evaluated using 25% polyethylene glycol (PEG) simulated drought stress, and agronomic traits were assessed under natural drought field conditions. Based on these evaluations, eight drought-tolerant and eight drought-sensitive germplasms were selected. Physiological indices and transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) were performed on the drought-tolerant genotype Baibi 22 and the drought-sensitive genotype Nongxuan 1. The 40 germplasms were classified into three drought resistance categories: drought-tolerant (8), moderately drought-tolerant (24), and drought-sensitive (8). Under 25% PEG stress, chlorophyll content decreased continuously, while peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT), and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities were higher than in the control, and malondialdehyde (MDA) content showed a unimodal increase. RNA-seq was used to identify 94 consistently differentially expressed genes (uDEGs) between the two germplasms at 3 and 7 days after stress, which were enriched in calcium signaling, redox balance, antioxidant stress, and the proteolytic ubiquitination pathway. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) verification confirmed the reliability of the RNA-seq results. This study screened elite drought-tolerant castor bean germplasms and identified 17 key genes related to abiotic stress regulation, providing germplasm resources and a molecular basis for improving abiotic stress resistance in castor bean through gene editing or molecular breeding. Full article

Hydrological drought, expressed as anomalously low water availability in rivers, aquifers, and reservoirs, poses a growing threat to water security in densely populated regions such as the Metropolitan Region of Sao Paulo (MRSP), Brazil. Characterizing how drought propagates into large-scale terrestrial water storage (TWS) deficits, and how these deficits translate into measurable surface deformation, remains challenging in complex, human-managed hydrological systems such as the Cantareira Water Supply System. This study conducts an integrated, multi-sensor geodetic assessment of drought-related hydrological dynamics in the Cantareira System, combining vertical/LOS ground displacement derived from continuous GPS observations and Sentinel-1 InSAR time series with terrestrial water storage anomalies (TWSAs) from GRACE/GRACE-FO, groundwater level records, reservoir storage, and meteorological drought indicators. Cross-correlation analysis reveals a strong and statistically significant coupling between GRACE-TWSA and GPS-derived vertical displacement, with correlation coefficients of $r=-0.8$ (Upper Tietê basin) and $r=-0.6$ (PCJ basin), consistent with an elastic crustal response to hydrological loading. Reservoir storage in the PCJ basin is similarly correlated with regional TWSA (up to $r=0.7$ for the Jaguari–Jacareí reservoir), reinforcing GRACE’s sensitivity to the main upstream storage component of the Cantareira System. Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) decomposition of the InSAR deformation fields, retaining the first four modes (72% of variance in Upper Tietê, 66% in PCJ), further demonstrates that deformation patterns are strongly influenced by hydrogeological controls, with distinct spatial responses between the PCJ basin, where hydroclimatic forcing is more pronounced, and the more urbanized and anthropogenically influenced Upper Tietê basin. The integrated dataset captures major drought episodes between January 2020 and Dicember 2025, demonstrating the capability of combining GPS, InSAR, and GRACE observations to quantitatively link climatic drought forcing, terrestrial water storage deficits, and surface deformation, thereby providing a robust approach for monitoring water storage changes and supporting water resource management in densely populated regions. Full article

Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), traditionally considered a drought-tolerant species, is increasingly threatened by climatic stress and the opportunistic pathogen Diplodia sapinea in Central Europe. Using linear mixed models, this study investigated the basal area increment (BAI) of 164 trees in Northern Bavaria using tree-ring analysis and the detection of D. sapinea in shoots to investigate whether pathogen detection is associated with radial growth and climate sensitivity. Climate–growth analyses (based on chronologies spanning 82–127 years) identified the summer climatic water balance (CWB, June–August), previous-year spring CWB (March–May), and current-year spring temperatures (February, March) as the main growth drivers. Model results demonstrate a strong size-dependency during the 2003–2023 study period: while small trees in which D. sapinea was detected in shoots (basal area (BA) ≤ 800 cm²) appear to exhibit higher climatic sensitivity than trees without detectable D. sapinea, larger pines (BA ≥ 1500 cm² ≙ DBH ≥ 43.7 cm) exhibited trends pointing toward a near-complete climatic decoupling. These larger trees exhibited a significant growth deficit of −3.69 cm²/year during cold spring conditions (−2 °C) compared to healthy trees. In the largest size class (BA ≥ 2200 cm²), this productivity loss reached its peak at −10.83 cm²/year under high lagged spring water availability (+95 mm CWB in the previous year’s spring). While healthy trees reached an annual BAI of 17 cm²/year under these favorable conditions, infected trees were limited to 10 cm²/year, representing a reduction of approximately 41% and confirming the profound disruption of climatic growth stimuli in mature trees. Our findings indicate that mature pine stands are more vulnerable to productivity losses than predicted by purely abiotic models, although fixed effects explain a limited portion of overall growth variation (marginal R² = 20.81%, compared to a conditional R² = 71.99% including random effects). Consequently, despite high individual-tree and site-level variability, these size-dependent associations with D. sapinea shoot colonization must be increasingly integrated into forest resilience assessments as crucial population-level trends. Full article

Respiratory allergies are among the most prevalent chronic diseases worldwide, and seasonal allergic rhinitis and asthma place a substantial burden on patients and healthcare systems. Pollen from trees, grasses, and weeds contribute to a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations, while globalization, urban landscaping, biological invasions, and climate change are facilitating the spread of new allergenic plants across continents. Ailanthus altissima (tree of heaven) is a fast-growing deciduous tree native to China that has become widely distributed in North America and Europe, including Romania. Although initially introduced as an ornamental and shade tree, its rapid growth, tolerance of pollution and drought, and ability to colonize disturbed urban habitats have increased its relevance as a potential aeroallergen. This narrative clinical review synthesizes evidence from clinical case reports, sensitization studies, molecular allergen characterization, aerobiological monitoring, and Romanian distribution data. To improve clinical and public health applicability, the review includes summary tables comparing Ailanthus with other emerging allergens such as ragweed and Platanus, outlining Romanian ecological and pollen-monitoring evidence, summarizing diagnostic implications for ENT and allergy practice, identifying evidence gaps, and presenting future research priorities. Current evidence supports A. altissima pollen as an emerging but under-recognized respiratory allergen, particularly in urban areas where the tree is established. However, major limitations remain, including the lack of standardized diagnostic extracts, incomplete molecular allergen validation, limited routine pollen monitoring, and absence of Romanian clinical sensitization studies. Greater clinical awareness, species-specific aerobiological surveillance, standardized allergen characterization, and coordinated Romanian sensitization studies are needed to determine the extent to which A. altissima pollen contributes to allergic rhinitis and asthma. Future research should explicitly distinguish species occurrence, airborne pollen exposure, IgE sensitization, and clinically relevant respiratory disease when evaluating the emerging allergenic importance of A. altissima. Full article

Accurate prediction of dam reservoir storage is essential for sustainable water resource management, irrigation planning, and drought preparedness. In this study, the monthly storage volumes of the Atikhisar and Bakacak reservoirs in the Troy Region of Northwestern Türkiye were predicted using meteorological variables, the Standardized Reservoir Index (SRI), and reservoir memory variables. Four prediction targets were considered: current-month storage V(t), one-month-ahead storage V(t + 1), current-month storage change ΔV(t), and one-month-ahead storage change ΔV(t + 1). Eight machine learning models were evaluated using time-series cross-validation and out-of-fold prediction metrics. The results showed that meteorological variables alone were limited in explaining absolute reservoir storage, especially for the Bakacak Reservoir, whereas they provided more useful information for storage change targets. The inclusion of reservoir memory variables substantially improved the prediction performance, highlighting the dominant role of antecedent storage conditions. The highest accuracy was obtained using the integrated model combining meteorological variables, the SRI, and reservoir memory. The final models achieved OOF R² values of up to 0.967 for Atikhisar and 0.980 for Bakacak. SHAP analysis indicated that the SRI, antecedent storage, storage occupancy, and lagged meteorological variables were the main drivers of the model predictions. Overall, the proposed framework provides an interpretable and practical decision support tool for short-term reservoir operation, irrigation planning, and drought-sensitive water resource management. Full article

Narenga porphyrocoma, a wild relative of sugarcane with high drought tolerance, is a valuable germplasm resource for mining drought-tolerance genes. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) identified NpWRKY38, a WRKY transcription factor that was significantly down-regulated under drought stress, a response that was further recapitulated by exogenous abscisic acid (ABA) treatment and consistent with the presence of ABA-responsive elements in its promoter. NpWRKY38 overexpression in rice resulted in a significant increase in endogenous ABA content, yet led to insufficient stomatal closure, an attenuated response to exogenous ABA, and a significant reduction in drought tolerance. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that stress-related signaling pathways (e.g., MAPK signaling and plant hormone signal transduction) were activated in the OE lines, whereas photosynthesis, carbon fixation, and chlorophyll biosynthesis pathways were globally suppressed. Specifically, the ABA biosynthetic gene NCED was up-regulated, whereas the positive signaling regulator ABI5 was down-regulated and the negative regulator PP2C was up-regulated, thereby impairing ABA signal transduction. In addition, genes involved in salicylic acid (SA) biosynthesis and signaling (PAL, C4H, NPR4, WRKY45) were broadly down-regulated concurrently with reduced antioxidant enzyme activities. Furthermore, NpWRKY38 overexpression exacerbated drought-induced chloroplast damage, as evidenced by a greater reduction in SPAD values and severe chloroplast ultrastructural abnormalities, including swelling, disorganized thylakoid lamellae, and disrupted grana. These three pathways, namely impaired ABA/SA signaling, suppressed photosynthesis, and chloroplast damage, collectively exacerbated the drought-sensitive phenotype of the OE lines. This study demonstrates that NpWRKY38 acts as a multi-pathway negative regulatory mechanism by interfering with ABA signal transduction, suppressing the SA pathway, down-regulating photosynthetic genes, and compromising chloroplast integrity, providing a potential target for drought tolerance breeding in sugarcane. Full article

The cold sensitivity of sweet basil often results in unmarketable chilling injury (CI) symptoms and a shorter shelf life under the low temperatures typically used to maintain most fresh produce during transportation and storage. Silicon (Si) treatments have been observed to alleviate these symptoms and provide other benefits during cultivation. This study tested different Si application strategies on basil plants to determine their efficacy at reducing CI symptoms and improving growth, and whether efficacy is influenced by dose–response or Si content in leaf tissues. Across four trials, preharvest treatment solutions containing potassium silicate or monosilicic acid were applied to potted basil at Si rates of 0, 50, 100, 150, and 200 mg/L through either regular rootzone fertigation or weekly foliar spray. There were no significant improvements in growth found at harvest. Although the median shelf life during cold storage at 4 °C ranged between 17 and 24 days for all groups, exceeding known estimates for untreated basil, there were no significant improvements compared to the controls. Drought stress could have been a contributing factor that hardened controls against chilling even without Si applications. Further investigations are necessary to determine the sole effects of Si applications on basil. Full article

This study investigates traditional plant knowledge among Gallo-Lucanian and Lucanian-speaking communities of inland Lucania (Basilicata), Southern Italy, through a cross-cultural and cross-temporal ethnobotanical approach. In a handful of mountain villages, a Gallo-Lucanian substratum survives, carried south by settlers from Piedmont and Liguria between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries; nine hundred years later, we ask what remains of the plants and of the words they brought with them. Fieldwork carried out in 2024 and 2025 with 90 participants in fifteen municipalities, half of them Gallo-Lucanian and half Lucanian speakers, documented 127 identified plant taxa and 12 emic taxa used mainly as wild food and household medicine. The two communities share most of their botanical repertoire: 74 taxa are cited by both, and their Jaccard similarity reaches 0.58. What sets them apart is not the flora but the lexicon, together with the emphasis placed on individual taxa, which differs significantly between the groups. Seven vernacular phytonyms have no counterpart in the surrounding Southern Italian dialects and preserve forms with plausible Piedmontese or Ligurian cognates; several survive attached to plants no longer gathered, so the word outlives the practice it once named. Set against surveys carried out in the same region in 2000–2005 and in inland Liguria, the contemporary repertoire has contracted, particularly among taxa of montane and subalpine distribution, in a landscape reshaped by pastoral decline, land abandonment and recurrent drought. Notably, a substantial share of the gathered taxa is crop wild relatives, among them Beta vulgaris, Daucus carota, Lactuca serriola, Cynara cardunculus, Pastinaca sativa, Asparagus acutifolius, Diplotaxis tenuifolia, Prunus spinosa and Pyrus spinosa, maintained in the interstitial habitats of terraces, field margins and abandoned pastures that these inner areas still preserve. Folk plant uses recorded in minority communities thus provide both a sensitive record of biocultural change and a route to identifying, conserving in situ, and potentially using plant genetic resources in marginal Mediterranean territories. Full article

Chamaecyparis thyoides forested peatlands in the mid-Atlantic USA store carbon and enhance biodiversity but have declined through altered hydrology. Ditched sites shifted to temporarily flooded hydrologic regimes and were replaced by other forest types. Sites exposed to sea level rise (SLR) have persisted with a seasonally flooded, saturated hydrologic regime, but are transitioning to ghost forests. The purpose of this study is to aid conservation efforts by analyzing climate variable correlations with seasonal growth. Chamaecyparis thyoides tree rings from a ditched site exhibited overall faster growth rates, and earlywood was more sensitive to climate variables (temperature and Palmer Drought Severity Index, PDSI) than latewood. At a site exposed to SLR, division of early- and latewood chronologies was performed at the age midpoint, and growth responses in prior (1939–1970) and recent periods (1970–2003) diverged. Temperature and PDSI correlations with growth occurred in both early- and latewood, and patterns shifted between prior and recent periods. Stressors may include the timing of soil anoxia and shifts in availability of nonstructural carbon at both sites, and salinity at the SLR-impacted site. Climate and growth correlations at the SLR site may represent a form of reference for hydrologic restoration of seasonally flooded, saturated hydrologic regimes. Full article

Background: Drought is one of the major abiotic stresses that affect and limit cotton growth and production. However, transcriptome differences between drought-tolerant and drought-susceptible cotton lines remain largely unknown. Methods and Results: In this study, two upland cotton cultivars, the drought-tolerant XLZ80 and drought-sensitive XLZ61, were subjected to comparative phenotypic and transcriptomic analyses under drought stress. Phenotypic evaluation showed that XLZ80 exhibited only mild leaf wilting, whereas XLZ61 displayed severe wilting symptoms after drought stress. RNA-seq analysis revealed that differentially expressed genes in XLZ80 were specifically enriched in pathways related to phosphatidylinositol signaling, phenylalanine metabolism, MAPK signaling, and betaine biosynthesis, while DEGs in XLZ61 were primarily involved in basal metabolic processes. A total of 9302 core DEGs were identified across and between the cultivars and were grouped into eight dynamic expression clusters containing 841 transcription factors. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis further identified three key modules associated with drought tolerance. Twelve hub genes, including GH_D02G2153 (MADS-box) and GH_A05G1087 (bZIP), were identified as central regulators. qRT-PCR validation confirmed that these genes exhibited faster and stronger induction in the tolerant cultivar. In summary, this study deepens the transcriptional-level understanding of drought stress responses in cotton and provides valuable gene resources for breeding drought-resistant cultivars. Full article

Extreme hydrological events induced by climate change pose significant challenges to the ecological stability of river-connected lake-wetland systems. Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater lake, provides an ideal case for investigating landscape responses to compound drought and flood disturbances. This study quantifies the propagation process from meteorological drought to hydrological drought and identifies critical water level thresholds governing abrupt landscape transitions. By integrating remote sensing data, drought indices, Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA), and piecewise regression, we evaluated nonlinear landscape responses to extreme water level fluctuations. The results showed that the optimal lag time for lake water area response to meteorological drought was 21 days. Landscape connectivity exhibited nonlinear responses to water level variations, with 12.50 m and 12.73 m identified as critical thresholds for maintaining lake-wide connectivity and core deep-water habitats, respectively. The 9.75–14.44 m water level range was identified as the key sensitive interval associated with rapid landscape reorganization. Moreover, landscape responses showed significant spatial heterogeneity, with the Nanji Wetland National Nature Reserve being more sensitive to drought-induced fragmentation than the Poyang Lake National Nature Reserve. These findings provide quantitative thresholds and adaptive management implications for improving the resilience of floodplain lake-wetland systems under increasing hydrological extremes. Full article