We follow the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews to review the emerging international body of empirical evidence on consumers’ attitudes and willingness to pay (WTP) for novel foods produced with New Plant Engineering Techniques (NPETs). NPETs include genome/gene editing, cisgenesis, intragenesis, RNA interference and others. These novel foods are often beneficial for the environment and human health and more sustainable under increasingly prevalent climate extremes. These techniques can also improve animal welfare and disease resistance when applied to animals. Despite these promising attributes, evidence suggests that many, but not all, consumers discount these novel foods relative to conventional ones. Our review sorts out findings to identify conditioning factors that can increase the acceptance of and WTP for these novel foods in a significant segment of consumers. International patterns of acceptance are identified. We also analyze how information and knowledge interact with consumer acceptance of these novel foods and technologies. Heterogeneity of consumers—across cultures and borders and in attitudes towards science and innovation—emerges as a key determinant of acceptance and WTP. Acceptance and WTP tend to increase when socially beneficial attributes—as opposed to producer-oriented cost-saving attributes—are generated by NPETs. NPET-improved foods are systematically less discounted than transgenic foods. Most of the valuation estimates are based on hypothetical experiments and surveys and await validation through revealed preferences in actual purchases in food retailing environments.

Bermudagrass (Cynodon spp.) is one of the drought-resistant warm-season turfgrasses adapted to the southern and transitional zones in the United States. Multiple hybrid varieties have been developed and released for use as a turfgrass and others are in pipeline. Increasing genetic di-versity of commercial varieties is vital to tackle stress tolerance. A DNA profiling study of 21 experimental selections from the Oklahoma State University (OSU) turfgrass breeding program and 11 cultivars was conducted using 51 simple sequence repeat (SSR) primer pairs that spread across the bermudagrass genome. Pairwise genetic relationship analysis among the genotypes using 352 polymorphic bands showed genetic similarity coefficients ranging from 0.59 to 0.89. Cluster analysis using the un-weighted paired group method with arithmetic average (UPGMA) method grouped the entries into six clusters. Correlation analysis identified different levels of pairwise genetic relationship among the entries that largely reflected parental relationship. Di-rectional breeding and selection for cold hardiness or drought resistance created progeny that had distinct genetic diversity in the tested bermudagrasses. It is evident that an increase in genetic diversity of the existing cultivar pool with the release of one or more of the experimental selec-tions for commercial use will strengthen and improve bermudagrass systems.

Pygoscelis penguin populations in the Antarctic Peninsula have dropped dramatically in the last 50 years. The main probable cause is the reduction in Krill (Euphausia superba), the most important feeding item for Pygoscelis penguins during breeding. The scientific community has expressed concerns on the potential that competition with the fishery during periods of low krill availability might be exacerbating the effects of climate change. By bringing together data on breeding success of penguin colonies throughout the Antarctic Peninsula with information of krill availability from acoustic survey and krill fishery monitoring data, we were able to show that fishery has had in the past an effect over breeding success. That is a consequence of a management strategy based on a constant catch level enabling the fishery to maintain the same levels of production even when krill availability is low. The total catch limit may have represented a substantial amount of the available krill biomass in some years, and we detected that when the catch goes over 5% of the available biomass during summer, breeding success of penguins decreased by one third. We discuss the implications of our findings to the revised ecosystem-based management strategy of the krill fishery in Antarctica.

Twin pregnancies are highly undesirable in dairy cattle; they compromise the health and wellbeing of a cow, and its incidence dramatically impairs the farm economy. Recently, a genomic prediction for twin pregnancies has been developed. The objective of this study was to assess cow, environmental and management risk factors affecting the incidence of twin pregnancies in high-producing dairy cows in their first lactation, with special emphasis placed on the genomic prediction values for twin pregnancy. Our study population of primiparous cows proved valuable in identifying factors other than genomic predictive values influencing the twin pregnancy rate. The odds ratio for twin pregnancy was 0.85 (p <0.0001) for each unit of a prediction value increase, 3.5 (p = 0.023) for cows becoming pregnant during the negative photoperiod, and 0.33 (p = 0.016) for cows producing ≥42 kg of milk at AI, compared to the remaining cows producing <42kg of milk. As a general conclusion, the practical implication of our findings is that genomic prediction values can identify the risk of twin pregnancy at herd level. Given the cumulative effect of genomic selection, selecting for animals with reduced genetic risk of twin pregnancies can contribute to reduce its incidence in dairy herds.

Anthracnose stands as the primary obstacle to lupin cultivation, impeding development despite the considerable agronomic, ecological, and economic potential of such legume crops. This review explores recent efforts to unravel the complexities of anthracnose in domesticated lupins, focusing on both the plant perspective and the causative pathogenic agent, Colletotrichum lupini. Leveraging cutting-edge technologies has yielded crucial insights into various facets of this devastating disease, encompassing plant and pathogen biology, genetic and molecular regulations of the interaction, fungal diversity and population dynamics, and screening of plant genetic resources for anthracnose resistance. The lack of effective disease control measures, relying primarily on the use of disease-free seeds, highlights the need to develop anthracnose-resistant varieties. However, challenges arise from the intricacy of lupin's response to the disease, influenced by polygenic inheritance, in spite of loci with major effects, and environmental factors. The slow pace of genetic improvement underscores the need for more efficient breeding processes, including biotechnological approaches. This review offers a comprehensive overview of current progress and knowledge gaps, stressing the urgent need to further enhance understanding of C. lupini pathogenic mechanisms and lupin‘s resistance. Integrating advanced technologies and accelerated research efforts is paramount for achieving efficient disease management and sustainable lupin cultivation in the face of anthracnose challenges.

Assessment of the genetic distinctiveness of a cultivar through morphological descriptors is an important tool for both the registration and the protection. New mango genotypes have been improved using valuable diverse germplasm resources to ensure food security. DNA fingerprinting based simple sequence repeats (SSR)-markers have been the most broadly used, effective and accurate in evaluation of genetic characterization of a cultivar. Molecular breeding is an effective source of genetic gain after improvement of fruit trees using marker assisted genomic selection. Mango (Mangifera indica L.) is an allotetraploid (2n = 4X= 40) drupe fruit and has high nutritional value belongs to genus Mangifera and family Anacardiaceae. Mango cultivars are used with worldwide acceptance to pharmacological, ethnomedical, and phytochemical industries. This study investigated the molecular evaluation of a new mango cultivar ‘Azeem Chaunsa’ using a set of the most effective 50 hyper-variable polymorphic SSR markers. Highly specific DNA fingerprints were identified in the genome of this mango cultivar, ‘Azeem Chaunsa’ compared with three standard cultivars such as Sindhri, Samar Bahisht (S.B) Chaunsa and Sufaid Chaunsa. Our results showed that SSR markers could efficiently assess genetic diversity in mango. An agglomerative hierarchical clustering method was used to construct dendrogram based on the ‘Unweighted Pair- Group Method with Arithmetic Mean’ (UPGMA). The genetic similarity coefficients were recorded between the mangos cultivars ranged from 0.49 to 0.67. Cultivar identification (CID) evaluates association among standard cultivars and Azeem Chaunsa and further concludes significant variations. CID results concluded that cultivar ‘Azeem Chaunsa’ varied significantly from the check cultivar, Sindhri (46.2%), S.B Chaunsa (45%) and Sufaid Chaunsa (46.7%). The results obtained in this study will orient cultivar identification strategies for a successful future mango breeding programmes in the context of climate change.

Strong numerical and functional response of owls to voles in cyclic environments is well known, but there is insufficient knowledge from boreonemoral region, in particular, with depleted populations of the small mammals. In this study we describe the dynamics of the small mammal population in Latvia from 1991 to 2016 and link them to owl population characteristics. We used food niche breadth, number of fledglings and population trends to describe the numerical response of six owl species to dampened small mammal population cycles. We found temporarily in-creasing food niche breadth in tawny and Ural owls. There were no other responses in tawny owl, whereas the breeding performance of three forest specialist species – pygmy, Tengmalm`s and Ural owls – were similar to vole crash years in Fennoscandia. Moreover, the populations of forest specialist owls are decreasing and the change in Ural owl can be attributed to the depletion of small mammal populations. We found evidence of carry-over effect in eagle owl arising from strong correlation of declining breeding performance with the small mammal abundance indices in previous autumn. We conclude that dampening of the small mammal population cycles is an important covariate to overwhelming impacts of habitat destruction with stronger response in more specialized (to prey or habitat) species.

Prospecting for a future breeding site is an essential component of informed dispersal. It allows individuals to reduce the uncertainty of their environment by gathering personal and social information about the local quality of alternative breeding areas, and to make informed emigration and settlement decisions. Although this process has been studied in territorial and social animal species for decades, it is still not well-understood and spatial patterns of prospecting movements are hard to generalize over taxa or even species due to substantial intra and inter-specific variability. Using 124 empirical studies which have explicitly described prospecting in a context of breeding habitat selection in birds, mammals, fish and invertebrates, I review why, how, when and which individuals prospect depending on their life history traits and sociality. From this synthesis, I identify persisting knowledge gaps which explain why prospecting is still understudied and sometimes overlooked. I finally propose key objectives and research directions, to shed light on prospecting movements and their consequences on informed dispersal strategies, individual fitness and population dynamics, both empirically and theoretically. A better understanding of the mechanisms underlying prospecting, their causes and their consequences will fully reveal how prospecting could constitute a powerful adaptive response to environmental changes for many social and territorial species which will help them persist on the long-term. It will also significantly enhance our ability to predict species responses to environmental changes and thus, inform more effective management plans for threatened species

Drought is among the most important abiotic stressors influencing food-crop production worldwide. Currently, drought-tolerant maize materials are rarely used for actual breeding because corn production primarily focuses on heterosis to generate desired varieties. In this article, we reviewed current work on assessing maize drought tolerance. We suggested that the development of enhanced screening techniques must clearly consider the connection between theory and application. We strongly recommend that agricultural scientists focus on translating the results of laboratory experiments into practical methods for improving crop productivity.

Foliar fungal diseases in tomatoes include early blight (Alternaria linariae), Septoria leaf spot (Septoria lycopersici), and late blight (Phytophthora infestans) which is oomycetes. These are one of the significant production constraints in tomatoes. We describe the etiology, host range, distribution, symptoms, and disease cycle to understand the biology followed by management practices emphasizing the resistance breeding approach for these diseases. In crop improvement efforts, we provide an analytical review, including conventional and molecular methods for improving this disease resistance. Modern breeding tools, including genomics, genetic transformation, and genome editing, can be used to improve these traits. There is a good possibility of using these tools in the future to improve these traits.

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), an important vegetable crop, is a host for numerous pests and pathogens. Consequently, tomato breeders are striving to improve pest resistance. Many acces-sions of the wild relative S. habrochaites display high resistance towards arthropod pests such as spider mites and whiteflies and the presence of the sesquiterpene hydrocarbon 7-epi zingiberene in its trichomes has been associated with arthropod resistance. Consequently, tomato breeders are attempting to introgress 7-epi zingiberene from wild to cultivated tomato, which requires the ability to quantify zingiberene. 7-Epi zingiberene has conjugated double bonds causing it to ab-sorb uv light. In fact, de Freitas, et al. [1] have claimed that measurement of absorbance at 270 nm of tomato leaflet washes can be used to quantify zingiberene. However, this claim has never been critically evaluated. We initially evaluated the use of uv absorbance to estimate zingiberene content of leaflet washes from an interspecific hybrid tomato BC4F2 generation that was segre-gating widely for presence and abundance of zingiberene. When absorbances at 270 nm were compared with zingiberene measured by gas chromatography the resulting relationship did not obey the Beer-Lambert law. Consequently, we examined in detail aspects of the uv-absorbance of zingiberenoids by: 1) obtaining uv absorbance spectra for three isolated zingiberenoids and de-termining the relationship between the abundance of each isolated compound and absorbance at single wavelengths; 2) obtaining uv absorbance spectra of leaflet washes of relevant wild acces-sions and parents; 3) obtaining average absorbance spectra for interspecific generations of tomato that were segregating for abundance of zingiberenoids and determining their λmax values in the 250-280 nm region; 4) evaluating by regression the relationship between absorbance at a single wavelength and the concentration of zingiberene and when present, its derivatives, as measured by gas chromatography in several interspecific hybrid generations; and 5) exploring the potential use of absorbances at multiple wavelengths to improve estimates of concentrations of zingi-berenoids. Results indicated that isolated zingiberenoids as well as leaflet washes of wild tomatoes that contain zingiberenoids have broad absorbance spectra in the uv region with a λmax of 264 nm. The relationship between abundance of isolated zingiberenoids and absorbance at a single wavelength of 264 nm did obey the Beer-Lambert Law. Average absorbance spectra for leaflet washes from BC3F5 generation plants sampled by two methods, as well as from a BC5F1 and a BC3F3 generation showed subtle shifts in the λmax away from 264 nm. Furthermore, the rela-tionship between absorbance at 264 nm and zingiberenoid content of these generations did not obey the Beer-Lambert Law in that in each case regression of absorbance on zingiberenoid content of the leaflet washes resulted in non-zero intercept estimates that varied considerably among generations and sampling methods. Use of multiple wavelengths for estimation zingiberenoids in these breeding generations was explored and inclusion of additional absorbances at one or two wavelengths identified by stepwise regression always improved estimates of zingiberenoid content from absorbance data. However, the identified wavelength(s) differed among generations. Taken together the results indicate that measurement of absorbance of tomato leaflet washes at a single wavelength is not a reliable quantitative estimate of zingiberenoids in the leaflet wash. These estimates can be improved by utilizing absorbance at multiple wavelengths, but the par-ticular wavelengths will likely vary among generations. Lastly, measurement of absorbance may be a useful tool in identifying those relatively rare individuals in a generation that is widely segregating for zingiberenoid content. However, even in this situation the determination of the actual zingiberene content e.g., for comparison with the donor parent, would need to be back-stopped by a valid quantitative method such as gas chromatography.

Perinatal mortality is a major issue in laboratory mouse breeding. We compared a counting method using daily checks (DAILY_CHECK) with a method combining daily checks with detailed video analyses to detect cannibalisms (VIDEO_TRACK) for estimating the number of C57BL/6 pups born, died and weaned in 193 litters from trios with (TRIO-OVERLAP) or without (TRIO-NO_OVERLAP) the presence of another litter. Linear mixed models were used at litter level. To understand if cannibalism was associated with active killing (infanticide), we analysed VIDEO_TRACK recordings of 109 litters from TRIO-OVERLAP, TRIO-NO_OVERLAP or SOLO (single dams). We used Kaplan-Meier method and logistic regression at pup level. For DAILY_CHECK, the mean litter size was 35% smaller than for VIDEO_TRACK (P<0.0001) and the number of dead pups was twice lower (P<0.0001). The risk of pup loss was higher for TRIO-OVERLAP than TRIO-NO_OVERLAP (P<0.0001). A high number of pup losses occurred between birth and the first cage checking. Analyses of VIDEO_TRACK data indicated that pups were clearly dead at the start of most of the cannibalism events and infanticide was rare. As most pups die and disappear before the first cage check, many breeding facilities are likely to be unaware of their real rates of mouse pup mortality.

This review examines the categorization of Essentially Derived Varieties (EDV) introduced in the 1991 revision of the Convention of the Union internationale pour la protection des obtentions végétales (UPOV). Challenges in the implementation of the concept and progress made on a crop-by-crop basis to provide greater clarity and more efficient implementation are reviewed. The current approach to EDV remains valid provided i) clarity on thresholds can be achieved including through resource intensive research on an individual crop species basis and ii) that threshold clarity does not lead to perverse incentives to avoid detection of essential derivation. However, technological advances leading to new varieties resulting from the simultaneous introduction or change in expression of more than “a few” genes will so challenge the concept to require a new Convention. Revision could include deletion of the concept of essential derivation and revision on a crop-by-crop basis of the breeder exception. Countries that allow utility patents for individual plant varieties per se should consider removing that possibility unless plant breeders utilize those encouragements for risk taking and investment to broaden the germplasm base upon which the long-term sustainability of plant breeding resides.

Mango (Mangifera indica L.) is an allotetraploid (2n = 4X= 40) drupe fruit and has high nutritional value belongs to genus Mangifera and family Anacardiaceae. Mango cultivars are used with worldwide acceptance to pharmacological, ethnomedical, and phytochemical industries. Assessment of the genetic distinctiveness of a cultivar through morphological descriptors is an important tool for both the registration and the protection. New mango genotypes have been improved using valuable diverse germplasm resources to ensure food security. DNA fingerprinting based simple sequence repeats (SSR)-markers have been the most broadly used, effective and accurate in evaluation of genetic characterization of a cultivar. Molecular breeding is an effective source of genetic gain after improvement of fruit trees using marker assisted genomic selection. Total genomic DNA (gDNA) was generated using CTAB method from each cultivar. The most effective 50 hyper-variable SSR markers were selected. Highly specific DNA fingerprints were identified in the candidate line ‘Azeem Chaunsa’ compared with three standard cultivars using SSR-PCR. An agglomerative hierarchical clustering method was used to construct dendrogram based on the UPGMA clustering method. Cultivar identification diagram (CID) was constructed to evaluate association among standard cultivars and Azeem Chaunsa. Our results showed that SSR markers could efficiently assess genetic diversity in mango. The genetic similarity coefficients were recorded between the cultivars of mango ranged from 0.49 to 0.67. CID results concluded that cultivar ‘Azeem Chaunsa’ varied significantly from the check cultivar, Sindhri (46.2%), S.B Chaunsa (45%) and Sufaid Chaunsa (46.7%). The results obtained in this study will orient cultivar identification strategies for a successful future.