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Shrubland ecosystems play a crucial role in Mediterranean forests, contributing to soil protection, biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, and ecosystem restoration. In semi-arid regions, mycorrhizal woody plants such as Helianthemum spp. form ectendomycorrhizal symbiosis with edible desert truffles, representing an emerging and sustainable crop with significant potential for rural development and economic diversification. Significant progress has been made in the breeding of Terfezia claveryi Chatin, but key aspects of its life cycle, such as the temporal and spatial behaviour of the soil mycelium, remain underexplored. This study aimed to investigate the seasonal dynamics of T. claveryi soil mycelium in plantations and wild areas of the Region of Murcia (Spain) using real-time quantitative PCR. The relationship between fungal biomass and host plant phenology and environmental parameters was also investigated. Our results showed that T. claveryi soil mycelium was higher in plantations than in wild areas, and in Xerolls than in Orthents soils. Fungal dynamics lacked seasonal or annual patterns; however winter mycelium showed a strong correlation with preceding agroclimatic variables, especially precipitation and maximum temperature. This research sheds light on the ecological processes underlying the desert truffle shrublands and offers practical implications for optimising T. claveryi cultivation strategies and promoting ecosystem restoration.

Scents are volatile compounds highly employed in a wide range of manufactured items, such as fine perfumery, household products, and functional foods. One of the main directions of the research in this area aims to enhance the longevity of scents by designing efficient delivery systems to control the release rate of these volatile molecules and also increase their stability. Several approaches to release scents in a controlled manner have been developed in recent years. Thus, different controlled release systems have been prepared, including polymers, metal–organic frameworks and mechanically interlocked systems, among others. This review is focused on the preparation of different scaffolds to accomplish a slow release of scents, by pointing out examples reported in the last five years. In addition to discuss selected examples, a critical perspective on the state of the art of this research field is provided, comparing the different types of scent delivery systems.

Endodormancy is one of the most studied physiological processes in perennial plants like apricot. This period is vital both for the tree survival against the adverse climatic conditions of winter and for obtaining a proper flowering and fruit set. Many studies have remarked the importance of chill accumulation as the limiting factor for endodormancy release. The increase of mean temperatures caused by climate change has been seriously endangering this process during the last decades. Because of this, plant growth regulators for promoting endodormancy release have spread worldwide. However, due to the toxicity and the irregular efficiency, there is a great necessity of developing new environment-friendly regulators for promoting endodormancy release. In this 3-year study, we applied four different commercial plant growth regulators to the Flopría apricot cultivar. Two of them, Broston® and Erger® were the most effective ones to advance endodormancy release. The physiology and biochemistry behind these treatments were studied by a non-target metabolomic and expression analysis in flower buds. Metabolic groups, like phospholipids, only varied in treated samples, whereas others like by-products of L-Phe metabolism, or ABA significantly varied in both types of samples throughout endodormancy release. Finally, to validate these results, solutions of phospholipids, phenylpropanoids, or ABA, among others, were applied for the first time to apricot trees, showing, i.e., that phospholipids treated-trees released from endodormancy two weeks earlier than control. This study aims to be an initial stage for the elaboration of environmentally safe regulators in apricot, with a potential in other Prunus and temperate fruit tree species.