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The present study was carried out to enumerate induced breeding technique and larval development of Macrognathus pancalus (Hamilton, 1822) reared under captivity. Five different doses of Ovasis hormone (T1, T2, T3, T4, and T5) with 3 replicas each were administered to the matured brooders to standardize the breeding performance of the target species. The results indicated variation in fertilization rate, latency period, egg output and hatching rate in response to different treatments. Spawning was occurred between 20-24 hrs of injection in all the experiments at 26.33±0.88°C water temperature. Among all the experimental trials, the highest fertilization rate was observed in T3 (96.15±0.60) of E2 and the highest hatching rate was observed in T3 (92.49±1.00) of E2. The present work elucidated the viability of seed production of M. pancalus reared under confined condition which will useful for aquaculture and conservation.

Genetic variations are a crucial source of germplasm heterogeneity, as they contribute to the development of new traits for plant breeding by offering an allele resource. Gamma rays have been widely used as a physical agent to produce mutations in plants, and their mutagenic effect has attracted much attention. Nonetheless, few studies have examined the whole mutation spectrum in large-scale phenotypic evaluations. To comprehensively investigate the mutagenic effects of gamma irradiation on lentils, biological consequences on the M 1 generation and substantial phenotypic screening on the M 2 generation were undertaken. Additionally, the study followed the selected mutants into the M 3 generation to evaluate the agronomic traits of interest for crop improvement. Seeds of lentil variety Moitree were irradiated with a range of acute gamma irradiation doses (0, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, and 350 Gy) to induce unique genetic variability. This research focused on determining the GR 50 value while considering seedling parameters and examining the status of pollen fertility while comparing the effects of the gamma irradiation dosages. The GR 50 value was determined to be 217.2 Gy using the seedling parameters. Pollens from untreated seed-grown plants were approximately 85% fertile, but those treated with the maximum dosage (350 Gy) were approximately 28% fertile. Numerous chlorophyll and morphological mutants were produced in the M 2 generation, with the 300 Gy -treated seeds being the most abundant, followed by the 250 Gy -treated seeds. This demonstrated that an appropriate dosage of gamma rays was advantageous when seeking to generate elite germplasm resources for one or multiple traits. Selected mutants in the M 3 generation showed improved agronomic traits, including plant height, root length, number of pods per plant, and yield per plant. These investigations will contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the mutagenic effects and actions of gamma rays, providing a basis for the selection and design of suitable mutagens. This will facilitate the development of more controlled mutagenesis protocols for plant breeding and help guide future research directions for crop improvement using radiation-induced mutation breeding techniques.

Although toxic chemicals constitute a major threat for wildlife, their effects have been mainly assessed at the individual level and under laboratory conditions. Predicting population-level responses to pollutants in natural conditions is a major and ultimate task in ecological and ecotoxicological research. The present study aims to estimate the effect of mercury (Hg) levels on future apparent survival rates and breeding performances. We used a long-term data set (∼10 years) and recently developed methodological tools on two closely related Antarctic top predators, the South Polar Skua Catharacta maccormicki from Adélie Land and the Brown Skua C. lonnbergi from the Kerguelen Archipelago. Adult survival rates and breeding probabilities were not affected by Hg levels, but breeding success in the following year decreased with increasing Hg levels. Although South Polar Skuas exhibited much lower Hg levels than Brown Skuas, they suffered from higher Hg-induced breeding failure. This species difference could be attributed to an interaction between Hg and other environmental perturbations, including climate change and a complex cocktail of pollutants. By including Hg-dependent demographic parameters in population models, we showed a weak population decline in response to increasing Hg levels. This demographic decline was more pronounced in South Polar Skuas than in Brown Skuas. Hence, Hg exposure differently affects closely related species. The wide range of environmental perturbations in Antarctic regions could exacerbate the demographic responses to Hg levels. In that respect, we urge future population modeling to take into account the coupled effects of climate change and anthropogenic pollution to estimate population projections.

Background Gamma ray induced mutation breeding has emerged as an excellent method for expedited development of improved varieties of rice, a staple food for more than half the world's population. However, the assessment of radiation induced variations are primarily phenotypic in nature. In this direction, evaluation of the metabolic signature of bio-active ingredients, which confer beneficial properties to rice, could be employed as a tool to select varieties which not only retain the health benefits of the parent variety but also exhibit better agronomic traits. The present study was, therefore, aimed at evaluating the metabolomic changes in the mutants of Gathuwan, an indigenous Indian rice with immunomodulatory properties. The mutant varieties were developed through gamma irradiation, and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS)-based metabolic profiling was performed. Results A total of 274 differentially expressed compounds were identified among Gathuwan and four of its mutants (mutant 6, mutant 7, mutant 8 and mutant 12), indicating that gamma irradiation induced stable metabolic alterations. Significant differences were observed in the phytochemical composition of mutants relative to the parent, emphasizing the importance of metabolic screening in functional rice breeding. Cluster analysis and phytochemical profiling revealed that mutant 6 was metabolically closest to the parent variety. Additionally, distinct phytohormonal variations among the mutants were observed which may account for the phenotypic differences in growth and development. Conclusions Our study demonstrates that radiation-induced improvement in agronomic traits are accompanied by distinct alterations in phytochemical and phytohormonal profiles in stable rice mutants. These metabolic changes support the functional potential of the mutants and provide insights into the biological mechanisms underlying their traits. Among the mutants, mutant 6 emerges as a promising candidate due to its similarity to the parent in metabolite composition. Therefore, inclusion of metabolomic profiling as a selection criterion offers a powerful tool to identify robust and functionally superior rice varieties.

Life history theory suggests a trade-off between costly activities such as breeding and migration and somatic self-maintenance. However, how the short-term cost of parental effort is expressed in species with a slow pace-of-life is not well understood. Also, investigating carry-over effects of migration is most meaningful when comparing migratory strategies within the same population, but this has rarely been done. We explore this hypothesis in a long-lived, pelagic seabird, the Cory’s Shearwater, Calonectris borealis, where males display partial migration. By manipulating reproductive effort and taking advantage of the natural variation in migratory strategy, we investigate whether early reproductive failure and migratory strategy had implications on the physical condition of males on return to the colony the following year. We experimentally induced breeding failure from mid-incubation, tracked the over-winter movements of these males and of males that invested in parental effort, and assessed innate immunity, stress, and residual body mass the following year. Early breeding failure resulted in earlier return to the colony among all males, associated with greater probability of reproductive success. Residents had a lower tail feather fault bar intensity, an indicator of stress during the non-breeding period, compared to migrants. Reproductive effort and migratory strategy had no impact on physiological condition otherwise. Our results provide evidence that in species with a slow-pace of life, such as the Cory’s Shearwater, somatic maintenance is prioritised, with the costs of reproduction and migration paid in delayed arrival date.

Sesame seeds and their edible oil are highly nutritious and rich in mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Bioactive compounds such as sterols, tocopherols, and sesamol provide significant medicinal benefits. The high oil content (50%) and favorable mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acid balance, as well as resilience to water stress, make sesame a promising candidate crop for global agricultural expansion. However, sesame production faces challenges such as low yields, poor response to agricultural inputs, and losses due to capsule dehiscence. To enhance yield, traits like determinate growth, dwarfism, a high harvest index, non-shattering capsules, disease resistance, and photoperiod sensitivity are needed. These traits can be achieved through variation or induced mutation breeding. Crossbreeding methods often result in unwanted genetic changes. The gene editing CRISPR/Cas9 technology has the potential to suppress detrimental alleles and improve the fatty acid profile by inhibiting polyunsaturated fatty acid biosynthesis. Even though sesame is an orphan crop, it has entered the genomic era, with available sequences assisting molecular breeding efforts. This progress aids in associating single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and simple sequence repeats (SSR) with key economic traits, as well as identifying genes related to adaptability, oil production, fatty acid synthesis, and photosynthesis. Additionally, transcriptomic research can reveal genes involved in abiotic stress responses and adaptation to diverse climates. The mapping of quantitative trait loci (QTL) can identify loci linked to key traits such as capsule size, seed count per capsule, and capsule number per plant. This article reviews recent advances in sesame breeding, discusses ongoing challenges, and explores potential strategies for future improvement. Hence, integrating advanced genomic tools and breeding strategies provides promising ways to enhance sesame production to meet global demands.

Identifying mutant traits is essential for improving crop yield, quality, and stress resistance in plant breeding. Historically, the efficiency of breeding has been constrained by throughput and accuracy. Recent significant advancements have been made through the development of automated, high-accuracy, and high-throughput equipment. However, challenges remain in the post-processing of large-scale image data and its practical application and evaluation in breeding. This study presents a comparative analysis of human and machine recognition, with validation of a randomly selected mutant at the physiological level performed on wild-type Arabidopsis thaliana and a candidate mutant of the M 3 generation, which was generated through mutagenesis with heavy ion beams (HIBs) and 60 Co-γ radiation. The mutant populations were subjected to image acquisition and automated screening using the High-throughput Plant Imaging System (HTPIS), generating approximately 10 GB of data (4,635 image datasets). We performed Principal Components Analysis (PCA), scatter matrix clustering, and Logistic Growth Curve (LGC) analyses, and compared these results with those obtained from traditional manual screening based on human visual assessment, and randomly selected #197 candidate mutants for validation in terms of growth and development, chlorophyll fluorescence, and subcellular structure. Our findings demonstrate that as the confidence interval level increases from 75 to 99.9%, the accuracy of machine-based mutant identification decreases from 1 to 0.446, while the false positive rate decreases from 0.817 to 0.118, and the false negative rate increases from 0 to 0.554. Nevertheless, machine-based screening remains more accurate and efficient than human assessment. This study evaluated and validated the efficiency (greater than 80%) of high-throughput techniques for screening mutants in complex populations of radiation-induced progeny, and presented a graphical data processing procedure for high-throughput screening of mutants, providing a basis for breeding techniques utilizing HIBs and γ-ray radiation, and offering innovative approaches and methodologies for radiation-induced breeding in the context of high-throughput big data.

Atmospheric and room-temperature plasma (ARTP) has been successfully developed as a useful mutation tool for mutation breeding of various microbes and plants as well animals by genetic alterations. However, understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the biological responses to ARTP irradiation is still limited. Therefore, to gain a molecular understanding of how irradiation with ARTP damages DNA, we irradiated the artificially synthesized mononucleotides of dATP, dTTP, dGTP, and dCTP, and the oligonucleotides of dA 8 , dT 8 , dG 8 , dC 8 , and dA 2 dT 2 dG 2 dC 2 as chemical building blocks of DNA with ARTP for 1–4 min, identified the mononucleotide products using 31 P- and 1 H-nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), and identified the oligonucleotide products using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) during ARTP treatment. The observed 31 P-and 1 H - NMR spectrum signals for the plasma-treated and untreated mononucleotides indicated that dATP was less stable to plasma irradiation than the other mononucleotides. The oligonucleotides after treatment with ARTP were found to have been broken into small fragments as shown by mass spectrometry, with the cleaved bonds and produced fragments identified according to their expected spectral m/z values or molecular weights derived from their m/z values. The stabilities of the oligonucleotides differed to ARTP irradiation, with dT 8 being the most stable and was more beneficial to stabilizing single-stranded oligonucleotide structures compared to the other base groups (A, G, and C). This was consistent with the average potential energy level obtained by the molecular dynamic simulation of the oligonucleotides, i.e., dT 8  > dC 8  > dA 8  > dG 8  > dA 2 dT 2 dG 2 dC 2 . In summary, we found that ARTP treatment caused various structural changes to the oligonucleotides that may account for the wide and successful applications reported for ARTP-induced mutation breeding of various organisms.

The mangrove oyster (Crassostrea gasar) is Brazil’s second most cultured species and presents a high potential for aquaculture. However, artificial selection in a highly fecund species and significant variance in reproductive success can result in the loss of genetic diversity and increases the inbreeding rate, especially in cultivated populations. In this study, we investigated the genetic structure and diversity of C. gasar in wild and cultivated populations using 14 microsatellites. Spatial genetic comparisons revealed the existence of two main genetic groups of C. gasar, one comprising the population in cultivation and the other formed by wild populations along the southern and southeastern Brazilian coasts. Although no common genetic structure exists among wild populations, it is possible to observe a distribution gradient based on discriminant analysis of principal components consistent with their geographic distribution. However, it is insufficient to differentiate them genetically. Despite artificial reproduction, the genetic diversity values of the cultivated population remained relatively high and did not show a reduction. Therefore, monitoring the cultivated population and establishing reference values for genetic diversity will allow the adoption of strategies both for the viability of the cultivated population and the management of wild populations.

Hemibagrus guttatus is a large omnivorous fish of significant economic value, listed as a Class II protected species in the National Key Protected Wildlife List in 2021 in China. To provide a theoretical foundation for the artificial breeding of H. guttatus, this study employs high-throughput transcriptome sequencing of testes and ovaries to elucidate the molecular regulatory pathways involved in sex differentiation. Because H. guttatus exhibits no obvious sexual dimorphism even during the breeding season, the distinctive contribution of this study compared with previous gonadal-transcriptomic investigations in other Siluriformes lies not only in documenting sex-biased genes but also in providing a molecular foundation for developing non-lethal sex-identification methods for this morphologically indistinguishable species. A total of 303,192,896 raw reads were obtained, with an effective data rate of 98.4%, indicating high sequencing quality. Differential expression analysis identified 8694 genes, including 6369 upregulated in testes and 2325 upregulated in ovaries. Among these, 88 genes were functionally annotated as sex-related, with 62 testis-biased genes such as spata17, sox9, and dmrt1, and 26 ovary-biased genes including cyp19a, wnt8, and sox12. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis revealed that the TGF-β signaling pathway, insulin secretion, and steroid hormone biosynthesis may play crucial roles in gonadal development and differentiation in H. guttatus. The expression patterns of key genes such as hsd11b1, amh, and insl3 were validated by quantitative real-time PCR, showing consistency with the transcriptome results. These findings lay a molecular foundation for understanding the regulatory mechanisms of sex differentiation in H. guttatus, and provide candidate genes for further investigation into the genetic basis of gonadal development, which is essential for improving artificial reproduction and selective breeding practices.