The National Soil Archive of Scotland, held at the Aberdeen campus of the James Hutton Institute, has added two large samples of Dopplerite to its collection by gift of the executors of Mr William Filshie. Dopplerite is a naturally occurring, but relatively rare, organic material associated with peat deposits. It is a jelly-like, brownish substance related to humic acids that is insoluble in water and, if dried, it initially becomes brittle and eventually becomes as hard as coal. The Dopplerite, named after the Austrian mathematician and physicist Christian Doppler, who also gave his name to the ‘Doppler’ effect, was originally found by Mr William Filshie, father of the Executors. Mr Filshie was co-owner and partner in the firm of J M Filshie & Sons, who owned and managed the Snabe sand and gravel quarry at Drumclog, near Strathaven, Lanarkshire. The Dopplerite deposit was found within a glacio-fluvial sand deposit 13cm below a 3m layer of peat and measured 23cm wide by 30cm deep and extended for 7.5m. The sand would have been deposited at the end of the last Ice Age as the glaciers that covered Scotland melted. Radio-carbon dating of the Dopplerite deposit suggested that the deposit was around 2,850 years old in 1987. In 1987, Mr Filshie sent a specimen sample to the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, one of the predecessor institutes that formed the Hutton. The samples were then subjected to a range of physical and chemical analyses including ultrasound dispersal, infra-red spectroscopy, acid hydrolysis, gas chromatography and elemental analysis to determine the carbon content. The Dopplerite sample was found to contain about 75% water with the remainder of the deposit comprising ash (18%) and organic material (7%). The humic acid component was found to be like that found in sphagnum, a peat-forming plant, and the ash (mineral component) was mainly calcium and iron. Previous research has suggested that the Dopplerite was formed by the leaching of humic acids from the peat into a gap in the sand deposit and mixed with calcium and iron to form a gel. There was a 5cm thick iron pan in the sand at the base of the peat showing that iron was also being leached through the soil. “Our father, the late William Filshie, retained the Dopplerite samples after they were analysed in 1987. He was delighted to be able to put a name to the strange substance that was uncovered as they dug the sand from Snabe quarry. In all his years as a quarrymaster, he had never seen such a substance. We are delighted these samples will now be archived for future generations” explained Mr Filshie’s executors. “We are pleased to receive this donation of Dopplerite and to be able to secure it for future research to aid our understanding of soil processes and carbon storage over long periods of time” added Dr Allan Lilly, curator of the National Soil Archive. Rare organic samples gifted to Scotland’s National Soil Archive Beavering away to restore Scotland’s rivers Beavers could make a major contribution to improving the condition of Scotland’s rivers, improving water quality and limiting the effects of drought, according to new research from the University of Aberdeen and the James Hutton Institute. The positive role these animals can play in water resource management, and in creating habitat, river restoration and sequestering carbon is highlighted in a report for NatureScot by Scotland’s Centre of Expertise for Waters (CREW), which is based at the Institute. The report – funded by the Scottish Government - examines evidence from 120 studies of beaver populations worldwide, as part of a large-scale review of their effects on streams and rivers. In Scotland, beavers have already taken up residence in a few areas, including Tayside and Knapdale. While their presence has sometimes been welcomed, in other situations there has been conflict, for example where their activity affected intensively managed landscapes. Until now, there has been minimal evidence of beavers’ role in helping manage river ecosystems in Scotland. But by identifying trends associated with the effects of beaver dam-building on water quantity and quality – factoring in the characteristics of Scottish rivers – the report’s authors have provided detailed evidence to help policymakers consider the benefits and limitations of beaver expansion in Scotland, including where trade-offs are required. In November 2021, the Scottish Government announced a revised beaver policy which included developing a new national strategy for beavers. The University of Aberdeen’s Dr Josie Geris led the study. “We found that, by modifying physical processes in streams and rivers, beaver dam-building could help address several important water management challenges in Scotland, including water supply and, by trapping sediment and contaminants, water quality,” she explains. “Locally, beaver activity may also limit the effect of extreme events such as drought, which is expected to increase with climate change and has an economic impact like during the dry summer of 2018 when numerous private water supplies to communities and businesses were affected. “Achieving the potential of the positive effects of beaver activity may involve some challenges and the need to find solutions. And while most of the evidence points to positive contributions to river ecosystems, the report recommends that more investigation to understand how the effects of beavers across multiple sites accumulate to affect rivers on a larger scale.” Dr Rachel Helliwell, CREW manager, captures the main issue: “On one hand beavers are considered ecosystem engineers as their dams create wetlands that have a role in natural flood management by attenuating water flows during periods of high rainfall and slowing flows to enhance resilience in dry spells. But on the other, it’s recognised that some specific habitats and species of high conservation importance can be adversely affected by beaver populations if they’re not appropriately managed appropriately. “This timely report provides an independent assessment to aid policy decisions that balances the needs of land managers against the ecosystem benefits that come from reintroducing beavers.” The report, titledEstablishing the potential influence of beaver activity on the functioning of rivers and streams and water resource management in Scotland , is available on the CREW website. Blue light inhibits potatoes’ immune response to blight Daylight is made from a spectrum of wavelengths and plants possess receptors that can detect red and blue light. Blue light is important for plant growth and yet inhibits the immune response of potato plants to Phytophthora infestans, making them more susceptible to potato late blight. This finding by a research team featuring Hutton plant scientists is critical for food security as late still causes millions of pounds in annual losses to the potato industry. The scientific team, led by Professor Paul Birch of the University of Dundee, identified a signalling pathway in potato plant cells that negatively regulates immunity to the late blight pathogen, when stimulated with blue light. P infestans, the pathogen responsible for late blight, delivers a number of proteins into the host plant to manipulate host systems and cause disease. The research team found that one of these proteins binds to an important control point between the plant’s response to blue light and immunity to late blight. “Blue light was found to suppress plants’ usual immune response to a characteristic pathogen molecule and make the host more susceptible to disease,” explains the study’s coauthor Dr Eleanor Gilroy, a molecular plant pathologist at the James Hutton Institute. “This advancement highlights that varying light treatments could have a direct impact on plant health and the ability to respond to pathogen attack.” Professor Derek Stewart, Director of the Institute’s Advanced Plant Growth Centre noted that the research “is an example of the kind of game-changing agricultural technologies that are at the heart of the Advanced Plant Growth Centre. Identifying new, non-chemical routes to modulating pest and disease damage and losses, here possibly via a breeding to modulate the response to blue light, is part of our aim to develop sustainable, low carbon routes to sustainable food production.” Paper: Naqvi S, He Q, Trusch F, Qiu H, Pham J, Sun Q, Christie JM, Gilroy EM, Birch RJ (2021) Blue-light receptor phototropin 1 suppresses immunity to promote Phytophthora infestans infection. New Phytologist. doi: 10.1111/nph.17929. Online ahead of print. 10 Hutton Highlights February 2022 11 Comments?
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