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Zhang, Qiong

Publications and source records attributed to Zhang, Qiong.

Relics of interspecific hybridization retained in the genome of a drought-adapted peanut cultivar

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is a globally important oil and food crop frequently grown in arid, semi-arid, or dryland environments. Improving drought tolerance is a key goal for peanut crop improvement efforts. Here, we present the genome assembly and gene model annotation for “Line8,” a peanut genotype bred from drought-tolerant cultivars. Our assembly and annotation are the most contiguous and complete peanut genome resources currently available. The high contiguity of the Line8 assembly allowed us to explore structural variation both between peanut genotypes and subgenomes. We detect several large inversions between Line8 and other peanut genome assemblies, and there is a trend for the inversions between more genetically diverged genotypes to have higher gene content. We also relate patterns of subgenome exchange to structural variation between Line8 homeologous chromosomes. Unexpectedly, we discover that Line8 harbors an introgression from A.cardenasii, a diploid peanut relative and important donor of disease resistance alleles to peanut breeding populations. The fully resolved sequences of both haplotypes in this introgression provide the first in situ characterization of A.cardenasii candidate alleles that can be leveraged for future targeted improvement efforts. The completeness of our genome will support peanut biotechnology and broader research into the evolution of hybridization and polyploidy.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Sequential Selection for Minimizing the Variance with Application to Crystallization Experiments

For many crystal-based products (e.g., pharmaceuticals, energy storage), the size uniformity is not only a key quality attribute, but sometimes also an indicator of other attributes such as solid purity. This article proposes a sequential selection approach to find a proper experimental setting that leads to high uniformity, or equivalently, small variance for crystal sizes, from the advanced slug flow reaction crystallization process of a model crystal, called manganese oxalate hydrate. The proposed sequential selection approach contains a Bayesian adaptive method to incorporate new uniformity measurements in each step and two design acquisition functions to improve the selection of the most promising experimental setting in terms of minimizing the variance. We study the performance of the proposed approach through multiple synthetic numerical studies, as well as a case study based on data from slug flow crystallization experiments. Throughout these studies, the proposed approach shows competitive performance in identifying the best experimental setting.

Expected improvement↗

The PMIP4 Contribution to CMIP6 - Part 1: Overview and Over-Arching Analysis Plan

This paper is the first of a series of four GMD (Geoscientific Model Development) papers on the PMIP4-CMIP6 (Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project - Phase 4 -- Coupled Model Intercomparison Project - Phase 6) experiments. Part 2 (Otto-Bliesner et al., 2017) gives details about the two PMIP4-CMIP6 interglacial experiments, Part 3 (Jungclaus et al., 2017) about the last millennium experiment, and Part 4 (Kageyama et al., 2017) about the Last Glacial Maximum experiment. The mid-Pliocene Warm Period experiment is part of the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP) - Phase 2, detailed in Haywood et al. (2016). The goal of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP) is to understand the response of the climate system to different climate forcings for documented climatic states very different from the present and historical climates. Through comparison with observations of the environmental impact of these climate changes, or with climate reconstructions based on physical, chemical, or biological records, PMIP also addresses the issue of how well state-of-the-art numerical models simulate climate change. Climate models are usually developed using the present and historical climates as references, but climate projections show that future climates will lie well outside these conditions. Palaeoclimates very different from these reference states therefore provide stringent tests for state-of-the-art models and a way to assess whether their sensitivity to forcings is compatible with palaeoclimatic evidence. Simulations of five different periods have been designed to address the objectives of the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6): the millennium prior to the industrial epoch (CMIP6 name: past1000); the mid-Holocene, 6000 years ago (midHolocene); the Last Glacial Maximum, 21,000 years ago (lgm); the Last Interglacial, 127,000 years ago (lig127k); and the mid-Pliocene Warm Period, 3.2 million years ago (midPliocene-eoi400). These climatic periods are well documented by palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental records, with climate and environmental changes relevant for the study and projection of future climate changes. This paper describes the motivation for the choice of these periods and the design of the numerical experiments and database requests, with a focus on their novel features compared to the experiments performed in previous phases of PMIP and CMIP. It also outlines the analysis plan that takes advantage of the comparisons of the results across periods and across CMIP6 in collaboration with other MIPs.

climate↗

The PMIP4 Contribution to CMIP6-Part 4: Scientific Objectives and Experimental Design of the PMIP4-CMIP6 Last Glacial Maximum Experiments and PMIP4 Sensitivity Experiments

The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 21,000 years ago) is one of the suite of paleoclimate simulations included in the current phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). It is an interval when insolation was similar to the present, but global ice volume was at a maximum, eustatic sea level was at or close to a minimum, greenhouse gas concentrations were lower, atmospheric aerosol loadings were higher than today, and vegetation and land-surface characteristics were different from today. The LGM has been a focus for the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP) since its inception, and thus many of the problems that might be associated with simulating such a radically different climate are well documented. The LGM state provides an ideal case study for evaluating climate model performance because the changes in forcing and temperature between the LGM and pre-industrial are of the same order of magnitude as those projected for the end of the 21st century. Thus, the CMIP6 LGM experiment could provide additional information that can be used to constrain estimates of climate sensitivity. The design of the Tier 1 LGM experiment (lgm) includes an assessment of uncertainties in boundary conditions, in particular through the use of different reconstructions of the ice sheets and of the change in dust forcing. Additional (Tier 2) sensitivity experiments have been designed to quantify feedbacks associated with land-surface changes and aerosol loadings, and to isolate the role of individual forcings. Model analysis and evaluation will capitalize on the relative abundance of paleoenvironmental observations and quantitative climate reconstructions already available for the LGM.

Kageyama, Masa↗