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Carex secalina, a species recognized as extinct in Poland for 40 years, was re-discovered in 2000 and it’s natural populations covered by monitoring. From among nine historic localities, only for two - Jacewo and Turzany, in the vicinity of Inowrocław - the occurrence of the species was confirmed. In the course of the field studies, six new localities, not previously recorded in literature, were discovered. The sedge occupies sub-halophytic habitats in which it occurs along with halophytic species (particularly, such as Glaux maritima and Pucinellia distans) and a group of ruderal taxons. One of the newly discovered localities of C. secalina comprises an anthropogenic habitat. On the whole, the population sizes ranged from 20 to 350 individuals. The studies revealed a positive correlation between the size of a population and cattle pasturing, i.e. C. secalina forms the largest populations in the habitats remaining under the intense pressure of grazing and treading. Moreover, it was found that the high generative reproduction rate compensates the damage caused by animal grazing. The results suggest that an active protection of the sedge populations through the agricultural use of its habitats is the only effective way of securing it’s further occurrence in Poland, while including the sub-halophytic pastures with C. secalina in the agricultural and environmental program should be a priority task in the nearest future

Our study confirmed that GREM2 is a candidate gene for tooth agenesis, which mutations can explain, however, only a small fraction of the genetic contribution to the pathogenesis of this anomaly.

ABCTRACTThe size and reproduction ability of the three field populations of Carex secalina Willd. ex Wahlenb. have been assessed. In the parallel garden study selected traits from the life history of the species have been studied, such as age at first reproduction, fertility, the size of seeds, their germination ability and size of seedlings. The populations of C. secalina discovered in Poland in 2000 are characterised by small abundance and small area. All individuals from the three populations in the garden produced generative shoots in the third year of life. Statistically significant differences between the populations were found in the production of shoots with unisexual spikes and bisexual ones, the latter had not been reported in the hitherto literature on the species. The seeds started germinating after a 6-months rest. The first seedlings were observed in the first decade of May. The largest seedlings were noted in the population producing the smallest seeds. The results contribute to explaining the renewal of the populations of this species in the field.

Five patterns of seed germination in the sedges of the genus Carex are presented, based on the literature data and the results of the authorsí own research. They include the pattern of C. acutiformis, C. arenaria, C. remota, C. flava and C. communis. These patterns were constructed on the basis of seed specific requirements for development, such as stratification, temperature, dormancy and time of germination. Majority of sedges follow the pattern of C. acutiformis or C. remota. In both cases, stratification and either high or low temperature are essential for seed germination. Seeds that start to germinate early (C. remota pattern) are characterized by the absence of the distinct peaks of germination, as opposed to the C. acutiformis pattern with the germination peak in March. Our long-term investigations, conducted on the group of individuals in controlled conditions, revealed significant differences in seed size and the ability of seeds to germinate depending on the age of mother plants. We postulate that mother plant age is a new factor that should be considered in the construction of seed germination patterns.

We tested a hypothesis based on life history theory that examines reproductive costs incurred by individuals in consecutive years of their life. A multi-year dataset of resource allocation to vegetative and reproductive structures was analysed in Carex secalina — a perennial, monoecious sedge, reproducing only sexually. In a four-year garden experiment, we assessed above-ground biomass at the end of each season and reproductive allocation expressed as the total length of male and female spikes. The study was aimed at determining how size and age of a plant relates to its reproduction, and how the rate of reproduction affects the year-toyear biomass change in Carex secalina. We observed that after each reproductive episode, individuals had significantly smaller sizes and produced a lower number of generative tillers. The total production of reproductive structures decreased significantly with age in all populations. Moreover, the decrease in plant biomass was greater when more reproductive structures were produced in a previous year, which indicates that the plants incur costs of reproduction in terms of above-ground biomass production.

Non-syndromic tooth agenesis (ns-TA) is one of the most common dental anomalies characterized by the congenital absence of at least one permanent tooth (excluding third molars). Regarding the essential role of genetic factors in ns-TA aetiology, the present study aimed to identify novel pathogenic variants underlying hypodontia and oligodontia. In a group of 65 ns-TA patients and 127 healthy individuals from the genetically homogenous Polish population, the coding sequences of 423 candidate genes were screened using targeted next-generation sequencing. Pathogenic and likely pathogenic variants were identified in 37 (56.92%) patients, including eight nucleotide alternations of genes not previously implicated in ns-TA (CHD7, CREBBP, EVC, LEF1, ROR2, TBX22 and TP63). However, since only single variants were detected, future research is required to confirm and fully understand their role in the aetiology of ns-TA. Additionally, our results support the importance of already known ns-TA candidate genes (AXIN2, EDA, EDAR, IRF6, LAMA3, LRP6, MSX1, PAX9 and WNT10A) and provide additional evidence that ns-TA might be an oligogenic condition involving the cumulative effect of rare variants in two or more distinct genes.

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