The power of citizen science to contribute to both science and society is gaining increased recognition, particularly in physics and biology. Although there is a long history of public engagement in agriculture and food science, the term ‘citizen science’ has rarely been applied to these efforts. Similarly, in the emerging field of citizen science, most new citizen science projects do not focus on food or agriculture. Here, we convened thought leaders from a broad range of fields related to citizen science, agriculture, and food science to highlight key opportunities for bridging these overlapping yet disconnected communities/fields and identify ways to leverage their respective strengths. Specifically, we show that (i) citizen science projects are addressing many grand challenges facing our food systems, as outlined by the United States National Institute of Food and Agriculture, as well as broader Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations Development Programme, (ii) there exist emerging opportunities and unique challenges for citizen science in agriculture/food research, and (iii) the greatest opportunities for the development of citizen science projects in agriculture and food science will be gained by using the existing infrastructure and tools of Extension programmes and through the engagement of urban communities. Further, we argue there is no better time to foster greater collaboration between these fields given the trend of shrinking Extension programmes, the increasing need to apply innovative solutions to address rising demands on agricultural systems, and the exponential growth of the field of citizen science.
The regulation of oat phytochrome A {phyA) mRNA stability and the photoregulation of germination of tobacco seeds containing the oat phyP^ gene was examined using oat phyA. containing transgenic tobacco. Oat phyk mRNA has been previously shown to be a relatively unstable mRNA. The intent of this research was to identify elements within the phyK mRNA responsible for rendering the message unstable. The approach taken was to use tobacco transformed with either the full-length or truncated versions of the oat phyK gene and examine the half-lives of the resulting oat phyK mRNAs in transgenic tobacco. RNA blot analysis of oat phyh. in both oats and in tobacco transformed with the oat phyA. gene showed a pattern of oat phyK hybridizable fragments smaller than the full-length mRNA band. These fragments were thought to be degradation products indicative of a short-lived message. The half-lives of the truncated oat phyk mRNAs were found to be between 90 minutes and four hours. The full-length oat phyk mRNA had a half-life of about four hours in transgenic tobacco. Determination of the half-life of both truncated and fiill-length oat phyk mRNAs in transgenic tobacco suggests that the amount of oat phyk hybridizable fragments does not correlate with mRNA half-life. Germination of seeds from wild-type tobacco plants requires light. Approximately 20% of the seeds from transgenic tobacco plants containing the oat phyk gene and grown under fluorescent lighting were found to germinate in the dark. Seeds from transgenic tobacco grown under fluorescent and incandescent lighting did not germinate in darkness. A higher percentage of seeds from both wild-type and transgenic plants were found to germinate when imbibed in the presence of nitrate. About 50% of the seeds from transgenic plants grown in the presence of incandescent lighting and imbibed in the presence of nitrate germinated in darkness. The higher level of phytochrome in the transgenic seedlings promoted germination and was sensitive to the light conditions under which the parent plants were grown. These findings suggest that phyk plays a role in promoting germination in tobacco seeds.
Gene-preferential oligonucleotide probes were used to determined the relative abundance and half-lives of distinct oat phytochrome A (PHYA) mRNAs. Oat PHYA mRNAs are highly conserved in the 5'-untranslated region and the coding region, but the 3'-untranslated region has an overall lower sequence conservation and was the source of gene-preferential probes. PHYA3 mRNA was estimated to be ca. 61% of the oat PHYA mRNA pool present in poly(A)+ RNA from dark-grown seedlings. The half-lives for PHYA3 and PHYA4 mRNAs were both estimated to be ca. 30 min, and a similar short half-life was estimated for the average PHYA mRNA. Sequence comparisons of PHYA mRNAs from four grass species identified conserved sequences within the 5'- and 3'-untranslated regions that might be important for PHYA mRNA degradation.
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