לוח שנה משולב

Abstract:
Plants synthesize an amazing diversity of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that facilitate interactions with their environment, ranging from attracting pollinators and seed dispersers to protecting themselves from pathogens, parasites, and herbivores. Plants are also targets of released compounds as a part of plant-plant communication, as well as plant-insect and plant-microbe interactions. They are constantly exposed to atmospheric VOCs and can differentiate and respond to specific cues. Therefore, VOC release out of the cell and perception of emitted volatiles are an essential part of information exchange. The presented results will cover different aspects of VOC biosynthesis and emission including the involvement of heterodimeric enzymes in VOC biosynthesis, the role of transporters, lipid transfer proteins and lipid droplets in VOC trafficking out o! f the cell, and the function of the cuticle as an integral member of the overall VOC biosynthetic network. This presentation will also discuss the latest knowledge about VOC perception: from an inter-organ aerial transport of VOCs via natural fumigation and hormone-like function for terpenoid compounds to a signaling pathway(s) involved.

Magnetism is one of the largest, most fundamental, and technologically most relevant fields of condensed-matter physics. Traditionally, two elementary magnetic phases have been distinguished - ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism. The spin polarization in the electronic band structure reflecting the magnetization in ferromagnetic crystals underpins the broad range of time-reversal symmetry-breaking responses in this extensively explored and exploited type of magnets. By comparison, antiferromagnets have vanishing net magnetization. Recently, there have been observations of materials in which strong time-reversal symmetry-breaking responses and spin-polarization phenomena, typical of ferromagnets, are accompanied by antiparallel magnetic crystal order with vanishing net magnetization, typical of antiferromagnets [1]. A classification and description based on spin-symmetry principles offers a resolution of this apparent contradiction by establishing a third distinct elementary magnetic phase, dubbed altermagnetism [2]. We will start the talk with an overview of the still emerging unique phenomenology of this unconventional d-wave (or higher even-parity wave) magnetic phase, and of the wide array of altermagnetic materials. We will then show how altermagnetism can facilitate a development of ultra-fast and low-dissipation spintronic information technologies, and can have impact on a range of

other modern areas of condensed matter physics and nanoelectronics.

References
[1] L. Šmejkal, A. H. MacDonald, J. Sinova, S. Nakatsuji, T. Jungwirth, Nature Reviews Mater. 7, 482 (2022).
[2] L. Šmejkal, J. Sinova & T. Jungwirth, Phys. Rev. X (Perspective) 12, 040501 (2022).

Carbon efflux from soils is the largest terrestrial carbon source to the atmosphere, yet it remains one of the most uncertain fluxes in the Earth’s carbon budget. A dominant component of this flux is heterotrophic respiration, influenced by several environmental factors, most notably soil temperature and moisture. We developed a mechanistic model from micro to global scale to explore how changes in soil water content and temperature affect soil heterotrophic respiration. Simulations, laboratory measurements, and field observations validate the new approach. Estimates from the model show that heterotrophic respiration has been increasing since the 1980s at a rate of about 2% per decade globally. Using future projections of surface temperature and soil moisture, the model predicts a global increase of about 40% in heterotrophic respiration by the end of the century under the worst-case emission scenario, where the Arctic region is expected to experience a more than two-fold increase, driven primarily by declining soil moisture rather than temperature increase.