The effects of four manganese (Mn) concentrations (1, 10, 50, and 100 g m-3 = Mn1, Mn10, Mn50, Mn100) in solution culture on growth variables were studied for seedlings of five deciduous broad-leaved trees with different successional characteristics and shoot development patterns in northern Japan. The five species were: Betula ermanii, Betula platyphylla var. japonica, and Alnus hirsuta (early-successional species with continuous leaf development), Ulmus davidiana var. japonica (mid-successional species with flush and continuous leaf development), and Acer mono (late-successional species with a flush type leaf development). In plants grown in the Mn environment for about 45 d, relative growth rate (RGR) decreased with increasing Mn supply. Between the 1 and 100 g(Mn) m-3, RGR decreased by 20 % for B. ermanii and B. platyphylla, by 40 % for A. hirsuta and A. mono, and by 80 % for U. davidiana. Specific leaf area (SLA) and leaf mass ratio (LMR) of all species were little affected by high Mn supply. In U. davidiana, however, there was a 67 % decrease in LMR in Mn100 plants. Leaf area ratio (LAR) was higher in early-successional species than in mid- and late-successional ones but differed little among Mn treatments within species, except for U. davidiana where LAR declined substantially with increased Mn supply. While LAR, which represents the relative size of assimilatory apparatus, was little affected, net photosynthetic rate (PN) saturated with radiant energy decreased with increasing Mn supply in all species. Thus PN was adversely affected by high accumulation of Mn in leaves, which resulted in an overall reduction in biomass production. However, the proportional allocation of photosynthates to the assimilatory apparatus was not affected by different Mn toxicity in hardwood tree seedlings. and M. Kitao, T. T. Lei, T. Koike.
To establish the importance of different cues for feeding site location in aphids, two birch-feeding species were given access to leaves that were either orientated normally or inverted. Euceraphis betulae used gravity and/or light as the main cue, and settled on the surface that was orientated down. Monaphis antennata additionally used leaf surface features to locate its feeding site, and approximately half of the individuals settled on the correct feeding surface whatever its orientation. This is one of the few examples of positive stimuli being used by aphids during feeding site location.