Universidad Nacional del Sur

Polyploidization has played a key role in plant genome evolution. Eragrostis curvula (Schrad.) Ness, a perennial forage grass species of the Poaceae family, is an excellent model for investigating genome duplication due to its natural variation in ploidy levels. To explore the transcriptomic consequences of polyploidy, we performed high-throughput RNA-Seq on leaf tissue from 10 E. curvula genotypes ranging from diploid to octoploid. Differential expression analyses revealed that the number of differentially expressed genes increased with increasing ploidy, suggesting a rewiring of the gene regulatory network. Several putative genes associated with stress tolerance and epigenetic regulation were modulated at higher ploidy levels. Forage digestibility and saccharification efficiency were likely altered at higher ploidy levels, mainly due to the upregulation of putative genes involved in lignin biosynthesis, cell wall remodeling, and polysaccharide metabolism. Our results may reveal a fine-tuning regulation favoring stress tolerance over forage digestibility. The analysis of the core set of 433 Ploidy_vs_2x DEGs, consistently expressed in a polyploidy-sensitive manner, revealed upregulation of genes involved in the ubiquitination pathway, stress response, cell wall remodeling, hormonal regulation, and terpenoid biosynthesis. Ploidy-dependent transcriptional responses were also observed in the patterns of transcription factor families, underlining a different reprogramming of the transcriptional network at each ploidy level. An integrated network-based approach combining WGCNA and SWIM (SWItchMiner) identified a predicted master regulator target gene putatively associated with increased forage digestibility. Our findings provide valuable insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying polyploidization in E. curvula, with implications for breeding strategies to balance stress tolerance and biomass digestibility.

The exploration of the landscape of opportunities for approaching technology in primary schools in the city of Bahía Blanca (Argentina) shows that the availability of technological resources does not constitute the main obstacle to teaching robotics and computational thinking. The results of the prior survey indicate that the most relevant difficulties are linked to the lack of technical-pedagogical training, limited institutional support, and the absence of sustained technical assistance, which restricts the systematic implementation of these proposals in the classroom. In this context, the present work aims to present the design of a teacher training course with a STEAM approach and Project/Problem-Based Learning (PBL), oriented toward strengthening the appropriation of robotics, the use of artificial intelligence, and computational thinking as transversal objects of study in primary school. As a case study, a pilot test implemented in a primary school affiliated with a national university is described, developed in a reduced format with the participation of ten teachers. The experience included pedagogical and technical activities —plugged and unplugged— and the administration of a pre-post test design to assess perceptions and self-evaluation of implementation capacities. Preliminary results show a significant improvement in the perception of feasibility of incorporating robotics into the classroom and identify facilitating and inhibiting factors, providing inputs for the adjustment of situated and sustainable training proposals.

ABSTRACT The study of materials science concepts, such as crystallographic structures, poses well‐known pedagogical challenges due to the spatial visualization demands imposed by traditional two‐dimensional representations. To address these challenges, this paper presents CeldApp , a low‐cost mobile system that integrates interactive visualization and augmented reality to support the learning of core materials science topics. The system provides a set of modular 3D learning environments covering crystallization processes, crystal structures, and phase diagram analysis, enabling students to actively explore abstract concepts through direct manipulation and immediate visual feedback. The educational impact of the proposed system was investigated through a controlled pilot study employing a pretest–posttest design with parallel groups in an undergraduate materials science course. Learning gain, task completion time, and user experience were considered as evaluation measures. While between‐group differences in learning gain did not reach conventional levels of statistical significance, the experimental group exhibited a consistent positive trend with a moderate effect size. Notably, participants using the system demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in task completion time, suggesting improved efficiency in knowledge retrieval and problem‐solving. Qualitative feedback further indicated high perceived usability and strong educational value of the augmented reality components. Taken together, these findings suggest that accessible, low‐cost immersive visualization tools hold promise for mitigating spatial visualization challenges in materials science education and motivate further large‐scale investigation.

La Dormilona Canela (Muscisaxicola capistratus) es un tiránido que se reproduce en la estepa patagónica, migrando luego hacia el norte a zonas cordilleranas. En el presente trabajo reportamos un registro para el Sistema Ventania, el primero para la provincia de Buenos Aires.