Paddy rice (Oryza sativa L.) is a staple food and one of the major sources of dietary arsenic (As) and cadmium (Cd) in Asia. A field experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of four water management regimes (aerobic, intermittent irrigation, conventional irrigation and flooding) on As and Cd accumulation in seven major rice cultivars grown in Zhejiang province, east China. With increasing irrigation from aerobic to flooded conditions, the soil HCl-extractable As concentrations increased significantly and the HCl-extractable Cd concentrations decreased significantly. These trends were consistent with the As and Cd concentrations in the straw, husk and brown rice. Water management both before and after the full tillering stage affected As and Cd accumulation in the grains. The intermittent and conventional treatments produced higher grain yields than the aerobic and flooded treatments. Cd concentrations in brown rice varied 13.1-40.8 times and As varied 1.75-8.80 times among the four water management regimes. Cd and As accumulation in brown rice varied among the rice cultivars, with Guodao 6 (GD6) was a low Cd but high-As-accumulating cultivar while Indonesia (IR) and Yongyou 9 (YY9) were low As but high-Cd-accumulating cultivars. Brown rice Cd and As concentrations in the 7 cultivars were significantly negatively correlated. The results indicate that As and Cd accumulated in rice grains with opposite trends that were influenced by both water management and rice cultivar. Production of 'safe' rice with respect to As and Cd might be possible by balancing water management and rice cultivar according to the severity of soil pollution.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article

Bacterial quorum sensing is a well-characterized communication system that governs a large variety of collective behaviours. By comparison, quorum sensing regulation in eukaryotic microbes remains poorly understood, especially its functional role in eukaryote-specific behaviours, such as sexual reproduction. Cryptococcus neoformans is a prevalent fungal pathogen that has two defined sexual cycles (bisexual and unisexual) and is a model organism for studying sexual reproduction in fungi. Here, we show that the quorum sensing peptide Qsp1 serves as an important signalling molecule for both forms of sexual reproduction. Qsp1 orchestrates various differentiation and molecular processes, including meiosis, the hallmark of sexual reproduction. It activates bisexual mating, at least in part through the control of pheromone, a signal necessary for bisexual activation. Notably, Qsp1 also plays a major role in the intercellular regulation of unisexual initiation and coordination, in which pheromone is not strictly required. Through a multi-layered genetic screening approach, we identified the atypical zinc finger regulator Cqs2 as an important component of the Qsp1 signalling cascade during both bisexual and unisexual reproduction. The absence of Cqs2 eliminates the Qsp1-stimulated mating response. Together, these findings extend the range of behaviours governed by quorum sensing to sexual development and meiosis.

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