Frangipani (Plumeria rubra L.; Apocynaceae.) is a deciduous ornamental shrub, native to tropical America and widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions. In Mexico, P. rubra is also used in traditional medicine and religious ceremonies. In November 2018-2022, rust-diseased leaves of P. rubra were found in Yautepec (18°49'29"N; 99°05'46"W), Morelos, Mexico. Symptoms of the disease included small chlorotic spots on the adaxial surface of the infected leaves, which as the disease progressed turned into necrotic areas surrounded by a chlorotic halo. The chlorotic spots observed on the adaxial leaf surface coincided with numerous erumpent uredinia of bright orange color on the abaxial leaf surface. As a result of the infection, foliar necrosis and leaves abscission was observed. Of the 40 sampled trees, 95% showed symptoms of the disease. On microscopic examination of the fungus, bright orange, subepidermal uredinia were observed, which subsequently faded to white. Urediniospores were bright yellow-orange color. They were ellipsoid or globose, sometimes angular, echinulate, (21.5) 26.5 (33.0) × (16.0) 19.0 (23.0) μm in size. Morphological features of the fungus correspond with previous descriptions of Coleosporium plumeriae by Holcomb and Aime (2010) and Soares et al., (2019). A voucher specimen was deposited in the Herbarium of the Departmet of Plant-Insect Interactions at the Biotic Products Development Center of the National Polytechnic Institute under accession no. IPN 10.0113. Species identity was confirmed by amplifying the 5.8S subunit, the ITS 2 region, and part of the 28S region with rust-specific primer Rust2inv (Aime, 2006) and LR6 (Vilgalys and Hester 1990). The sequence was deposited in GenBank (OQ518406) and showed 100% sequence homology (1435/1477bp) with a reference sequence (MG907225) of C. plumeriae from Plumeria spp. (Aime et al. 2018). Pathogenicity was confirmed by spraying a urediniospores suspension of 2×104 spores ml-1 onto ten plants of P. rubra. Six plants were inoculated and sealed in plastic bags, while four noninoculated plants were applied with sterile distilled water. Plants were inoculated at 25°C and held for 48 h in a dew chamber, after this, the plants were transferred to greenhouse conditions (33/span>2°C). The experiment was performed twice. All inoculated plants developed rust symptoms after 14 days, whereas the non-inoculated plants remained symptomless. The recovered fungus was morphologically identical to that observed in the original diseased plants, thus fulfilling Koch's postulates. According to international databases (Crous 2004; Farr and Rossman 2023), C. plumeriae has not been officially reported in Mexico, despite being a prevalent disease. Diseased plants have been collected and deposited in herbaria, unfortunately, these reports lack important information such as geographic location of sampling, pathogenicity tests, or molecular evidence, which are essential for a comprehensive study of the disease in Mexico. To our knowledge, this is the molecular confirmation of Coleosporium plumeriae causing rust of Plumeria rubra in Mexico. Rust of P. rubra caused by C. plumeriae has been previously identified in India, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Indonesia by Baiswar et al. (2008), Chung et al. (2006), Holcomb and Aime (2010) and Soares et al., (2019). This disease causes important economic losses in nurseries, due to the defoliation of infected plants.
Humans express a wide array of ideal mate preferences. Around the world, people desire romantic partners who are intelligent, healthy, kind, physically attractive, wealthy, and more. In order for these ideal preferences to guide the choice of actual romantic partners, human mating psychology must possess a means to integrate information across these many preference dimensions into summaries of the overall mate value of their potential mates. Here we explore the computational design of this mate preference integration process using a large sample of n = 14,487 people from 45 countries around the world. We combine this large cross-cultural sample with agent-based models to compare eight hypothesized models of human mating markets. Across cultures, people higher in mate value appear to experience greater power of choice on the mating market in that they set higher ideal standards, better fulfill their preferences in choice, and pair with higher mate value partners. Furthermore, we find that this cross-culturally universal pattern of mate choice is most consistent with a Euclidean model of mate preference integration.
The Triangular Theory of Love (measured with Sternberg's Triangular Love Scale - STLS) is a prominent theoretical concept in empirical research on love. To expand the culturally homogeneous body of previous psychometric research regarding the STLS, we conducted a large-scale cross-cultural study with the use of this scale. In total, we examined more than 11,000 respondents, but as a result of applied exclusion criteria, the final analyses were based on a sample of 7332 participants from 25 countries (from all inhabited continents). We tested configural invariance, metric invariance, and scalar invariance, all of which confirmed the cultural universality of the theoretical construct of love analyzed in our study. We also observed that levels of love components differ depending on relationship duration, following the dynamics suggested in the Triangular Theory of Love. Supplementary files with all our data, including results on love intensity across different countries along with STLS versions adapted in a few dozen languages, will further enable more extensive research on the Triangular Theory of Love.
Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study. We then examined a range of hypothesized individual-level factors (sex, age, parasitic history, conservatism, religiosity, and preferred interpersonal distance) and cultural-level factors (regional temperature, parasite stress, regional conservatism, collectivism, and religiosity) in predicting these affective-touching behaviors. Our results indicate that affective touch was most prevalent in relationships with partners and children, and its diversity was relatively higher in warmer, less conservative, and religious countries, and among younger, female, and liberal people. This research allows for a broad and integrated view of the bases of cross-cultural variability in affective touch.
Recent cross-cultural and neuro-hormonal investigations have suggested that love is a near universal phenomenon that has a biological background. Therefore, the remaining important question is not whether love exists worldwide but which cultural, social, or environmental factors influence experiences and expressions of love. In the present study, we explored whether countries' modernization indexes are related to love experiences measured by three subscales (passion, intimacy, commitment) of the Triangular Love Scale. Analyzing data from 9474 individuals from 45 countries, we tested for relationships with country-level predictors, namely, modernization proxies (i.e., Human Development Index, World Modernization Index, Gender Inequality Index), collectivism, and average annual temperatures. We found that mean levels of love (especially intimacy) were higher in countries with higher modernization proxies, collectivism, and average annual temperatures. In conclusion, our results grant some support to the hypothesis that modernization processes might influence love experiences.
Considerable research has examined human mate preferences across cultures, finding universal sex differences in preferences for attractiveness and resources as well as sources of systematic cultural variation. Two competing perspectives-an evolutionary psychological perspective and a biosocial role perspective-offer alternative explanations for these findings. However, the original data on which each perspective relies are decades old, and the literature is fraught with conflicting methods, analyses, results, and conclusions. Using a new 45-country sample (N = 14,399), we attempted to replicate classic studies and test both the evolutionary and biosocial role perspectives. Support for universal sex differences in preferences remains robust: Men, more than women, prefer attractive, young mates, and women, more than men, prefer older mates with financial prospects. Cross-culturally, both sexes have mates closer to their own ages as gender equality increases. Beyond age of partner, neither pathogen prevalence nor gender equality robustly predicted sex differences or preferences across countries.
A wide range of literature connects sex ratio and mating behaviours in non-human animals. However, research examining sex ratio and human mating is limited in scope. Prior work has examined the relationship between sex ratio and desire for short-term, uncommitted mating as well as outcomes such as marriage and divorce rates. Less empirical attention has been directed towards the relationship between sex ratio and mate preferences, despite the importance of mate preferences in the human mating literature. To address this gap, we examined sex ratio's relationship to the variation in preferences for attractiveness, resources, kindness, intelligence and health in a long-term mate across 45 countries (n = 14 487). We predicted that mate preferences would vary according to relative power of choice on the mating market, with increased power derived from having relatively few competitors and numerous potential mates. We found that each sex tended to report more demanding preferences for attractiveness and resources where the opposite sex was abundant, compared to where the opposite sex was scarce. This pattern dovetails with those found for mating strategies in humans and mate preferences across species, highlighting the importance of sex ratio for understanding variation in human mate preferences.