đ» The Week in Botany April 24, 2023
Iâve been slowly putting this together this weekend due to a large headache, sadly due to the weather rather than any particular event. If it wasnât the weather causing the headache, then Iâm sure Elon Musk would be happy to supply it. The search systems were working for Twitter this week, but Iâve been warned theyâll break down again at the end of next week. Unless he changes his mind again.
Normally Iâd close with an attempt at positivity, but itâs gone ten-thirty, Iâm tired, and I have an early start tomorrow, so Iâll borrow someone elseâs positivity. Thereâll be another email from me at the same time next week. Until then, take care.
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
On Botany One
New Study Reveals Horticultural Plant Lythrum virgatum Could Help the Invasive Plant Lythrum salicaria Become Even More of a Problem
Researchers discover that the horticultural plant L. virgatum has higher fitness and broader habitat tolerances than the invasive plant L. salicaria, potentially leading to rapid evolution and adaptation.
Are Arabidopsis plants shaped the environment of their ancestors?
The study reveals that a plantâs current nutrient environment has a stronger influence on its traits than the nutrient environment of its ancestors, shedding light on how plants adapt and evolve under changing conditions.
Pitcher Plants Lure Prey with Intricate Scents, Study Finds
The odour profiles of carnivorous pitcher plants play a major role in attracting specific prey, according to new research.
Waggle Dance Reveals How Managed Forests Can Better Support Honeybee Foraging
Researchers in Germany use unique waggle dance communication to reveal the foraging habits of honeybees in managed forests, offering insights for improving forest habitats.
Gardeners Have a Role in Boosting Pollinator Diversity in Dense Cities
Study reveals effective strategies to promote pollinator diversity and function in dense urban environments like Paris.
News & Views
Coping with Change as an Alpine Plant
Environmental change is something that all organisms must deal with throughout their life. This is especially true for long-lived plants. Adapt or die is often the only options available for most plants, but predicting their responses can be extremely difficult. That is where people like Dr. Megan DeMarche come in.
Give Your Garden a Lift
Using a raised bed for your garden can benefit you, your vegetables, and the environment.
What is No Mow May?
No Mow May is Plantlifeâs annual campaign calling all garden owners and green space managers not to mow during May â liberating your lawns and providing a space for nature.
We need to talk
I want to talk about talks. We need to talk about talks. We should have a guide to how to give a talk. And so it shall be.
Heterochromatin definition and function
Heterochromatin is a key characteristic of eukaryotic genomes. Since its cytological description nearly 100 years ago, our understanding of heterochromatin features and functions, including transcription repression and genome stability, have continuously evolved. In this Viewpoint article, experts provide their current opinions on heterochromatin definition, types and functional mechanisms.
Horticulturists turn to âdesert gardensâ at UK flower shows amid climate crisis
Hampton Court flower show to feature gardens using creative methods to mitigate against heatwaves.
Food forests can bring climate resilience, better health, and tasty produce to city residents
Having an abundance of locally-sourced foods in the community is important on many levels.
Soil organisms are essential for the maintenance of city parks and gardens
A study led by CSIC and published in 'Nature Ecology and Evolution' highlights the fundamental role of soil biodiversity in maintaining the functioning of our parks and gardens.
How soils changed life on Earth
For the first 4 billion years of Earthâs existence, its continents were dusty, barren and rocky landscapes similar to the surface of Mars. But, around 500 million years ago, this all changed.
Nepenthes lowii: the carnivorous plant that evolved into a toilet
Some species that grow where insects are scarce encourage animals to poo in their pitchers.
How to grow plants in the dark
A greenhouse owner in Iceland and a horticulturist on the ISS share their best tips for low-light gardens.
Kelp forests capture nearly 5 million tonnes of CO2 annually
Towering underwater kelp forests generate a potential value of $500 billion each year by providing a boost to commercial fishing, as well as nitrogen and carbon removal.
A Women in Crop Science Conversation with Araceli Torres
âI met Araceli 15 years ago when I was a PhD student at CIMMYT (the Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico), doing field research at the station in Ciudad ObregĂłn, Sonora. Araceli was working in the wheat physiology team that was operating out of the building across the walkway.â
Plants that devour insects could be luring prey with signature scents
Sarracenia pitcher plants, found in bogs throughout eastern North America, look like trumpet-shaped flowers, often in purplish or reddish hues. But looks can be deceiving. The striking âflowersâ are actually modified leaves, forming a cup that contains digestive enzymes.
Carnivorous Plants Use a Smelly Trick to Catch Their Prey
A study suggests that pitcher plants tailor the smells they produce to woo particular kinds of insects.
'In the very, very beginning, it was about 3 feet of garbage': How NYCâs 1st community garden got started
New York City is home to hundreds of community gardens, spread throughout the five boroughs. But rewind 50 years and the landscape was much different. The city was in the throes of an economic crisis, and instead of gardens, trash-strewn vacant lots that often served as havens for crime and drug activity were the norm in many neighborhoods.
Plant functional traits predict heterogeneous distributional shifts in response to climate change
The growth and survival of plants are predominately determined by climatic conditions, and global climate change is causing rapid modifications to patterns of plant diversity. As temperature and precipitation regimes are altered, plant species are redistributing their geographic rangesâthrough dispersal and mortalityâto track their optimum climatic conditions.
360-million-year-old Irish fossil provides oldest evidence of plant self-defence in wood
An international team of scientists, co-led by Dr Carla J. Harper, Assistant Professor in Botany in the School of Natural Sciences at Trinity, has discovered the oldest evidence of plant self-defence in wood in a 360-million-year-old fossil from south-eastern Ireland.
Global rice shortage is set to be the biggest in 20 years
From China to the U.S. to the European Union, rice production is falling and driving up prices for more than 3.5 billion people across the globe, particularly in Asia-Pacific â which consumes 90% of the worldâs rice.
Scientific Papers
Increasing crop rotational diversity can enhance cereal yields
Using grain yield data of small grain cereals and maize from 32 long-term (10â63 years) experiments across Europe and North America, Smith et al. show that crop rotational diversity, measured as crop species diversity and functional richness, enhanced grain yields. This yield benefit increased over time. Only the yields of winter-sown small grain cereals showed a decline at the highest level of species diversity.
Plants lack the functional neurotransmitters and signaling pathways required for sentience in animals
Robinson et al. cannot agree with Segundo-Ortin and Calvo that plants are sentient organisms. âWe have critically examined several aspects of their target article, and find their claims are not supported by the published evidence. We address these claims in sections on whether plants have a âneurobiologyâ analogous to that of animal nervous systems, including neurotransmitters and synaptic receptors that respond to anesthetics; and whether plant signaling resembles neural transmission.â
Beyond the various contrivances by which orchids are pollinated: global patterns in orchid pollination biology
Orchidaceae show remarkable diversity in pollination strategies, but how these strategies vary globally is not entirely clear. To identify regions and taxa that are data-rich and lend themselves to rigorous analyses or are data-poor and need attention, Ackerman et al. introduce a global database of orchid reproductive biology.
Efficient and Robust Search of Microbial Genomes via Phylogenetic Compression
BĆinda et al. present a technique called phylogenetic compression, which uses evolutionary history to guide compression and efficiently search large collections of microbial genomes using existing algorithms and data structures. They show that, when applied to modern diverse collections approaching millions of genomes, lossless phylogenetic compression improves the compression ratios of assemblies, de Bruijn graphs, and k-mer indexes by one to two orders of magnitude.
DNA methylation signatures of duplicate gene evolution in angiosperms
Kenchanmane Raju et al. applied a comparative epigenomics approach to 43 angiosperm species across the phylogeny and a population of 928 Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) accessions, examining the association of DNA methylation with paralog evolution.
Amyloplast sedimentation repolarizes LAZYs to achieve gravity sensing in plants
Gravity controls directional growth of plants, and the classical starch-statolith hypothesis proposed more than a century ago postulates that amyloplast sedimentation in specialized cells initiates gravity sensing, but the molecular mechanism remains mysterious. Chen et al. report that gravistimulation by reorientation triggers the Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase (MAPK) signaling-mediated phosphorylation of LAZY proteins, the key regulators of gravitropism accumulated more on the lower side of the plasma membrane in columella cells in regular growth Arabidopsis.
Identifying climatic drivers of hybridization with a new ancestral niche reconstruction method
Applications of molecular phylogenetic approaches have uncovered evidence of hybridization across numerous clades of life, yet the environmental factors responsible for driving opportunities for hybridization remain obscure. Verbal models implicating geographic range shifts that brought species together during the Pleistocene have often been invoked, but quantitative tests using paleoclimatic data are needed to validate these models. Folk et al. produce a phylogeny for Heuchereae, a clade of 15 genera and 83 species in Saxifragaceae, with complete sampling of recognized species, using 277 nuclear loci and nearly complete chloroplast genomes.
Barking up the wrong tree: the dangers of taxonomic misidentification in molecular phylogenetic studies
Keraunea is a Brazilian endemic genus that has sat uncomfortably in Convolvulaceae where it was placed due to an enlarged and adnate fruit bract typical of Neuropeltis. A recent molecular phylogeny suggested that two of its five morphologically almost identical species actually belong to two different families, Malpighiaceae (superrosids) and Ehretiaceae (superasterids). Later studies have demonstrated that Keraunea effectively belongs to Ehretiaceae, but the proposal of one species belonging to Malpighiaceae has remained problematic. In this study, de Almeida et al. re-assess this hypothesis, discuss the issues that have led to this assumption, and offer insights on the importance of carefully using herbarium collections and incorporating morphological evidence in systematic studies.
Simultaneous tracking of near-isogenic bacterial strains in synthetic Arabidopsis microbiota by chromosomally-integrated barcodes
Ordon et al. report here the development of modular bacterial tags (MoBacTags) encoding DNA barcodes. These tags facilitate tracking of near-isogenic bacterial commensals in synthetic communities (SynComs), which allow assessment of the contributions of individual bacterial genes to root microbiota establishment in Arabidopsis thaliana.
Single-cell adaptations shape evolutionary transitions to multicellularity in green algae
Cornwallis et al. experimentally examine how key environmental factors (predation, nitrogen and water turbulence) combine to influence multicellular group formation in 35 wild unicellular green algae strains (19 Chlorophyta species). All environmental factors induced the formation of multicellular groups (more than four cells), but there was no evidence this was adaptive, as multicellularity (% cells in groups) was not related to population growth rate under any condition. Instead, population growth was related to extracellular matrix (ECM) around single cells and palmelloid formation, a unicellular life-cycle stage where two to four cells are retained within a mother-cell wall after mitosis.
Fossil berries reveal global radiation of the nightshade family by the early Cenozoic
Deanna et al. describe two new Eocene fossil berries of the nightshade family (Solanaceae) from the Esmeraldas Formation in Colombia and the Green River Formation in Colorado (USA).
Rapid non-destructive method to phenotype stomatal traits
Pathoumthong et al. developed a method that combines rapid non-destructive imaging of leaf surfaces with automated image analysis. The method provides accurate data on stomatal features while significantly reducing time for data acquisition and analysis. It can be readily used to phenotype stomata in large populations in the field and in controlled environments.
New T-DNA binary vectors with NptII selection and RUBY reporter for efficient maize transformation and targeted mutagenesis
Lee et al. report new T-DNA binary vectors with neomycin phosphotransferase II (NptII) as a selectable marker gene for plant transformation (Figure 1) that showed improved maize B104 transformation and CRISPR/Cas9-mediated mutagenesis efficiencies with low escape rates (<6%).
Careers
Pollinator research team leader, Minnesota
The Echinacea Project seeks an enthusiastic pollinator research team leader for the 2023 summer field season and into the fall. The pollinator research team leader will lead a team of summer pollination assistants in a research project evaluating the impacts of prescribed fire on plant-pollinator interactions and ground-nesting bees in prairie habitat. We seek an individual with at least one year experience working in the field and prior leadership experience. Enthusiasm, a strong work-ethic, and self-motivation are required for this position.
Assistant Professor, Biology, Nova Scotia
The Department of Biology in the School of Science and Technology at CBU invites applications for a tenure-track position in Biology with an emphasis in Plant Biology and Biodiversity at the rank of Assistant Professor. This position will commence on July 1st, 2023 (or as soon as possible thereafter).
Research Scientist, California
Under the general direction of the Principal Investigator under the NASA ARC-CREST Cooperative Agreement, the Research Scientist is responsible for conducting scientific research, processing and analyzing UAV and satellite data, publishing scientific papers, and developing proposals for new research activities. Project focus: remote sensing of agricultural lands, with an emphasis on plant pathogens in strawberries, lettuce and other high value specialty crops. The main objective of the research is to apply data from remote sensing instruments on UAVs and satellites in combination with field data to identify the presence of plant pathogens and develop models to forecast crop yields. This post-doctoral position is within the Water, Agriculture, Technology and Remote Sensing (WATRS) lab and will work closely with scientists at NASA Ames Research Center. The successful candidate will also have the opportunity to develop and lead innovative research on remote sensing applications for detection of plant pathogens.
PhD Studentship: Plants and pedagogy: the role of female botanical artists in medical education, 1726â1961, Bristol
This project concerns the large number of botanical illustrations in the collections of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh that were made by female artists and, in particular, those used as teaching aids at Edinburgh Medical School. Botanical illustration has been crucial to history of science and integral to the work of botanical gardens, many of which hold important art collections. Many botanical artists have been women, although historians have only recently begun to notice the extent of their contributions to the genre. This project will situate female artists in relation to an important yet little-noticed dimension of botanical illustration, namely, its role in the teaching of medicine. RBGE was founded in 1670 as a Physic Garden, and the study of botany, undertaken at the Botanic Garden, was essential to the programme at Edinburgh Medical School from its foundation in 1726 until 1961.
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Edinburgh
A Postdoctoral Research Associate position in algal synthetic biology is available in the laboratory of Prof. Alistair McCormick at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh. We are seeking a highly motivated researcher to take a lead role in testing strategies for improving photosynthesis through engineering the chloroplast genome (the plastome) in the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. This work forms part of a large collaborative project that aims to generate a minimal synthetic plastome.
Research Fellow, Coventry
We are seeking a highly motivated PDRA to use these tools to establish the spatial temporal dynamics of SAR initiation by different eliciting pathogens and use these to define sampling times for combined transcriptomic and targeted/untargeted metabolomic studies leading to the identification of mobile SAR elicitors. The ideal candidate will have experience in plant molecular pathology and expertise in phytohormone signalling, plant imaging (whole plant or confocal) or âomicsâ approaches.
Postdoctoral Researcher in Plant Comparative Genomics, Bioinformatics, Brno
Applications are invited for a postdoctoral position in the research group of prof. Martin Lysak to join projects investigating the structure and evolution of crucifer genomes (Brassicaceae). The project aims to establish high-quality chromosome-scale sequence assemblies of several genomes and analyze the process chromosomal and centromere evolution in these plant genomes.
Senior Lecturer / Lecturer in Precision Crop Management, Sydney
The successful applicant would bring expertise in digital technologies and agronomy that address the global challenge of food security, climate change resilience, and environmental sustainability. The successful applicant will have a track record of excellence in research publications and demonstrated capacity for successful applications for national and international competitive research grants. We expect the successful candidate to become an international leader in their field. They will have a track record of success in teaching, research and publications commensurate with an early/mid-career scientist on a rising trajectory.
Senior Lecturer/ Lecturer of Digital Pasture Production, Narrabri, NSW
The successful applicant would bring knowledge of digital methods and techniques for quantifying pasture productivity in extensive/intensive systems, livestock movement and pasture utilisation, and an understanding of the implications for precision management. They will have a track record of success in teaching, research and publications commensurate with an early/mid-career agricultural scientist on a rising trajectory. The successful applicant will have research interests that complement and/or enrich the existing strengths and expertise of the School. They will show a willingness to contribute to current research programs, and lead in the initiation of internationally-leading research programs focusing on digital pasture production, utilisation and management.
Research Fellow, Centre for Engineering Innovation: Agriculture and Ecological Restoration, Perth
Working with a team of seed biologists, restoration ecologists and engineers in the areas of ecosystem restoration and agriculture, you will develop new techniques and processes to improve aspects of the chain of seed use in ecosystem restoration and agriculture; from the harvesting of propagules to the planting of seeds / tubestock to the eventual monitoring and analysis of plant community reestablishment.