š» The Week in Botany August 21, 2023
This time with the correct date.
Itās been a difficult newsletter to put together this week. If youāre putting together links shared on Twitter, and people leave Twitter, then the number of links shared falls. The departure was the basis of a story in Nature this week. There are some links from Mastodon here. While engagement on Mastodon per person is much higher than Twitter, there just arenāt the people to sift through lots of links on Mastodon. If the decline continues, then picking papers for next week will be a challenge.
Whatever I find, Iāll be sharing it at the same time next week. Until then, take care.
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
On Botany One
Five Root Models Compete in Benchmarking Challenge
Assessing the reliability of root water uptake simulations.
Can unexpected changes happen in the process of plant domestication?
This fascinating investigation takes us on a journey through the evolutionary history of the squash plants to understand how domestication has modified the characteristics of these plants and their relationships with their pollinators.
Also in Spanish, Portuguese and French.
Uranium Toxicity in Plants Traced to Nitrogen and Protein Problems
Scientists have discovered why uranium contamination is harmful to plants, slowing down efforts to clean up polluted soil.
The Hidden Cargo That Brought Hundreds of Plant Species to the Garden State
Hidden stowaways onboard ships sailing to New Jersey in the 1800s brought hundreds of new plant species that still grow in the Garden State today.
Hot termites, cold fungi, warm sharks
From the warmth of termites hastening wood decomposition to the surprising chill of fungi, our understanding of natureās temperature regulation gets a shake-up.
News & Views
How Invasive Plants Caused the Maui Fires to Rage
A sweeping series of plantation closures in Hawaii allowed highly flammable nonnative grasses to spread on idled lands, providing the fuel for huge blazes.
See also - Nature Hawaii wildfires: did scientists expect Maui to burn?
- CBC Native Hawaiians fear Maui wildfire destruction will lead to their cultural erasure
India was a tree planting laboratory for 200 years. Here are the results
Allowing forests to regenerate on their own has been championed as a strategy for reducing planet-heating carbon in the atmosphere while also boosting biodiversity, the benefits ecosystems offer and even the fruitfulness of livelihoods.
In This Ancient Garden, Plants Can Cure or Kill You
Apothecaries founded this famous gardenāone of the most ancient botanical gardens in Europeāto teach their students which plants poison and which plants cure.
Their backyard greenhouse is a sanctuary ā and a place for healing
A full, leafy canopy frames either side of the wooden door. Overlapping palms and succulents soak up the sun. Inside the structure, dozens of rows of plants ā monstera albos, variegated alocasias and anthuriums ā enjoy the warm, humid air that surrounds them. Plants of many sizes and varieties coexist there like a miniature tropical rainforest.
Botanist identified Wollemi Pine as āJurassic Parkā brought to life
Carrick Chambers, shown an odd piece of conifer brought to him at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney in 1994, drawing on his research experience years earlier, thought it might be the living descendant of a conifer that had previously been seen in 110-year-old fossils.
Study demonstrates the value of citizen science to monitor natural enemy in fight against invasive Siam weed
CABI has led new research which demonstrates the value of using citizen science to monitor the establishment and spread of a natural enemy to fight the invasive shrub Chromolaena odorataāalso known as Siam weedāin South and South-East Asia.
Tree-of-Heaven and spotted lanternfly are a one-two punch threatening Northeast Ohio gardens
You have likely seen Tree-of-Heaven along roadsides, railroad tracks, woodland edges, abandoned lots, and other disturbed areas. Its name comes from the treeās ability to grow rapidly, up to 15 feet in a year and reaching a height of 80 feet. Not only can a single tree can shed a prodigious 350,000 seeds in a year, it sends out a toxin through its root system that poisons nearby trees and plants. If all that werenāt bad enough, when you chop down a mature tree, instead of simply dying, the injury will signal its extensive root system to send up tons of tiny little sucker trees up to fifty feet away from the parent tree.
The TaupÅ garden where plants were chosen because possums wouldn't eat them
Almost 30 years ago, when Lorna Henry and her husband Peter moved from town to an 18-acre property near Mt Tauhara in TaupÅ, just about the last thing on their minds was creating a sprawling country garden.
Everyone at West Virginia University Knew Something Was Up. I Hate That We Were Right.
The student population got smaller and smaller while fancy new buildings appeared.
Black Ecologies
64 pages of poetry, fiction, essays, interviews, and original art.
Thousands of scientists are cutting back on Twitter, seeding angst and uncertainty
A Nature survey reveals scientistsā reasons for leaving the social-media platform now known as X, and what they are doing to build and maintain a sense of community.
See also How Is Science Twitterās āMastodon Migrationā Panning Out?
Scientific Papers
Drivers of species knowledge across the Tree of Life
Mammola et al. investigated how humans accumulate knowledge of biodiversity by searching for consistent relationships between scientific (number of publications) and societal (number of views in Wikipedia) interest, and species-level morphological, ecological and socio-cultural factors. Across a random selection of 3,007 species spanning 29 Phyla/Divisions, they show that socio-cultural factors are the most important correlates of scientific and societal interest in biodiversity, including the fact that a species is useful or harmful to humans, has a common name and is listed in the IUCN Red List.
Demystifying the Graduate School Application Process
Estien et al. hope to demystify a portion of this hidden curriculum by focusing on the process of applying to graduate school in research-oriented science programs. This article provides an overview of graduate school, the application process, how to prepare for it, and potential career paths to pursue following a Master's or Doctoral degree.
Assessing digital accessible botanical knowledge and priorities for exploration and discovery of plant diversity across Mesoamerica
RamĆrez-Barahona et al. used the Royal Botanical Gardens Kew's World Checklist of Vascular Plants to parse publicly available occurrence data downloaded from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and quantify the spatial distribution of spatial, phylogenetic, and temporal data shortfalls across Mesoamerica.
EffectorO: Motif-Independent Prediction of Effectors in Oomycete Genomes Using Machine Learning and Lineage Specificity
Nur et al. developed a novel effector prediction tool, EffectorO, that uses two complementary approaches to predict effectors in oomycete pathogen genomes: i) a machine learningābased pipeline that predicts effector probability based on the biochemical properties of the N-terminal amino-acid sequence of a protein and ii) a pipeline based on lineage specificity to find proteins that are unique to one species or genus, a sign of evolutionary divergence due to adaptation to the host.
Comprehensive genome-wide analysis of the DREB gene family in Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis): evidence for the role of PeDREB28 in plant abiotic stress response
Hu et al. conducted a comprehensive genome-wide analysis of the DREB gene family in Moso bamboo, representing the most important running bamboo species in Asia. In total, 44 PeDREBs were identified, and information on their gene structures, protein motifs, phylogenetic relationships, and stress-related cis-regulatory elements (CREs) was provided.
Non-destructive monitoring of foliar fungicide efficacy with hyperspectral sensing in grapevine
Frequent fungicide applications are required to manage grapevine powdery mildew (Erysiphe necator). However, this practice is costly and has led to widespread fungicide resistance. A method of monitoring in-field fungicide efficacy could help growers maximize spray-interval length, thereby reducing costs and the rate of fungicide resistance emergence. The goal of this study was to evaluate if hyperspectral sensing in the visible to shortwave infrared range (VSWIR, 400ā2,400 nm) can quantify foliar fungicide efficacy on grape leaves.
ā»ļø Stomatal closure during water deficit is controlled by below-ground hydraulics
Abdalla et al. used a novel root pressure chamber to measure, during soil drying, the relation between transpiration rate (E) and leaf xylem water pressure (Ļleaf-x) in tomato shoots grafted onto two contrasting rootstocks, a long and a short one.
Pleistocene glaciations caused the latitudinal gradient of within-species genetic diversity
Fonseca et al. quantify nucleotide diversity, a common metric of intraspecific genetic diversity, in more than 38,000 plant and animal species using georeferenced DNA sequences from millions of samples. Results demonstrate that tropical species contain significantly more intraspecific genetic diversity than nontropical species.
A Citrullus genus super-pangenome reveals extensive variations in wild and cultivated watermelons and sheds light on watermelon evolution and domestication
Wu et al. assembled high-quality reference genomes for three wild watermelons.
A unique C-terminal domain contributes to the molecular function of Restorer-of-fertility proteins in plant mitochondria
Huynh et al. show that removing the RfCTD from the RFL protein RNA PROCESSING FACTOR 2-nad6 prevented cleavage of its RNA target, the nad6 transcript, in Arabidopsis thaliana mitochondria.
Careers
Open Call for Associate Editors - AmJBot
The Botanical Society of America is looking for botanists actively engaged in research to join the Editorial Boards of the American Journal of Botany and Applications in Plant Sciences.
Asst. Professor - Evolutionary Ecology, Georgia, USA.
The Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Evolutionary Ecology. This academic year 9-month appointment position would begin August 1, 2024. We seek to hire a colleague whose research addresses cutting-edge questions at the intersection of ecological and evolutionary processes. We encourage applications from scientists who examine eco-evolutionary questions in natural environments, which might include freshwater, marine, or terrestrial systems.
Postdoctoral Researcher - Molecular Plant Pathologist (3 year fixed term contract), Cambridge
We are looking to recruit a Postdoctoral Researcher (Molecular Plant Pathologist) to join our Plant Pathology team to understand the mechanisms of rust resistance and pathogen virulence through research on common bean genomics and genetics, rust genomics and effector biology.
Postdoc of Environmental regulation of plant metabolism, Copenhagen
Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Section of Plant Glycobiology, Faculty of Science at University of Copenhagen is offering a Postdoc position. The postdoc position will be associated with the Environmental Regulation of Plant Metabolism and Cell Biology research groups (Assist Prof. Johanna Krahmer & Prof. Staffan Persson) at the Glycobiology Section. The successful candidate will identify mechanisms linking external signals and carbon metabolism.
Events Internship, London
We are looking for aāÆpaid intern to join our Events Team and support in the delivery of our annual conference, an exciting 4-day event in Belfast, Northern Island.āÆā
Teaching Laboratory Technician (Part Time, Fixed Term), Cambridge
The role-holder will work within a small team of technicians. Day to day tasks for the successful candidate will include carrying out routine biological and chemical assays, maintaining the organisation of incubators, monitoring the condition of refrigerators/freezers and stocks, and ensuring all safety regulations and codes of practice are implemented effectively.
Lecturer, Senior Lecturer or Reader, Essex
Our philosophy is to deliver research across all levels of biological organisation, from genes and cells through to communities and ecosystems, which is undertaken within our Ecology and Environmental Microbiology, Genomics and Computational Biology, Plant Productivity, and Protein Structure and Mechanisms of Disease research groups. We welcome applicants who could work within or across any of these sub disciplines. We welcome applicants who could work within or across any of these sub-disciplines. We particularly encourage applicants who would complement or expand research and teaching in our Plant, Genomics or Protein research groups.
Research Fellow in Plant Proteins Extrusion, Leeds
This project seeks to address the flexitarian market by creating a plant-based burger alternative that appeals to beef burger-eaters by having a flavour, texture, aroma and properties that are near indistinguishable from beef patty. The post-holder would be expected to translate lab-findings to pilot plant production and help plan and launch full-scale production. As such, you must be able to communicate with scientists on the physicochemical aspects, production engineers and marketeers working with Dr. Alan J. Hernandez-Alvarez- PI (expert in plant proteins) and Dr. Evi Paximada (expert in electrospinning).
PhD Studentship - The Effect of Light Regime on Nitrogen Metabolism and Contaminant Uptake by Plants Grown in Hydroponics, Bristol
This project will contribute to a European Innovation Council (EIC) project entitled āMicrobial Hydroponics (Mi-Hy)ā, which is developing hydroponic systems driven by Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) for urban farming. This studentship will contribute by researching the interaction between light regime and nitrogen metabolism in hydroponic systems in order to aid the development of Mi-Hyās hydroponic system. Further, it will use the hydroponic system established by Mi-Hy to investigate the uptake of contaminants into the food crops.