The Week in Botany December 1, 2025
I had some news this week from New Phytologist that I feel both very positive and negative about. They’ll be hosting a symposium “Extreme Heat: extending the thermal limits of life” in Córdoba next summer. I’m very positive about this as it looks like there are a lot of very interesting people committed to the meeting already. You can pick up details at New Phyt’s site.
The negative? Well, as the publicity material says “With 2024 marking the hottest year on record and heatwaves now affecting over 10% of Earth’s land, understanding and mitigating the effects of extreme heat is more urgent than ever.”. It seems 2025 will come second or third, so it’s definitely necessary work.
Work on the redesign is going to schedule, so there should be more stories on site next week than there were this week. There will also be another email of the papers and the news stories you’re sharing on Mastodon and Bluesky at the same time next week. Until next time, take care.
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
On Botany One
Just the one post this week.
Mariana S. Artur: “I Always Wish I Had a Pocket-Sized Microscope”
Botany One interviews Dr Mariana S. Artur, a Brazilian scientist who found her way to the Netherlands to study the wonders of seeds and plant resilience.
…and last’s week’s Week in Botany with why seeds aren't spreading, the deep roots of modern wheat and deceitful orchids and more…
News & Views
Bad COP
The COP30 global climate summit in Brazil may have been the last opportunity for the nations of the world to reach an agreement that limits planetary warming below catastrophic (>1.5C/3F) levels. By that criterion alone, the now-completed COP30 conference was an abject failure, despite whatever other progress might be claimed.
Unraveling the mysteries of ancient solar storms and earthquakes
Tree-ring and planetary scientists are preparing for the big natural events thanks to a Big Idea Challenge grant and a new laboratory.
Roberto Solano
New Phytologist profiles the molecular biologist.
The CSIRO cuts are just the tip of the iceberg for Australia's science funding
Australian science is on life-support, and the government isn't stepping up.
Bad mentors hurt people
What to do about bad mentors?
#PlantsGiving: Bringing plant relatives back into view
#PlantsGiving encourages us to appreciate the remarkable diversity behind holiday gatherings. Keep a tally of the plant families used in your holiday meal and share photos online with #PlantsGiving.
History of coffee
The history of coffee is a bit of a delicious mystery. We don’t have official documentation to confirm exactly who discovered coffee trees for the first time, or who invented coffee as the beverage we know today. However, we do have colorful legends we can use to piece together a rich tapestry of coffee history—and follow coffee’s journey across the globe.
Kenyan Court Rules “Sharing Seeds is Not a Crime” in Landmark Verdict for Food Sovereignty
This judgment establishes powerful legal precedent globally, affirming that the ancient right of farmers to save and share seeds supersedes commercial interests, reshaping the legal balance of power between communities and agribusiness worldwide.
How to stop the revolving door of German academia
Germany is one of the most popular destinations for students and scholars worldwide, but those pursuing academic careers face significant hurdles to success.
MSU researchers: Moss — yes, moss — can help solve murders
Can tiny pieces of moss become crime-busters? Yes, according to a new study examining how law enforcement agencies, forensic teams and botanists have used moss to solve murders, track missing people, calculate how long ago someone died and – in a notorious western Michigan case, try to locate the body of a baby murdered by her father.
The Best Plant Identification Apps To Protect Your Garden
Plant identification isn't always easy. Unless you have a general idea of what you're looking for, it can feel impossible to figure out exactly what species you're looking at based on words alone.
This Week in Botany
5 Years Ago: It’s time to boost botany: the science and the word itself
10 Years Ago: Plant Science at the leading edge
15 Years Ago: Bad Times Just Around The Corner
Scientific Papers
Physiological roles of lignins – tuning cell wall hygroscopy and biomechanics (FREE)
Pesquet et al provide a unifying description of lignins as regulators of cell wall hygroscopy and biomechanics for plant physiology as well as describe the molecular and cellular processes, enabling each cell wall layer to specifically adjust lignin properties.
The ZAT14 family promotes cell death and regulates expansins to affect xylem formation and salt tolerance in Arabidopsis (FREE)
Feng et al uncovered a ZINC FINGER OF ARABIDOPSIS THALIANA14(ZAT14) transcription factor whose expression was enhanced in differentiating xylem through its positive regulation by VASCULAR RELATED NAC-DOMAIN PROTEIN7 (VND7) yet decreased in root tips through its negative regulation by PLETHORA2 (PLT2) in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). Mutating ZAT14 and its closely related homologs, ZAT5, ZAT14L and ZAT15, disrupted vascular patterning and inhibited xylem differentiation indicating that ZATs are important for xylem formation.
Spatiotemporal dynamics of CYCLOIDEA expression during early floral development in monkeyflower ($)
Min et al combined transgenic manipulation and fluorescent confocal imaging in the monkeyflower species Mimulus parishii to capture the spatiotemporal dynamics of CYCLOIDEA (CYC) (MpCYC2a and MpCYC2b) expressions in the floral meristems (FMs) of both wild-type (WT) and bop mutant (mpbop) plants.
Here, There and Everywhere: Widespread Non-Native Plants in the World's Urban Ecosystems (FREE)
Richardson et al suggest that urban ecosystems outside Europe and Asia are more susceptible to recent invasions than those within these two continents. Understanding the composition and origins of these widespread species is crucial for developing coordinated management strategies and improving the resilience of urban biodiversity.
The frequency and importance of polyploidy in tropical rainforest tree radiations (FREE)
Schley et al examined ploidy variation across Inga (Fabaceae), a characteristic Amazonian tree radiation, using DNA-sequence data from 1305 loci for 189/282 Inga species. They then tested whether polyploid species experience more positive selection than diploids, particularly in loci underlying chemical defence against herbivory, which is a key ecological pressure affecting rainforest tree diversification.
The origins and adaptive consequences of polyploidy in a dominant prairie grass (FREE)
Polyploidy is ubiquitous across North American prairies, which provide essential ecosystem services and rich soil for agriculture. Yet the mechanism driving polyploid abundance is unclear. Multiple hypotheses have been proposed including polyploid abundance is proportional to the opportunity for whole genome duplication (WGD), and WGD alters phenotypes that may increase fitness. Phillips et al tested these two hypotheses together in the mixed-ploidy species Andropogon gerardi, a dominant grass species in endangered North American tallgrass prairies.
Spatial Insurance of Distinct Ecological Functions (FREE)
Mouquet et al characterise how communities can disproportionately insure (functional sources) or depend on (functional sinks) neighbour communities, a dual relationship that is not captured by traditional metrics of functional beta diversity. They illustrate the application of their framework at broad spatial scales for plants and birds, highlighting biogeographic patterns of functional sources and sinks.
Autophagy restricts symbiosis-associated cell death and regulates colonization by Serendipita indica in Arabidopsis (FREE)
Zecua-Ramirez et al demonstrate that autophagy, a key cellular degradation pathway that maintains homeostasis, is locally activated during colonization and is required to limit fungal proliferation and immunometabolic stress. Autophagy-deficient mutants exhibit elevated basal root cell death, increased colonization, and hypersensitivity to the fungal-derived purine metabolite 2′-deoxyadenosine (dAdo), an immunometabolic signal that modulates host cell viability and reprograms immune and metabolic responses via ENT3 (equilibrative nucleoside transporter 3)-mediated uptake.
Ethylene modulates cell wall mechanics for root responses to compaction (FREE)
Zhang et al report how ethylene controls cell wall biosynthesis to promote root radial expansion. We demonstrate how soil compaction stress, via ethylene, upregulates Auxin Response Factor1 in the root cortex, which represses cellulose synthase (CESA) genes. CESA repression drives radial expansion of root cortical cells by modifying the thickness of their cell walls, which results in a thicker epidermis and thinner cortex.
Tangerine: a Starship-like element in the genomes of Xanthoria lichen-forming fungi (FREE)
Recently, giant transposable elements called Starships have been found in many genomes of filamentous fungi, but to which extent they occur in lichen-forming fungi is not known. Tagirdzhanova et al describe a Starship-like element from the lichen fungus Xanthoria parietina. This element, named Tangerine, contains several genes that have signatures of horizontal gene transfer from non-lichen-forming fungi, most likely from black yeasts of the Chaetothyriales, that are often lichen-associated.
The role of AI in ecology’s computational carbon footprint (FREE)
Academic conversations about the potential power of AI for biodiversity science have happened concurrently with, but largely independent from, an increasing popular awareness of the skyrocketing carbon emissions of GenAI tools.
In AoBC Publications
Development of a tomato functional-structural plant model for digital twin applications (FREE)
Cerrado: biodiversity and ecosystem services under severe threat by misguided restoration (FREE)
Careers
Note: These are posts that have been advertised around the web. They are not posts that I personally offer, nor can I arrange the visa for you to work internationally.
BES Associate Editor, Worldwide
We are looking for Associate Editors to join the Editorial Board for each of our seven journals: Ecological Solutions and Evidence, Functional Ecology, Journal of Animal Ecology, Journal of Applied Ecology, Journal of Ecology, Methods in Ecology and Evolution, and People and Nature.
Research Associate: Horizontal Gene Transfer, Sheffield
We are looking for a Research Associate to join our team exploring how horizontal gene transfer (HGT) shapes plant evolution. This position will bridge large-scale comparative genomics and population genetic approaches to uncover how genes move and persist across plant lineages.
Professur für Pflanzenphysiologie, Kaiserslautern
We expect applicants to have an outstanding research record in the field of Plant Physiology, evidenced by relevant publications and visibility in the field. The future professorship should cover the spectrum from basic to applied research. The aim is to strengthen research foci represented in current consortia (TRR175, GRK2737, BioComp, NFDI/DataPLANT) and in future ones (a TRR on mitochondrial and chloroplast homeostasis) and to translate mechanistic understanding into strategies to increase plant resilience.
PhD position – Soil food web functional capacity under climate extremes, Uppsala
A PhD position is available at SLU's Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology, which provides a dynamic and international research environment with scientists conducting research on plant-microbe interactions, mycology, and microbial ecology. The position is placed in the Forest Microbiology group.
Postdoctoral Researcher – Developing transferable ecological
forecasting workflows, Seville
This position is ideal for anyone interested in predictive modelling that bridges ecological knowledge and technological infrastructure. The successful candidate will take on existing ecological forecasting applications across Europe (biodiversity changes, lake ecosystem health, carbon fluxes) and transform them into open-access interoperable workflows that can be used by a variety of users and allow to generate a wide range of comparable forecasts.
