The Week in Botany January 19, 2026
At the start of the week, I was worried I’d have to acknowledge subtly that by far the biggest story among botanists was the shootings in Minnesota, before moving on to the botany. But whoever’s in charge at the White House has changed that.
This week I’m making a note of the UK Plant Biomechanics Workshop. The abstract submission deadline is coming up on February 13. The conference itself will be on April 17. The other date I have on my mind is January 25, which is a big Celtic day, though there’s no agreement on how to celebrate it.
For the Scots, it’s Burns Night and the celebration will involve offal stuffed in a sheep’s stomach. For the Welsh, it’s Dydd Santes Dwynwen. Dwynwen was the local equivalent of Saint Valentine, so it’s a night of chocolates, fine wine and romance. And this is why it’s important to date the right kind of Celt.
There will 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
The Buzz Behind Your Favourite Morning Aroma
Nothing like the smell of fresh coffee in the morning. According to science, we might want to thank the bees for it.
Pitcher Plants Fine-Tune Their Deadly Pools for Maximum Carnivory
Carnivorous pitcher plants actively regulate their digestive fluid levels to maintain the perfect trap, not too full and not too empty, scientists discover.
Cannabinoids Beyond Cannabis: The Hidden Potential of Liverworts
Liverworts are emerging as unexpected sources of cannabinoid-like compounds with promising anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects.
…and last’s week’s Week in Botany with drama, isolation, disappearance and more.
News & Views
National Eucalypt Day
Celebrated annually on March 23rd, National Eucalypt Day features the Eucalypt of the Year poll entering its 8th year in 2025, events around the country, and the awarding of the prestigious Bjarne K Dahl medal.
Dandelion identification
Everyone knows what a dandelion looks like, but did you know that there are around 250 species of dandelion recorded in Britain & Ireland?
Taxonomy: What is it good for? - Sandra Knapp
Please join us for the first lecture in ASPT's special webinar series, "Taxonomy: What is it good for?", featuring Dr. Sandra Knapp (Natural History Museum, London). February 6. (FREE)
How a Fungus Leads to Tissue Growths in Maize
A University of Bonn study has shown how a maize pest is hijacking the plant’s root-building function.
Science (all of it) peaked in 2021
An ecologist friend* noticed that the annual number of times he’s been cited grew throughout his career up until 2021, when it peaked. It then declined for a couple of years straight. Then it started growing again, but has yet to return to its 2021 peak.
Plant Discovery Could Lead To New Ways Of Producing Medicines
Scientists have shown how plants produce powerful natural chemicals that could help in the production of new medicines in more environmentally friendly ways.
How to lead a journal club you won’t be embarrassed by later
As a grad student and postdoc, I took part in, and led, quite a few journal club meetings. I’m pretty embarrassed by them now, and I don’t think I’m alone. If you’re part of a journal club (even more, if you’re leading one), perhaps my experience can help you avoid sharing my embarrassment.
Plants light up your life (and night…)
There is a section in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s travels which tells of a man who “had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers”. That observation was apparently aimed at the folly of “impractical scientific endeavors, mocking the Royal Society and the pursuit of knowledge without utility”. However, as impractical as it may have seemed at the time, the 21st century study of Shuting Liu et al. (2025) appears to come close to realising that ambition.
University bands together to fight creeping threat near campus: 'Nobody else is going to do it'
A Michigan State University botanical technologist and graduate student has galvanized a group to manage the area's problem plants.
Plant Believed Extinct For Half A Century Suddenly Found In Unexpected Spot
A plant long presumed extinct in the wild has been rediscovered in Australia, ending nearly six decades without a confirmed sighting.
Plants Can Talk to Each Other When They Touch, and It Makes Them Stronger
Loner plants don’t fare as well, which is probably a good takeaway for us humans.
This Week in Botany
5 Years Ago: What plant is that? Testing out automated plant identification apps
10 Years Ago: Noble plant wins Nobel Prize!
15 Years Ago: Drowning in the data or the calm before the genome sequence storm? #PAG
Scientific Papers
An in planta single-cell screen to accelerate functional genetics (FREE)
Lowensohn et al report a single-cell screening platform, PIVOT (Protoplast Isolation after Virus Overexpression in planTa), to accelerate identification and functional characterization of plant genes.
A novel pathosystem between Aeschynomene evenia and Aphanomyces euteiches reveals new immune components in quantitative legume root-rot resistance. (FREE)
Legumes are pivotal for sustainable agriculture, yet their productivity is hindered by soilborne pathogens such as Aphanomyces euteiches. This study introduces Aeschynomene evenia as a novel model to investigate legume immunity and its interplay with Nod factor-independent symbiosis (NFIS).
Virulence on Pm4 kinase-based resistance is determined by two divergent wheat powdery mildew effectors (FREE)
The wheat resistance gene Pm4 encodes a kinase fusion protein and has gained particular attention as it confers race-specific resistance against two major wheat pathogens: powdery mildew and blast. Bernasconi et al describe the identification of AvrPm4, the mildew avirulence effector recognized by Pm4, using UV mutagenesis, and its functional validation in wheat protoplasts. They show that AvrPm4 directly interacts with and is phosphorylated by Pm4.
A new occurrence of saprotrophic oomycetes from the ca 307–303 million-years-old Grand’Croix Chert (Massif Central, France), (FREE)
Strullu-Derrien et al report Kamounia striata gen. et sp. nov., based on exquisitely preserved fossil oogonia and antheridia from samples housed in the collections of the Paris and Stockholm natural history museums. The fossil is interpreted as saprotrophic on dead plant remains. It was studied and reconstructed three-dimensionally using confocal laser scanning microscopy and imaging software.
Parallel evolution of plant alkaloid biosynthesis from bacterial-like decarboxylases (FREE)
Wood et al used transcriptomics and enzyme characterisation, including mutagenesis and isotope labelling, to identify the enzyme catalysing the nonsymmetric lysine incorporation step of securinine biosynthesis in Flueggea suffruticosa. They then used phylogenetics to expand the investigation across plants and identified orthologs from Nicotiana tabacum and Artemisia annua.
A multi-plant transcriptomic atlas reveals conserved and lineage specific defense architectures in response to Botrytis cinerea (FREE)
Singh et al employed a large-scale co-transcriptomic approach to map the immune landscape of ten diverse eudicot species infected with 72 genetically distinct Botrytis cinerea isolates. They identified a limited core of evolutionarily conserved defense orthologs, along with a vast landscape of lineage-specific transcriptional rewiring.
Rangewide responses of Mimulus cardinalis to an extreme heat event (FREE)
Albano et al exposed plants originating from seeds that were harvested before (ancestors) and after (descendants) multiple extreme heat events from six populations across the range of Mimulus cardinalis (Phyrmaceae) to a short-term heat-wave treatment in controlled growth chamber environments. They assessed physiological, performance, and functional responses (stomatal conductance, leaf temperature deficit, photosystem II efficiency, relative growth rate, specific leaf area, and leaf dry matter content) to the heat-wave treatment, along with evolutionary responses (differences between ancestors and descendants) of M. cardinalis populations to the recent natural extreme heat event.
The Marchantia polymorpha pangenome reveals ancient mechanisms of plant adaptation to the environment (FREE)
Beaulieu et al gathered a collection of 133 accessions of the model bryophyte Marchantia polymorpha and studied its intraspecific diversity using selection signature analyses, a genome–environment association study and a pangenome. They identified adaptive features, such as peroxidases or nucleotide-binding and leucine-rich repeats (NLRs), also observed in flowering plants, likely inherited from the first land plants.
Initiation of asexual reproduction by the AP2/ERF gene GEMMIFER in Marchantia polymorpha (FREE)
Takahashi et al report an AP2/ERF family gene, GEMMIFER (MpGMFR), as a key regulator of asexual reproduction in M. polymorpha. Suppression of MpGMFR function using genome editing and amiRNA results in the loss of gemma and gemma cup formation.
Beyond species means – the intraspecific contribution to global wood density variation (FREE)
Wood density is central for estimating vegetation carbon storage and a plant functional trait of great ecological and evolutionary importance. However, the global extent of wood density variation is unclear, especially at the intraspecific level. Fischer et al assembled the most comprehensive wood density collection to date, including 109 626 records from 16 829 plant species across woody life forms and biomes.
Soil biodiversity effects on ecosystems ($)
Eisenhauer et al highlight progress in the field, discuss the approaches and methodological advances that have enabled this progress, and identify emerging research questions. Although the spatiotemporal patterns and community dynamics of soil communities are becoming well understood, topics with important knowledge gaps include the climate feedback effects of soils, the ecology of urban soils and the development of soil health indicators.
Read free via ReadCube: https://rdcu.be/eZBgA
In AoBC Publications
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.
PhD, Exploring patterns and mechanisms that affect range shifts in the tropical mountain cloudbase zone, Liverpool
In this project, we will use multiple approaches (plant transplants, herbivory monitoring and remote sensing) to characterise the tropical montane forest ecotonal transition and understand the potential mechanisms involved in the success or failure of tree species altitudinal migration.
Postdoctoral Researcher (Carella Group), Norwich
Working as part of a team led by Phil Carella, you will perform key experiments aimed at identifying and understanding virulence processes enabling broad host infection of Pseudomonas phytopathogens in divergent land plants like the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha.
PhD, high-resolution modelling of past warmer climates, Amsterdam
This PhD project is one of two within PAST. As a PhD candidate your goal is to conduct new climate model simulations of the Last Interglacial, with a state-of-the-art climate model (CESM). From these results, you analyse patterns of Atlantic storminess. The Last Interglacial is the most recent climate that was warmer than the present in the Northern Hemisphere. This makes it a unique analogue of the warmer climate of the coming decades. As a researcher in PAST, you execute model simulations at very high resolution on the Dutch supercomputer Snellius. This is novel research for this paleoclimate. Your key challenge is to design and implement a clever set of simulations. This will systematically address the key sources of uncertainty regarding climate and storminess in the Northern Hemisphere during the Last Interglacial. For this, you leverage the most recent knowledge about this paleoclimate, and collaborate with leading international climate researchers at Utrecht University (NL) and at NCAR (USA).
PhD Position in Root Interactions with Suberin-Inducing Microbes, Utrecht
Root suberization is a promising example of a multi-stress protection trait. Suberin can protect a plant from losing water during drought, oxygen deprivation during flooding, salt uptake from saline soils and pathogens from entering roots. We recently discovered that root suberization can be induced by certain soil-borne microbes. This project aims to understand molecular mechanism underlaying plant interactions with this novel class of microbes. This knowledge will help us understand how to fine-tune suberization patterns for optimal crops stress protection.
Principal Scientist Research Technology Genomics - BASF, Haelen
The purpose of this position is to lead and coordinate genomic research and innovation to uncover the molecular basis of desirable traits in vegetable crops, and to apply advanced genomic tools, including genome editing—to create novel genetic variation that drives measurable trait gains. This role sets the strategic and technical direction for gene discovery and genome-editing programs, aligns genomic capabilities with breeding and trait-discovery needs, and prioritizes new technology platforms to maximize scientific impact and ROI.
PhD student in Lichen Biology, Stockholm
A PhD position is available at the laboratory of Gulnara Tagirdzhanova. The project focuses on the biology of lichen symbiosis. The goal of the project is to elucidate interaction between the organisms that constitute a lichen thallus. The project will rely on bioinformatics, microscopy, and molecular biology techniques. Research will be carried out in SciLifeLab Campus Solna and DEEP.
Research manager for plant growth facilities and microscopy, Basel
The successful candidate will be responsible for the technical management of the group's plant growth facilities, indoor and outdoor, and introduce students and group members to plant crossbreeding, plant cultivation, and measurement of mainly image-based phenotypic characteristics in quantitative genetics settings. They will be responsible for the management of group-owned microscopes with camera systems and give introductions to their use. In addition, they are expected to collaborate closely with the group members in project design, data collection and analysis, and finally be part of the group's team-teaching activities.
Phylogenomics Botanist, Sydney
Are you passionate about plant evolution and systematics? In this role, you’ll lead the analysis of novel phylogenomic data, collaborating with top scientists to build the NSW Plant Tree of Life and answer big questions about plant groups and floras. You’ll coordinate sampling, drive research outcomes, and share your discoveries through publications and presentations. Expect to work closely with internal and external experts, manage project data, and help position the Gardens as a leader in plant phylogenomics.
Writers in Residence: Expressions of Interest, Australia
Each writer will receive a $15,000 stipend to support the residency, with dedicated workspaces available at Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan or Blue Mountains Botanic Garden Mount Tomah.
