🌻 The Week in Botany January 20, 2025
This week I’ll be thinking about setting up a schedule for the stories we cover in brief. Ideally we’ll cover a wide breadth of botany stories, but it would be easy to focus on a few fields. This week has been a pollinator-heavy week this week, and it would be easy to cover pollination every day of the week. It might be there’s an informal schedule of molecules on Monday, climate Fryday and so on.
The other change I need to write up is that we’re dropping Threads from our default networks. I won’t deny the decision was made a lot easier by the fact that if I didn't mention it, then it’s unlikely you’d notice, even if you are on Threads.
There will be another email of the papers you’re sharing on Mastodon, Bluesky, and Twitter next week. Until next week, take care.
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
On Botany One
Teaching Botany: a deep dive into plant pigments in crops
Struggling to make a smelly onion or an unripe pepper exciting for your biology students? Grab a simple optical microscope and transform boredom into curiosity! You will discover the vibrant colour palette of plant pigments hidden in food crops we eat every day.
What Is the Future of Plant Biology Teaching?
Plant Educators from the UK and beyond got together in Lancaster at the start of the month to discuss what’s going wrong and what’s going right in plant biology education. They found a lot of both.
News & Views
Did you know you can buy invasive plants in garden centres?
Cherry laurel, montbretia and the butterfly bush can impact biodiversity.
California couple fined $165,000 for damaging rare Central Coast flower habitat
The couple's grading activities damaged one of the few habitats of the ultrarare Pismo clarkia flower, which is listed as endangered and is found only in about 24 locations throughout San Luis Obispo County, according to the announcement from Dow’s office.
‬France-Japan "Frontiers in Plant Biology" 2025
The international research network (IRN) France-Japan "Frontiers in Plant Biology" gathers seasoned and young investigators who are eager to continuously structure and reinforce the collaborative research between multidisciplinary groups. This initiative fosters the exchange of ideas and cutting-edge experimental approaches in basic and applied plant biology.
@huguesrenault.bsky.social‬
Dreaming of spring gardening? Bees and other pollinators like a variety of flowers
To design a garden that supports the greatest number and diversity of pollinators, don’t worry about what your neighbors are doing or not doing. Just focus on planting different kinds of flowers – and lots of them.
Medieval wassail to bless Sherwood Forest trees
The Anglo Saxon wassail was, traditionally, a way to wish for a healthy forest and a good harvest to come - and is often associated with cider orchards as a result.
Molecular biology and the internet have had no effect on the rate of plant species discovery
The title is somewhat clickbaity but probably correct.
@aveneziano.bsky.social‬
The playful trend of “chaos gardening”
It’s time to tear up the horticultural rulebook and indulge in curiosity.
Snakes and spiders slipping into country in flowers and plants
Rising temperatures could see more pests introduced on increasingly tropical plants.
Tomatoes roaming the fields and canaries in the coalmine: another embarrassing paper for MDPI
Many publishers are getting nervous about infiltration by paper mills, who can torpedo a journal's reputation when they succeed in publishing papers that are obvious nonsense. In a recent Open Letter, a group of sleuths drew attention to an example in Scientific Reports, published by Springer Nature.
Exploring the Evolutionary Roots of Oaks
Nigel Chaffey reviews Oak origins: From acorns to species and the tree of life by Andrew L Hipp.
Scientific Papers
Anomalous Warm Temperatures Recorded Using Tree Rings in the Headwater of the Jinsha River during the Little Ice Age (FREE)
As a feature of global warming, climate change has been a severe issue in the 21st century. A more comprehensive reconstruction is necessary in the climate assessment process, considering the heterogeneity of climate change scenarios across various meteorological elements and seasons. To better comprehend the change in minimum temperature in winter in the Jinsha River Basin (China), we built a standard tree-ring chronology from Picea likiangensis var. balfouri and reconstructed the regional mean minimum temperature of the winter half-years from 1606 to 2016.
♻️ Insensitivity to Ethylene Conferred by a Dominant Mutation in Arabidopsis thaliana ($)
Bleecker et al investigated the molecular basis for the action of ethylene in mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana that have altered responses to ethylene. One mutant line, which has a dominant mutation at a locus designated etr, lacks a number of responses to ethylene that are present in the wild-type plant.
@somssich.bsky.social‬
Autoactive CNGC15 enhances root endosymbiosis in legume and wheat (FREE)
Cook et al discovered an autoactive CNGC15 mutant that generates spontaneous low-frequency Ca2+ oscillations. While CNGC15 produces nuclear Ca2+ oscillations via a gating mechanism involving its helix 1, DMI1 acts as a pacemaker to specify the frequency of the oscillations.
Systems Biology of Streptophyte Cell Evolution ($)
Goldbecker & de Vries make the case that streptophyte algae are unique organisms for understanding the systems biology of the streptophyte cell, informing on not only the origin of embryophytes but also their fundamental biology.
@jandevries.bsky.social‬
A single pathogen-secreted protein reprograms plants for drought resilience (FREE)
Subieta et al identified a secreted Verticilliumprotein, TRANSDIFFERENTIATION EFFECTOR (TRADE), which triggers cell identity switches of bundle sheath cells into tracheary elements. They show that TRADE interacts with the intracellular plant protein VARICOSE (VCS), a conserved component of the mRNA turnover machinery and ortholog of the metazoan protein ENHANCER OF DECAPPING 4 (EDC4/HEDLS/Ge-1).
Subordinate tree species diversity explains carbon stock better than dominant tree diversity after decades of forest rewilding ($)
Zhai et al conducted a standardized field survey to investigate how subordinate (i.e. rarer) and dominant (i.e. more common) tree species diversity (determined based on basal area) correlate with multiple aspects of soil C stocks (i.e. total soil C stock, dissolved organic C, microbial residue C, and microbial respiration) after 31 years of the establishment of a forest plantation in a subtropical ecosystem.
Tropical forest clearance impacts biodiversity and function, whereas logging changes structure (FREE)
Tropical forests are highly diverse but are vulnerable to tree harvesting for timber and forest clearing for agriculture. Marsh et al. studied how logging affects tropical forests using a standardized, replicated design across a gradient of land-use intensity in Borneo.
Antimicrobial metabolites of Bacillus velezensis FZB42 reshape rice rhizosphere microbial community composition and induce host resistance against Rhizoctonia solani (FREE)
Ali et al evaluated the effect of a biocontrol bacterium Bacillus velezensis FZB42, its mutants for fengycin AK2 (ΔfenA), surfactin CH01 (ΔsrfA), and bacillomycin D AK1 (ΔbmyA) and purified metabolites fengycin (Fin), surfactin (Sin), and bacillomycin D (Bin) on induced systemic resistance in rice against Rhizoctonia solani and rhizospheric soil bacterial and fungal communities using amplicon sequencing.
@evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social‬
The fastest-growing and most destructive fires in the US (2001 to 2020) ($)
The most dangerous wildfires are the ones that move and spread quickly. Balch et al. used satellite data to show that the growth rate of wildfires across the contiguous US increased substantially between 2001 and 2020, particularly throughout the West and in parts of the East.
Fine root endophytes forming winter mycorrhiza (FREE)
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, classified in the subphylum Glomeromycotina, are obligate symbionts that depend on photosynthetic products from plants. There is substantial evidence that AMF support plant and crop growth in natural and agricultural ecosystems. Fine root endophytes (FRE) also co-occur in plant roots with AMF in all but tropical environments. However, their presence remains poorly recognized, and their lifestyle and functionality remain largely unknown. Sentoku et al demonstrate that, in contrast to AMF, FRE colonize plants during the winter season, when photosynthesis is more challenging.
In AoBC Publications
Black in Plant Science Summer Studentship 2025
The BiPS Summer Studentship aims to encourage students to consider a career in plant sciences by providing funding to support paid summer placements for Black undergraduate students.
These Studentships will address the lack of Black and Black heritage researchers in the UK plant science community.
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.
Postdoctoral Researcher, Norwich
An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Postdoctoral Researcher to join the Dodd Group at the John Innes Centre, working interactions between circadian programs in Bacillus subtilis and plants.
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Edinburgh
We are looking for a talented and enthusiastic Postdoctoral Scientist to join the Ahn lab to explore biochemical methods to identify novel immune receptors activated during pathogen infection in plants. You will apply biochemical techniques regarding protein-protein interaction, ideally including structural biology analyses. You will join Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences (IMPS) at the University of Edinburgh, which is a vibrant scientific community within an exciting and beautiful city.
Training Officer – Northern Ireland Botanical Skills Project, Belfast
An exciting opportunity has arisen to become the Training Officer for our DAERA-funded Botanical Skills Training Project in Northern Ireland. The post holder will support the delivery of the remaining three years of our multi-strand, collaborative programme of botanical training and recording in Northern Ireland, increase participation and coverage for the National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS) in NI, and improve quantity and quality of data and flow of plant records.
Postdoctoral scholarship (2 years) within Plant Developmental Biology, UmeĂĄ
The postdoctoral scholarship will be placed at the Department of Plant Physiology (Umeå University), that is part of Umeå Plant Science Centre. We seek a highly motivated candidate for the project “Understanding the Role of the CSN5B subunit during Adventitious Root Development” in Professor Catherine Bellini's research group.
Postdoctoral fellowship to work with climate modelling, UmeĂĄ
A 2-year postdoctoral stipend funded by Kempestiftelserna is available in M Rosario GarcĂa-Gil's research group at UmeĂĄ Plant Science Centre (UPSC). The postdoc is going to be placed at the Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, that is part of UPSC.
Horticultural Weed Scientist, Washington
The Department of Crop and Soil Sciences (CSS) within the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resources Sciences (CAHNRS) at Washington State University (WSU) is seeking a motivated and problem-solving researcher, instructor and extension specialist to join a team of scientists and extension experts in multiple disciplines, including plant pathology, horticulture, soil science, entomology, and plant breeding. This career-track, assistant professor rank faculty position is a nine-month academic year appointment. In addition to the academic appointment salary, the successful candidate will be expected to work and will receive salary for two additional months for research, extension, and administrative expectations.
Postdoctoral Research Scholar, North Carolina
We are seeking a highly motivated and qualified Postdoctoral Research Scholar to join our cutting-edge research team in high-throughput plant phenotyping and crop modeling. The position will be mentored by Dr. Frank Bai at the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and will collaborate with an interdisciplinary team of experts in instrumentation, remote sensing, plant science, and agricultural engineering.
Postdoctoral Scholar - Assmann Lab, Pennsylvania
A Postdoctoral Scholar position is available at The Pennsylvania State University to study impacts of genome variation on climate resilience in rice under the supervision of Professor Sarah M. (Sally) Assmann (Department of Biology). Our research employs rice to study plant responses to abiotic stresses at levels ranging from molecular mechanisms to whole plant physiology to field performance.