š» The Week in Botany, July 15, 2024
Weāre getting ready for IBC XX, which starts in Madrid next week. I say we, Michela and Carlos are the Botany One editors going to Madrid. I get to stay at home. Iām sure Madridās lovely, particularly after this weekās well-deserved win in Berlin. But I donāt cope well with heat, and Madrid in late July seemed like a bad idea.
Iām putting together a page on Botany One tracking what people are doing during the conference. Itās work in progress and some errors will need removing, but there should be a diary saying what is happening today and tomorrow, and a link to a Bluesky feed following the #ibc2024 hashtag. Iāve set it up for Bluesky as Twitter is probably busy but not reliable, and Mastodon is too decentralised for me to do this without getting a headache.
If you want to sign up to Bluesky, this link will have some suggestions of accounts and feeds to follow. But if you donāt want to, there will still be an email of the botanical items youāre sharing on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky and Threads, next week. Until then, take care.
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
News & Views
Seeking a simpler life, he built an urban homestead. Now his family keeps it growing
In 1984, a determined back-to-earther named Jules Dervaes Jr. brought his wife and children from a 10-acre farm in rural Florida to study theology in Pasadena but ultimately decided on a different ministry: creating a self-sufficient urban farm on a rundown residential property less than a block from the 210 freeway.
Scientists discover new plant species that could lead to 'climate proof' chocolate
In recent years, climate scientists have said chocolate, along with other items such as coffee and bananas, may become precious commodities only afforded by the wealthy in the future because of the vulnerability to climate change of the crops from which they are derived.
Gene Drives Shown to Work in Wild Plants. They Could Wipe Out Weeds.
Henry Grabar has had enough battling knotweed. All he wanted was to build a small garden in Brooklynāa bit of peace amid the cacophony of city life. But a plant with beet-red leaves soon took over his nascent garden. The fastest growing plant heād ever seen, it could sprout up to 10 feet high and grow thick as a cornfield. Even with herbicide, it was nearly impossible to kill.
āGive nature space and it will come backā: rewilding returns endangered species to UKās south coast
Walking a 100-mile stretch of coastline reveals how a pioneering project is transforming the seascape, rivers and land.
Florida: tree cactus becomes first local species killed off by sea-level rise
Key Largo tree cactus no longer growing naturally in US thanks to salt water inundation and soil depletion.
Read all about it: Paper gets better!
Nigel Chaffey on innovations in making Japanese paper.
Smell that? A rare corpse flower is about to bloom at the Huntington
Itās sweaty stinky time again at the Huntington Library, Art Gallery, and Botanical Gardens. One of its rare corpse flowers is about to bloom, in all its putrescence.
Scientific Papers
Ectomycorrhizal fungi of Douglas-fir retain newly assimilated carbon derived from neighboring European beech (OA)
Audisio et alās results support that recently assimilated C transferred belowground is shared among fungi colonizing tree roots but not among trees. In mixed forests with beech and Douglas-fir, the links for C movement might be hampered due to low mycorrhizal overlap with consequences for soil C cycling.
Converting farmlands to forests or forests to farmlands? (OA)
Ren et al discuss Chinaās Grain for Green Program.
Albedo of crops as a nature-based climate solution to global warming (OA)
Lei et al conducted seasonal measurements of surface reflectivity during five growing seasons on annual crops of corn-soybeanāwinter wheat (Zea mays L.- Glycine max L. Merrill - Triticum aestivum L.; CSW) rotations at three agronomic intensities, a monoculture of perennial switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), and perennial polycultures of early successional and restored prairie grasslands.
Land in limbo: Nearly one third of Indonesiaās cleared old-growth forests left idle (OA)
Parker et al. examined the fates of Indonesian deforested areas, immediately after clearing and over time, to quantify deforestation drivers in Indonesia. Using time-series satellite data, we tracked degradation and clearing events in intact and degraded natural forests from 1991 to 2020, as well as land use trajectories after forest loss.
First U.S. vascular plant extirpation linked to sea level rise? Pilosocereus millspaughii (Cactaceae) in the Florida Keys, U.S.A. (OA)
The Florida Keys represent a hotspot for cactus diversity in the eastern United States, with eight species recognized, three of which are endemic to the islands. Though not endemic to the islands, the Key Largo tree cactus (Pilosocereus millspaughii) was known in the United States from only a single population in the Florida Keys. Its decline and imminent extirpation correspond with rising sea levels in the region.
Biodiversity loss reduces global terrestrial carbon storage (OA)
Weiskopf et al. assess the consequences of plant biodiversity loss for carbon storage under multiple climate and land-use change scenarios. They link a macroecological model projecting changes in vascular plant richness under different scenarios with empirical data on relationships between biodiversity and biomass.
Morphometrics and Phylogenomics of Coca (Erythroxylum spp.) Illuminate Its Reticulate Evolution, With Implications for Taxonomy (OA)
Przelomska et al. analyze the consistency of the current naming system of coca and its four closest wild relatives (the ācoca cladeā), using morphometrics, phylogenomics, molecular clocks, and population genomics. They include name-bearing type specimens of coca's closest wild relatives E. gracilipes and E. cataractarum. Morphometrics of 342 digitized herbarium specimens show that leaf shape and size fail to reliably discriminate between species and varieties.
Mapping the natural disturbance risk to protective forests across the European Alps (OA)
Forests are currently experiencing an increasing rate of natural disturbances (including windthrows, bark beetle outbreaks and forest fires) that may jeopardize their capacity to provide this ecosystem service in the future. Stritih et al mapped the risk to forestsā protective service across the European Alps by integrating the risk components of hazard (in this case, the probability of a disturbance occurring), exposure (the proportion of forests that protect people or infrastructure), and vulnerability (the probability that the forests lose their protective structure after a disturbance).
A cyclic lipopeptide from Fusarium graminearum targets plant membranes to promote virulence (OA)
Brauer et al show that gramillin promotes virulence and necrosis in both monocots and dicots by disrupting ion balance across membranes. Gramillin is a cation-conducting ionophore and causes plasma membrane depolarization. This disruption triggers cellular signaling, including a burst of reactive oxygen species (ROS), transcriptional reprogramming, and callose production.
Cell size, density, and nutrient dependency of unicellular algal gravitational sinking velocities (OA)
Miettinen et al quantify gravitational sinking velocities according to Stokesā law in diverse clades of unicellular marine microalgae to reveal the cell size, density, and nutrient dependency of sinking velocities. They identify a motile algal species, Tetraselmis sp., that sinks faster when starved due to a photosynthesis-driven accumulation of carbohydrates and a loss of intracellular water, both of which increase cell density.
In AoBC Publications
Careers
Lecturer in Production Horticulture, Melbourne
Looking for someone to work closely with first-year faculty to teach foundational science and interdisciplinary courses, while preparing and delivering various instructional formats. Conduct internationally competitive research in production horticulture, and actively participate in School meetings, planning activities, and committee work to support capacity building.
Lecturer in Urban Horticulture (Multiple Opportunities), Melbourne
The School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences at the University of Melbourne is seeking two academics to join the urban horticulture team. One role focuses on education and would entail the development and delivery of initiatives in either community food production, urban greening, garden design and/or landscape design. The other role emphasises both education and research equally, with responsibilities that would include teaching of a similar range of initiatives, whilst also establishing an urban horticultural research program, and collaborating on projects with external partners.
Research Associate - Digital, Kew
We are looking for early career researchers (e.g. Masters program graduates) with strong software skills or software developers with an interest in research software engineering. You will be data literate and curious. You will work with our researchers to understand their workflow and to augment their work with technology.
PhD Studentship: Guardians of the Green: Enhancing Forest Defence with Autonomous Technologies, Southampton
We aim to develop a low-cost decentralized intelligent automation technology, using a swarm of robots to automate the monitoring of our forests, allowing for a novel data stream of measurements at high spatial and temporal resolutions. This research area poses a number of challenges, particularly navigation in vegetated terrain, decentralized swarm coordination, data assimilation, and environment modelling. As such, the PhD project will be tailored to the skills and interests of the selected candidate.
Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Land Use and Forest Modelling, Edinburgh
To work on advancing global land-use and scenario modelling, covering forest outcomes and scenarios based on the IPBES Nature Futures Framework.
Associate Professor/Professor in Plant Sciences, Southampton
With expertise in plant biochemistry, physiology or developmental biology your research will address fundamental questions in the field, potentially addressing today's key societal challenges. You will join a growing team of researchers investigating areas from fundamental plant science to the interactions of plants with their environment.
Post Doc, Abu Dhabi
The Center for Genomics and Systems Biology (CGSB) at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) is seeking a motivated recent PhD graduate with excellent hands-on research in genomics or bioinformatics demonstrated by publications to join the Evolution of Pathogen Resistance in Plants research team and to work on host-parasite interactions in plants using diverse high-throughput datasets (WGS, WMS, metabolomics, and sc-RNA seq).
Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist, Alabama
The successful candidate will develop and maintain an impactful research and extension program focused on promoting the role of soil as an ecosystem that sustains crop production. This research and extension program has a long history of providing solutions for regenerative agricultural practices in Alabama using soil amendments, crop rotation, cover crops, and conservation tillage.
Postdoctoral Scholar Plant-Microbe Interactions, California
The Department of Plant & Microbial Biology at the University of California, Berkeley seeks applications for a Postdoctoral Employee in the Mary C Wildermuth Lab, in the area of Plant-Microbe Interactions. The Wildermuth Lab at UC Berkeley studies plant-microbe interactions interrogating both sides of the interaction to uncover fundamental processes that dictate the success of an adapted pathogen on a given host.
Post Doc Fellow, Arkansas
The University of Arkansas is seeking a highly motivated and skilled individual to join our team to research genomic selection approaches in rice breeding. This position is an exceptional opportunity to gain experience applying modern advanced plant breeding methods in a large public breeding program, leveraging multi-year and multi-location breeding data.
Jr. Specialist - Tian Lab, California
The Tian Lab in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis seeks to fill a full-time position at the Junior Specialist level starting Fall 2024/Winter 2025. This position is for one year, with the possibility of renewal pending funding availability. The successful candidate will be responsible for the molecular, biochemical, and physiological characterization of CRISPR/Cas9-edited wheat plants.
Associate in Oilseed Agronomy, Washington State
Responsible for management and coordination of the day-to-day administration of the CSS-led interdepartmental and cooperative Washington Oilseed Cropping Systems agriculture research and outreach programs, with a focus on management of small and large scale variety trials. Responsible for supervision of seasonal workers and students assigned to work at with the project; maintenance of shop and storage facilities. Requires intimate knowledge of and skills for operation of specialized equipment and instrumentation required for direct seed and precision agriculture research and extension functions, knowledge of field research methods, ability to analyze data using appropriate statistical analyses, and written and oral communication skills.
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Washington State
The Washington State University Small Fruit Horticulture program is recruiting a Postdoctoral Research Associate to conduct plant physiological research on freeze tolerance and mitigation in caneberry (i.e., blackberry and red raspberry). The position is fully funded for two years through the Washington State Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Grant program.
Assistant Professor - Plant Science, New York
The Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, Environmental and Plant Sciences at The State University of New York College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill (SUNY Cobleskill) invites applications for an Assistant Professor of Plant Science to begin January 2025. This position is a full-time, 10-month, tenure-track appointment.
Postdoctoral Associate - Goodale, New York
This position entails field work and laboratory-based research examining forest nitrogen dynamics over winter, how these processes will change with warming winters and reduced snowpacks, and how they compare to summer conditions. The primary focus of this position is to lead a cross-season isotopic tracer (15N) study of plant, soil and microbial processes at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.