🌻 The Week in Botany July 8, 2024
I’m back from my break, and feel I need another one to get over it. Ventnor Botanic Garden was interesting. I think the complaints that the management is rewilding the site are a little simplistic, but there are some issues I’ll want to read more about.
That means I doubt I’ll have a quick blog post written about my visit for this week. But at the same time next week, there’ll be another email of what you’re sharing on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky etc, to keep up with what’s been happening in Botany next week. Until then, take care.
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
On Botany One
Rosy Isaias: “Plant Biology is fascinating and has mysteries and challenges yet to be discovered”
Botany One interviews Dr. Rosy M. S Isaias to learn more about her passion for galls and their interactions with their host plants.
News & Views
Want a landscape that will outlast climate change? Plant these Ice Age survivors
Paleobotanist Jessie George and her colleagues think we can learn a lot about managing today’s climate change by studying the plants that survived the last one.
Botanist Fears Rare Plant Deaths in Torrey Pines Brush Fire
Jon Rebman is almost too scared to learn to what extent a brush fire wiped out rare and native plants when Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve Extension caught fire last week.
Japan’s scientists demand more money for basic science
Petition representing hundreds of thousands of researchers in Japan calls for an increase in cash to boost competitiveness.
Pongamia trees grow where citrus once flourished, offering renewable energy and plant-based protein
An ancient tree from India is now thriving in groves where citrus trees once flourished in Florida, and could help provide the nation with renewable energy.
Egalitarian oddity found in the Neolithic
Men, women, and immigrants all seemed to have similar dietary inputs.
When chocolate goes viral
In this modern age, ‘going viral’ is supposedly a good thing. But, it’s not so good when it concerns infection of a plant with a virus.
Scientific Papers
Identifying genomic regions associated with C4 photosynthetic activity and leaf anatomy in Alloteropsis semialata (OA)
Alenazi et al perform a genome-wide association study (GWAS) using the grass Alloteropsis semialata, the only known species to have C3, intermediate, and C4 accessions that recently diverged. They aimed to identify genomic regions associated with the strength of the C4 cycle (measured using δ13C), and the development of C4 leaf anatomy.
The extremotolerant desert moss Syntrichia caninervis is a promising pioneer plant for colonizing extraterrestrial environments (OA)
Li et al report the extraordinary environmental resilience of Syntrichia caninervis, a desert moss that thrives in various extreme environments. S. caninervis has remarkable desiccation tolerance; even after losing >98% of its cellular water content, it can recover photosynthetic and physiological activities within seconds after rehydration.
Human degradation of tropical moist forests is greater than previously estimated (OA)
Bourgoin et al quantify the magnitude and persistence of multiple types of degradation on forest structure by combining satellite remote sensing data on pantropical moist forest cover changes with estimates of canopy height and biomass from spaceborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR). They estimate that forest height decreases owing to selective logging and fire by 15% and 50%, respectively, with low rates of recovery even after 20 years.
A recircumscription of Geocharis (Zingiberaceae) as a result of the discovery of a new species in Sumatra, Indonesia (OA)
Recent fieldwork conducted in Sumatra resulted in unusual collections of the conspicuous ginger genus Geocharis, a genus that harbours a total of six species distributed in Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, Borneo and the Philippines. After carefully reviewing types and protologues of existing taxa, Nurainas et al conclude that the recent collections represent a new species described here as Geocharis globosa, which is similar to G. aurantiaca, G. rubra and G. radicalis by the flowers spreading evenly in all directions but differs from these by the less divided labellum and by the unstructured and smooth globose fruits.
Land in limbo: Nearly one third of Indonesia’s cleared old-growth forests left idle (OA)
Parket 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, they tracked degradation and clearing events in intact and degraded natural forests from 1991 to 2020, as well as land use trajectories after forest loss.
Stipules in angiosperms (OA)
Stipules are generally regarded as the outgrowths of the leaf base in angiosperms. Ye et al briefly summarize past research and aim to clarify the occurrence, location, and morphology of stipules in the families recognized by APG IV and reconstruct their ancestral states.
Ectomycorrhizal fungi of Douglas-fir retain newly assimilated carbon derived from neighboring European beech (OA)
Audisio et al used potted sapling pairs of European beech (Fagus sylvatica) and North-American Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) for 13CO2 pulse-labeling. They compared 13C transfer from beech (donor) to either beech or Douglas-fir (recipient) and identified the ECM species. They measured the 13C enrichment in soil, plant tissues, and ECM fractions of fungal-containing parts and plant transport tissues.
Guidelines for designing and interpreting drought experiments in controlled conditions (OA)
Journal of Experimental Botany (JXB) editors, often receive manuscripts on drought tolerance and plant responses to water deficit. Moshelion et al have observed that the quality of research in this field frequently suffers from flawed experimental designs, inconsistent terminology, overinterpretation of data, or unrealistic lab-to-field extrapolations. To tackle these challenges, the JXB Editorial Board established a working group to guide better experiment design, data interpretation, and reporting of results, focusing on experiments performed in supposedly ‘controlled conditions’.
Target of rapamycin (TOR) regulates CURLY LEAF (CLF) translation in response to environmental stimuli (OA)
This study sheds light on how TOR fine-tunes CLF protein levels by promoting translation re-initiation mediated by eIF3h. Dong et al found that the second upstream open reading frame (uORF) located in the 5’ leader region of the CLF transcript significantly represses its translation (by 50%). RAPDs and noncoding chloroplast DNA reveal a single origin of the cultivated Allium fistulosum from A. altaicum (Alliaceae).
In AoBC Publications
Careers
Specialist Technician, Essex
The University of Essex is looking to recruit a highly motivated and organised individual to work with Dr Philippe Laissue and Prof Phil Mullineaux on an exciting project looking at plant signaling. The successful applicant will play a central role in the project and should have outstanding commitment and good abilities for lab-based research.
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Oxford
We seek an enthusiastic new colleague who has extensive experience in molecular cloning, protein expression and purification, and who is keen to collaborate in an interdisciplinary research team.
Assistant professor in legume genetics, Aarhus
We are seeking an assistant professor to develop an innovative research program in legume genetics with a focus on developing statistical and quantitative modeling approaches to genomic and phenomic data and apply these models for understanding the genetic mechanisms underlying variation in agronomic traits, including but not limited to adaptation and productivity as well as to apply these models for predictive breeding to accelerate development of improved varieties.
Assistant professor in Barley New Genomic Techniques, Aarhus
You will be part of a research environment focusing on genomics and biotechnology in crops. You will be contributing to specifically the area of gene editing in different barley varieties. You will work experimentally in an already established laboratory environment for CRISPR/Cas editing in crop plants. Your project aims to generate climate change resilient barley, genetically equipped to optimized root-microbiome interactions and drought resistance.
Assistant Professor, New York
The School of Integrative Plant Science (SIPS) in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) at Cornell University invites applications for a tenure-track position in Crop Physiology (Controlled Environment Agriculture; CEA) at the Assistant Professor level.
Post Doctoral Research Fellow Weed Management, North Dakota
The North Central Research Extension Center at North Dakota State University State University is seeking a motivated and dedicated postdoctoral fellow to join our research team. This position focuses on applied weed management in crop production. The successful candidate will work on innovative research projects aimed at developing and implementing advanced weed management strategies to improve the sustainability and productivity of North Dakota crops.
Research Scholar, North Carolina
The Research Scholar will conduct independent and original research on advanced molecular diagnostics for plant pathogens of regulatory concern to American agriculture and landscapes (including fungi, oomycetes, bacteria, viruses, and nematodes) under the general guidance of a Senior Scientist.
Assistant or Associate Professor of Plant and Soil Sciences, Kentucky
This position will develop a visionary research program focused on plant reproduction. The successful applicant will demonstrate the ability to apply modern plant physiology, biochemistry, biophysics, and/or molecular genetics/genomics techniques to studies of plant reproduction (e.g., flowering, meiosis and gametophyte development, pollen biology, apomixis, doubled haploid formation, seed and fruit biology, seed dormancy, seed and seedling vigor, epigenetics, or evolution).
Assistant or Associate Professor of Microbiology, Tennessee
The Department of Microbiology at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville is seeking candidates for a tenure-track faculty appointment at the Assistant or Associate Professor level using molecular, genetic, biochemical, 'omics, mathematical modeling and/or cell biology approaches to study microbes (prokaryotic, eukaryotic, or viral) associated with plants.