The Week in Botany - March 22, 2021
Welcome to the first issue of The Week in Botany put together with Revue. It's a slightly different way of working so I've altered the format. The method of selecting the stories remains the same as before. A computer scans the stories shared by people following @BotanyOne on Twitter, and the top stories from each day are curated into the newsletter.
The header, this week, is cherry blossom because that's what I can see from my window. I'll change it next week and see if each week can have its own header - or if changing the header in one issue changes the header in all issues.
Another issue should be with you around the same time next week. Until then, take care,
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
Monday
There are more than seven hundred species of fig, and each one has its own species of wasp. When you eat a dried fig, you’re probably chewing wasp mummies, too.
Biotic homogenization destabilizes ecosystem functioning by decreasing spatial asynchrony
The negative effects of local biodiversity (α diversity) loss on ecosystem stability are well documented, the consequences of biodiversity changes at larger spatial scales, in particular biotic homogenization, i.e. reduced species turnover across space (β diversity), remain poorly known. Wang et al. examine the effects of β diversity on the stability of simulated landscapes while controlling for potentially confounding biotic and abiotic factors. Their results show that higher β diversity generates more asynchronous dynamics among local communities and thereby contributes to the stability of ecosystem productivity at larger spatial scales.
Gentiana hoae, a new alpine species on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau — www.botany.one Is hybridization a significant driver of plant speciation and endemism in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau?
Postdoctoral Position on interactions between flavonoids, strigolactones, and the maize microbiome
A postdoctoral position (up to four years) is available in the Ané lab (http://anelab.wisc.edu/) in the departments of Bacteriology and Agronomy at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
Tuesday
Historical angle important in centre-periphery approaches to species performance — www.botany.one Accounting for the historical range can help explain trait variation in some cases.
A single-cell analysis of the Arabidopsis vegetative shoot apex
Zhang et al. find that the shoot apex of Arabididopsis is composed of highly heterogeneous cells, which can be partitioned into 7 broad populations with 23 transcriptionally distinct cell clusters.
Richardson et al. present evidence that both co‐flowering species and isolation from mates substantially limit reproduction in Echinacea. Pollinators were most likely to visit Echinacea plants from low‐richness floral neighbourhoods with close potential mates, or plants from high‐richness neighbourhoods with distant potential mates.
How big is that tree? Estimations are tricky but Terrestrial Laser Scanning helps! — www.botany.one
New study uses laser scanning of urban trees for mathematical models.
The Great British Wildflower Hunt
UK charity Plantlife aims to get people out hunting for flowers this spring and summer.
Wednesday
Bentham et al. unravelled the biochemical and structural basis of adaptive evolution of APikL2, an exceptionally conserved paralog of the well-studied rice-lineage specific effector AVR-Pik. Whereas AVR-Pik and other members of the six-gene AVR-Pik family show specific patterns of presence/absence polymorphisms between grass-specific lineages of Magnaporthe oryzae, APikL2 stands out by being ubiquitously present in all blast fungus lineages from 13 different host species.
A new high-throughput method for building large phylogenies from herbarium samples — www.botany.one Herbaria are an under-used resource for large phylogenies.
The Amazement of Sandhof Lilies, Crinum paludosum — janemming.com
This post from 2019 got shared a lot. There are more photos if you follow the link.
Pandemic burnout is rampant in academia Remote working, research delays and childcare obligations are taking their toll on scientists, causing stress and anxiety.
Thursday
A hybridisation headache hinders control of invasive Prosopis species — www.botany.one Can large scale biogeographic studies provide insights into Prosopis genetic diversity, hybridisation and clarify taxonomic uncertainties?
Kriebel et al. present a morphometric analysis of corolla, anther connective, and style shape across 44% of nearly 1000 species of Salvia (Lamiaceae) and test four hypotheses of floral evolution. They demonstrate that floral morphospace of New World (NW) Salvia is largely distinct from that of Old World (OW) Salvia and that these differences are pollinator driven.
Kew Gardens director hits back at claims it is 'growing woke'
Richard Deverell says there is ‘no acceptable neutral position’ on history of colonialism and racism.
Which color scale to use when visualizing data Imagine you have a data set with the unemployment rate for each U.S. state for the last sixty years. What do you color by? That depends on what type of visualization you’re using (and which visualization type you need depends on what you want to communicate). Certain chart types nudge you to color by certain variables.
Root hairs more important than root exudate in rhizosheath formation — www.botany.one Exudates did bind soil to the roots, but were unable to compensate for the absence of root hairs.
Friday
Latorre and Burbano found that the same lineage responsible for the initial wheat blast outbreak in Bangladesh (2016) caused the wheat blast outbreak in Zambia (2018-2020).
Nature in the city: how to protect Perth’s Banksia woodlands? — www.botany.one
Concerned scientists have come together to identify key threats and research priorities for a Threatened Ecological Community in Western Australia.
Mahdi et al. demonstrate that the combined action of a fungal root endophyte from a widespread taxon with core bacterial microbiota members provides synergistic protection against an aggressive soil-borne pathogen in Arabidopsis thaliana and barley.
Evaluating yield components leads to yield improvement — www.botany.one Yield dissection models in tomato identify promising yield components and corresponding QTLs.
Underappreciated plant vulnerabilities to heat waves
Breshears et al. summarize recent findings related to heat wave impacts including: sub‐lethal and lethal effects at leaf and plant scales, secondary ecosystem effects, and more complex impacts such as increased heat wave frequency across all seasons, and interactions with other disturbances.
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