The Week in Botany - March 29, 2021
It turns out that changing the header in one issue does change them in all, so the comment on cherry blossom in the last issue will look odd in the archive. Changing the social media icons and logos is on our to-do list, so this might change again in the near future.
As always this week is a selection of the stories shared by people following @BotanyOne on Twitter. It's not strictly the most shares that get an item into the newsletter, so I've written a brief description of how the email works, as people have been asking. The usual reason for not using an item is that it's a political story with no connection to botany, but there are some other reasons an item might not make it.
Until next week, take care,
Alun webmaster@botany.one
Monday
How we discovered a hidden world of fungi inside the world’s biggest seed bank This was the moment of truth. We’d spent countless hours meticulously sterilising seeds (1,710, to be specific), filling the lab with a cacophony of rattling as we shook them in bleach. We’d built a fungus city: great tower-blocks of petri dishes stacked on the lab workbenches, with different colours, textures and shapes of fungi all emerging inside. We’d extracted enough DNA that the freezer, stuffed full of tubes, threatened to revolt.
Hill et al. explored the potential of the Millennium Seed Bank as an incidental fungal endophyte bank by assessing diversity of fungi inside stored seeds. Using banana CWRs in the genus Musa as a case-study, we sequenced an extended ITS-LSU fragment in order to delimit operational taxonomic units and used a similarity and phylogenetics approach for classification.
Dissecting growth responses to gravity and light in poplar trees — www.botany.one Can a new isotropic light device lead to a better understanding of molecular responses to gravitational stimuli?
Graduate Positions Two funded Masters (or one PhD) graduate research assistant position(s) are available (Aug 2021) in the Latvis Lab of the Department of Natural Resource Management for students interested in population genetics, bioinformatics, phylogenetics, or invasion biology.
Endosperm turgor pressure both promotes and restricts seed growth and size
By combining experiments with computational modelling, Creff et al. tested an incoherent mechanical feedforward loop hypothesis in which pressure-induced stresses play two antagonistic roles; directly driving seed growth, but indirectly inhibiting it through mechanosensitive stiffening of the seed coat. They show their model can recapitulate wild type growth patterns and explain the small seed phenotype of the haiku2 mutant.
Tuesday
Nurse cushion plants show independent trait adaptation to differing habitats — www.botany.one More independence in trait adaptation may mean a greater leeway to adapt to changing climate.
Diversity and asynchrony in soil microbial communities stabilizes ecosystem functioning
Wagg et al. experimentally quantified the contribution of soil fungal and bacterial communities to the temporal stability of four key ecosystem functions related to biogeochemical cycling. Microbial diversity enhanced the temporal stability of all ecosystem functions and this pattern was particularly strong in plant-soil mesocosms with reduced microbial richness where over 50% of microbial taxa were lost.
Virtual Evolution 2021 Conference Information This year, ASN, SSB, and SSE are pleased to allocate our usual travel award budgets toward covering the cost of registration to Virtual Evolution 2021 for up to 200 society members around the world. You must reside in one of the 139 countries or territories listed below and be a current member of ASN, SSE, or SSB to be eligible for free registration through this program.
Strains of the plant pathogenic fungus Zymoseptoria tritici appeared to lack cytosine DNA methylation (5mC) because gene amplification followed by Repeat-Induced Point mutation (RIP) resulted in the inactivation of the dim2 DNA methyltransferase gene. 5mC is, however, present in closely related sister species. Moeller et al. demonstrate that inactivation of dim2 occurred recently as some Z. tritici isolates carry a functional dim2 gene.
Wednesday
News – SECO: Resolving the current and future carbon dynamics of the dry tropics
We are now recruiting for the SECO project via the University of Edinburgh Jobs & Careers website. The available roles are:
SECO Project Officer. Closing Date: 20/04/2021.
Post-doctoral Research Associate in spatial analysis of the carbon cycle of the dry tropics. Closing Date: 19/04/2021.
Post-doctoral Research Associate: Modelling the safe operating space of the dry tropics. Closing Date: 14/05/2021.
Post doctoral Research Associate: Biogeography and carbon dynamics of the global dry tropics. Closing Date: 17/05/2021.
Man vs machine: Which model is superior at predicting phenology? — www.botany.one A comparison of the performance of knowledge-based models, data-driven machine-learned models, and an ensemble of both.
A trade-off between plant and soil carbon storage under elevated CO 2
Terrer et al. synthesized data from 108 eCO2 experiments and found that the effect of eCO2 on SOC stocks is best explained by a negative relationship with plant biomass: when plant biomass is strongly stimulated by eCO2, SOC storage declines; conversely, when biomass is weakly stimulated, SOC storage increases.
Job opportunity at Human Resources at Missouri Botanical Garden - Postdoctoral Fellow (Population Genomics & Restoration) The Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development (CCSD) at the Missouri Botanical Garden seeks to hire a full-time postdoctoral scholar to work in the Conservation Genetics Laboratory (PI, Dr. Christy Edwards).
Thursday
First known gene transfer from plant to insect identified Discovery that a whitefly uses a stolen plant gene to elude its host’s defences may offer a route to new pest-control strategies.
Hybridisation of native and foreign Sorbus trees in the Polish Carpathian mountains — www.botany.one Sorbus is a highly diverse tree genus but is this the result of hybridisation and introgression between native and foreign species?
Ecological Society of America announces 2021 Fellows The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is pleased to announce its 2021 Fellows. The Society’s fellowship program recognizes the many ways in which its members contribute to ecological research and discovery, communication, education and pedagogy, and management and policy.
Get the shovel: morphological and evolutionary complexities of belowground organs in geophytes
Tribble et al. clarify the terminology commonly used (and sometimes misused) to describe geophytes and their underground organs and highlight key evolutionary patterns of the belowground morphology of geophytic plants. Additionally, they advocate for increasing resources for geophyte research and implementing standardized ontological definitions of geophytic organs to improve our understanding of the factors controlling, promoting, and maintaining geophyte diversity.
Friday
Phylogenomic data reveal hard polytomies across the backbone of the large genus Solanum (Solanaceae)
Increased volumes of phylogenomic data have revealed incongruent topologies in gene trees, both between and within genomes across many organisms. Some of these incongruences indicate polytomies that may remain impossible to resolve. Gagnon et al. uncover widespread gene-tree discordance along the backbone of Solanum, one of the largest flowering plant genera that includes the cultivated potato, tomato, and eggplant, as well as 24 minor crop plants.
Agriculture changes plant disease dynamics in nearby wild plants — www.botany.one Landscape management could help combat plant viruses.
Indigenous peoples by far the best guardians of forests – UN report Preserving Latin America’s forests is vital to fight the climate crisis and deforestation is lower in indigenous territories
PhD Physiological responses to far-red light in fruiting tomato plants - Wageningen Are you that researcher that likes to work on the physiology of plants grown under fully controlled conditions? Do you want to contribute in research to substantially reduce energy in greenhouses and even improve production and product quality.
Weekend
Cereal thriller brings home the bacon — www.botany.one
Biographies are usually written about people. However, Catherine Zabinski’s Amber Waves goes one better and writes about a plant.
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