🌻 The Week in Botany October 9, 2023
This week I got to find out what happens when all the automated systems I use to help me break down. It’s been a really interesting week. I’m hoping next week will be an interesting week too, but in a better way, as I’ll be at the State of the World’s Plants & Fungi Symposium. If you see someone on the Annals of Botany / Botany One stand who clearly needs more sleep, you’re welcome to say hello.
I don’t know yet if there will be an email with you this time next week, as I might be wiped out from the conference. If there isn’t, then there should be another in two week’s time. Until then, take care.
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
On Botany One
Plant Vampires Have Hosts They Won’t Bite
New research reveals how even parasitic plants can be picky eaters.
New DNA Technique Shows Gene Flow Between Garden and Wild Roses
New DNA screening method detects rare but concerning gene flow from garden roses to wild relatives.
Scientists uncover the secret pollinators behind southern Africa’s paintbrush lilies
A meticulous study of paintbrush lily pollination demonstrates sunbirds’ flexibility and exposes hidden specialisation in small South African flowers.
News & Views
I’m going on an adventure, to find the fertilizer
Hello, I am Margot Smit, a new PI and a new contributor to the ‘New PI Diaries’ from the Node. On October 2nd (today) I am starting my lab at the Center for Plant Molecular Biology in Tübingen, Germany. In my lab we will study how the timing of cell fate progression is controlled in plan development.
Duke Flags Lowered: Philip Benfey, Plant Biologist Who Studied Roots as a Window to Development, Dies
Biology professor Philip Benfey, a plant geneticist and entrepreneur who advanced our understanding of the way cells develop and differentiate, died Tuesday, September 26, after a battle with lung cancer. He was 70.
Genetic modification can improve crop yields — but stop overselling it
With a changing climate and a growing population, the world increasingly needs more-productive and resilient crops. But improving them requires a knowledge of what actually works in the field.
In the Garden: Omaha gardener says plants aren't just accessories
When Ami Polite wanders through an Omaha garden center, she is often mistaken for an employee. She’s concluded that her work overalls must be the official uniform of an outdoor person.
Tree-planting schemes threaten tropical biodiversity, ecologists say
Paper reveals scientists’ concerns that single-species carbon plantations threaten native flora and fauna, while delivering negligible benefits.
See also: RawStory, AlJazeera & Gizmodo
Derek Clayton, Kew botanist who catalogued the world’s grasses – obituary
He overhauled our understanding of the grass family (which includes wheat, rice and maize) more profoundly than anyone since the 1880s.
How to save this year’s seeds for next year’s garden
As the garden harvest season winds down, plants are starting to transition into their next critical stage: producing seeds for future use. Yes, you can order new seed packets each year from catalogues or hit up your local big box store for the latest varieties. But collecting the seeds of your favorite spent sunflowers, green beans or basil for next year is a fairly straightforward task that can help you save money and connect you to nature and the life cycle of each plant.
Forester John Ouko Is Helping to Bring Back Kenya's 'Music Tree'
When John Ouko walks the green, leafy paths of the Nairobi Arboretum, he sees thousands of tiny signs of hope for a tree that had been cut to the point that Kenyans feared they might lose it—the Mpingo tree.
How Logan Botanic Garden helps Vietnam's plant life
More than 6,000 miles separate south west Scotland from north west Vietnam. However, the Logan Botanic Garden could have a part to play in safeguarding species from the "biodiversity hotspot" in the Hoang Lien mountain range.
A Kew Gardens festival explores sexual diversity in nature
Botany has used gendered language since Carl Linnaeus’s taxonomy but plants are anything but binary.
A tomato-growing competition is motivating me in the garden
NZ Gardener editor Jo McCarroll says October is the busiest month of the gardening year because there is so much sowing and planting to do - and cultivation if you don’t have raised beds or choose a no-dig strategy.
San Diego Botanic Garden hosting 'Savage Gardens' exhibit with carnivorous plants
Through October 29, explore the world of 'Killer Plants' that consume flies, insects, and even small rodents at The San Diego Botanic Garden in Encinitas.
Scientific Papers
Evolution of research topics and paradigms in plant sciences
Changes in scientific paradigms are foundational for the advancement of science, but such changes are difficult to summarize, quantify, and illustrate. These challenges are exacerbated by the rapid, exponential growth of literature. Applying a combination of machine learning and language modeling to hundreds of thousands of published abstracts, Shiu & Lehti-Shiu demonstrate that a scientific field (i.e., plant science) can be summarized as interconnected subfields evolving from one another. They also reveal insights into major research trends and the rise and decline in the use of model organisms in different countries.
Near-gapless genome assemblies of Williams 82 and Lee cultivars for accelerating global soybean research
Complete, gapless telomere-to-telomere chromosome assemblies are a prerequisite for comprehensively investigating the architecture of complex regions, like centromeres or telomeres and removing uncertainties in the order, spacing, and orientation of genes. Using complementary genomics technologies and assembly algorithms, Garg et al. developed highly contiguous, nearly gapless, genome assemblies for two economically important soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr] cultivars (Williams 82 and Lee).
The latitudinal taxonomy gradient
Phylogenetic data has revealed, among other things, that recent speciation rates appear to be faster in the temperate regions than in the more biodiverse tropics, but that tropical species harbor more population substructure and within-species genetic diversity. These findings have upended conventional explanations for the existence of the latitudinal diversity gradient.
In planta expression of human polyQ-expanded huntingtin fragment reveals mechanisms to prevent disease-related protein aggregation
In humans, aggregation of polyglutamine repeat (polyQ) proteins causes disorders such as Huntington’s disease. Although plants express hundreds of polyQ-containing proteins, no pathologies arising from polyQ aggregation have been reported. To investigate this phenomenon, Llamas et al. expressed an aggregation-prone fragment of human huntingtin (HTT) with an expanded polyQ stretch (Q69) in Arabidopsis thaliana plants.
Phylogenomic inference of the African tribe Monodoreae (Annonaceae) and taxonomic revision of Dennettia, Uvariodendron and Uvariopsis
Monodoreae (Annonaceae) is a tribe composed of 11 genera and 90 species restricted to the tropical African rain forests. All the genera are taxonomically well circumscribed except the species rich genera Uvariodendron and Uvariopsis which lack a recent taxonomic revision. Here, we used a robust phylogenomic approach, including all the 90 currently accepted species, with several specimens per species, and based on more than 300 Annonaceae-specific nuclear genes, to infer the phylogenetic tree of the Monodoreae and test the limits between the genera and species.
Distinct ADP-ribosylation factor-GTP exchange factors govern the opposite polarity of two receptor kinases
Rodriguez-Furlan et al. show that different sets of ADP-ribosylation factor (ARF) Guanine-nucleotide Exchange Factors (ARF-GEFs) mediate their secretion. ARF-GEF GNOM-Like-1 (GNL1) regulates KOIN secretion to the inner polar domain, thereby directing KOIN sorting early in the secretion pathway.
Chemical induction of hypocotyl rooting reveals extensive conservation of auxin signalling controlling lateral and adventitious root formation
Upon exposure to light, etiolated Arabidopsis seedlings form adventitious roots (AR) along the hypocotyl. While processes underlying lateral root formation are studied intensively, comparatively little is known about the molecular processes involved in the initiation of hypocotyl AR.
Stiffness transitions in new walls post-cell division differ between Marchantia polymorpha gemmae and Arabidopsis thaliana leaves
During morphogenesis, plant cells divide and undergo significant shape changes. The mechanical properties of the cell wall during these two processes are important for plant morphogenesis. Bonfanti et al. introduce a systematic method to map cell wall age and growth to its bulk elasticity.
The Plant Ubiquitin–Proteasome System as a Target for Microbial Manipulation
In this review, Langin et al. describe how the ubiquitin–proteasome system regulates different immunity-related processes and how pathogens subvert this to promote disease.
Valuing the functionality of tropical ecosystems beyond carbon
Land-based carbon sequestration projects, such as tree planting, are a prominent strategy to offset carbon emissions. However, we risk reducing natural ecosystems to one metric – carbon. Emphasis on restoring ecosystems to balance ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation, and carbon sequestration is a more appropriate strategy to protect their functioning.
Nutrient enrichment alters seasonal β-diversity in global grasslands
Garbowski et al. used early-season and late-season compositional data collected from 10 grassland sites around the world to explore relationships between climate variability and intra-annual species segregation (i.e. seasonal β-diversity) and to assess how nutrient enrichment alters seasonal β-diversity in plant communities. They then assessed whether changes in seasonal β-diversity in response to nutrient enrichment are underpinned by species turnover or nestedness and determined how specific functional groups (i.e. annual forbs, perennial forbs, C3 and C4 graminoids and legumes) respond to eutrophication within and across early and late sampling dates.
Puzzle cell shape emerges from the interaction of growth with mechanical constraints
Trozzi et al. analyze a large selection of living and paleo plant species and find that the ability to make puzzle cells is a shared feature across all plant species, although their presence can be hidden as it varies depending on the organ, developmental stage, and environmental conditions.
Lateral gene transfer generates accessory genes that accumulate at different rates within a grass lineage
Raimondeau et al. identify laterally acquired genes in five de novo reference genomes from the same grass genus (four Alloteropsis semialata and one Alloteropsis angusta). Using additional resequencing data for a further 40 Alloteropsis individuals, They place the acquisition of each gene onto a phylogeny using stochastic character mapping, and then infer rates of gains and losses.
Leaf physiological and morphological constraints of water-use efficiency in C3 plants
The development of crop varieties with improved water-use efficiency (WUE) will be critical for adapting agricultural strategies under predicted future climates. This review aims to summarize the most important leaf morpho-physiological constraints of WUE in C3 plants and identify gaps in knowledge.
Comprehensive phylogenomic time tree of bryophytes reveals deep relationships and uncovers gene incongruences in the last 500 million years of diversification.
Using the GoFlag probe set Bechteler et al. sequenced 405 exons representing 228 nuclear genes for 531 species from 52 of the 54 orders of bryophytes. They inferred the species phylogeny from gene tree analyses using concatenated and coalescence approaches, assessed gene conflict, and estimated the timing of divergences based on 29 fossil calibrations.
Ancient DNA genomics and the renaissance of herbaria
Burbano & Gutaker highlight recent advances in the field of herbarium genomics and discuss the challenges and opportunities of combining data from modern and time-stamped historical specimens. We also describe how integrating herbarium genomics data with other data types can yield substantial insights into the evolutionary and ecological processes that shape plant communities.
C:N:P stoichiometry of plants, soils, and microorganisms: Response to altered precipitation
Precipitation changes modify C, N, and P cycles, which regulate the functions and structure of terrestrial ecosystems. Although altered precipitation affects above- and belowground C:N:P stoichiometry, considerable uncertainties remain regarding plant–microbial nutrient allocation strategies under increased (IPPT) and decreased (DPPT) precipitation. Li et al. meta-analyzed 827 observations from 235 field studies to investigate the effects of IPPT and DPPT on the C:N:P stoichiometry of plants, soils, and microorganisms.
Careers
White Rose BBSRC DTP: Shaping Plant Stress Memories, Yorkshire
Supported by new evidence for an epigenetic key regulator of stress memory, this PhD project will address these fundamental questions and generate new knowledge about the role of epigenetics in plant phenotypic plasticity. In doing so, the project will not only unravel an essential mechanism of plant survival but will also generate valuable new insights to facilitate development of future crop protection technologies. The PhD project is closely aligned to a 4-year BBSRC industry-partnership-award project with an international crop breeding company, which aims to develop new and more sustainable methods of disease protection in vegetable crops.
Independent Junior Group Leader (m/f/d, E 13 TV-L, 100%), Tübingen
We seek a new colleague who will establish a vibrant and competitive research program in any research area of Plant Molecular Biology including plant biochemistry, biophysics, modelling, bioinformatics, etc. We expect the successful candidate to contribute to the excellent scientific environment by her/his/their proven scientific record, interactions with the research groups of the ZMBP, and participation in existing and planned larger research consortia like CRCs and excellence cluster initiatives.
JXB Editorial Internships – Call for Applicants
We are excited to announce that we are inviting applications for the second round of JXB Editorial Internships. The aim of these internships is to provide early career researchers with experience of scientific publishing from the editorial side, as an opportunity for career development as a researcher or with a view to a career in scientific publishing. The successful applicants will be involved in quality control and scientific assessment of 6-12 submitted manuscripts under the mentorship of JXB’s Editors and will be fully supported by the JXB editorial office.
Postdoctoral Researcher, Dundee
We are recruiting for an exceptional individual to join us as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the group of Dr Martin Balcerowicz within the University of Dundee’s Division of Plant Sciences, based at the James Hutton Institute. We are looking for a talented and enthusi astic individual to spearhead our efforts to understand how ambient temperature controls the process of translation at the molecular level.
Prestigious Sainsbury PhD Studentships in plant sciences for 2024-25
Enhanced four-year Sainsbury PhD Studentships, starting in October 2024, will again be awarded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. This long-running programme has developed some of the highest quality plant science researchers in universities, and has influenced a large group who now work in teaching, commerce, finance, policy and industry. It is the recognised gold standard for students taking a PhD in plant sciences and Sainsbury students consistently perform at a level above that of their contemporaries. This is in part due to the rigorous selection criteria that identify only the very best students, but is enhanced by the annual training weekend held each Easter in Cambridge, where the students are mentored in giving talks, producing posters, and writing papers and dissertations, and have the chance to interact with speakers on a variety of topics.
Assistant Professor of Biology, Cincinnati
Xavier University invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position in the Department of Biology to begin in Fall 2024. The individual must hold a Ph.D. in an area of the biological sciences with expertise in plant biology. Responsibilities include: teaching the equivalent of 3 courses per semester in introductory-level majors’ biology as well as botany and/or other upper division courses that may have a molecular focus; productive engagement in scholarly activities; mentoring undergraduates in research; and advising of students. The successful candidate should bring a passion for teaching undergraduates. Experience supervising undergraduates in research is a plus, as is the interest in collaboration with other Xavier faculty.
Assistant Professor of Botany, Wisconsin
The Department of Botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison seeks applicants for up to two tenure-track Assistant Professor positions beginning as soon as Fall 2024 in the broad areas of plant cell and molecular biology or biochemistry. Candidates should be uncovering fundamental plant biological processes, including but not limited to photosynthesis, growth, physiology and development, resilience, biotic interactions or other high impact areas of plant science.
Tenured Faculty Position in Urban Horticulture (Lecturer/Senior Lecturer), Melbourne
As our newest team member, you will be at the forefront of urban horticulture innovation to make cities more sustainable. Your mission will be to nurture fresh opportunities within the Faculty, the University, and in collaboration with industry partners. You'll not only elevate the standard of teaching in urban horticulture but also make significant contributions to advancing academic knowledge in the field through your research.
PDRA in Vegetation-Fire Interactions, Reading
The University of reading is seeking to recruit a PDRA in Vegetation-Fire Interactions to work on the LEMONTREE (Land Ecosystem Models based On New Theory, observations and Experiments) project (worth $10.9 million in funding to the University of Reading and running from January 2021 – September 2026). The PDRA will be responsible for developing and applying a new fire model that incorporates the two-way interactions between fire and vegetation in order to predict the implications of these behaviours on the carbon cycle.
Statisticians for Plant and Crop Sciences, Dundee
BioSS (Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland) is seeking to appoint two motivated and innovative statisticians to work in the critical and expanding application area of Plant and Crop Sciences. The posts represent an excellent long-term career opportunity for a suitably qualified statisticians, offering a stimulating mix of work including: collaboration with plant and crop scientists at leading UK research institutions; interactions with other quantitative experts within and beyond BioSS; a generous time allocation within which to develop your own area of quantitative methodological research; and the opportunity to advance your career in BioSS as we grow our strengths as a centre of quantitative applied research and consultancy. These positions will be based at our site near Dundee (the James Hutton Institute, Invergowrie) and we fully support hybrid working.
Research Assistant (Fixed Term), Cambridge
Applications are invited for a Research Assistant position in the group of Dr Katharina Schiessl at the Sainsbury Laboratory (SLCU). SLCU is an exciting interdisciplinary research institute focused on understanding of the regulatory systems underlying plant growth and development. It brings together specialists in biological, physical, and mathematical sciences integrating a range of wet-lab experimental research with computational modelling.
Research Assistant in Sustainable Agriculture, Nottingham
The Department of Environment at Nottingham Trent University has two part-time Research Assistant posts available for 24 months. The principal purpose of the post will be to develop research outputs in the field in Sustainable Agriculture and support research projects and the Sustainable Agriculture Group. We are looking for an exceptional individual with enthusiasm and a proven track record of research in sustainable agriculture related areas. Applications are welcome from across the spectrum of Plant and Crop Science, Sustainable Agriculture or Horticulture.
Postdoctoral Research Assistant, London
We are seeking a 3-year Postdoctoral Research Assistant, starting in January 2024 (or as soon as possible thereafter), to join a new research project funded by UKRI-NERC. This project - a collaboration with Professor Phil Stevenson at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew - will investigate the impact of plant secondary chemicals on wild bee health, specifically through the mitigation of parasitic disease. We hope that our results will make major contributions to habitat management for pollinator health in the UK and beyond. The postholder will be based within the research team of Professor Mark Brown, and will be responsible for developing laboratory, semi-field, and field experiments, including work with live bumble bees.
Senior Lab Technician, Cambridge
We are looking for a skilled and detail-orientated Lab Technician to join us at our state-of-the-art R&D facility, the Leaf Lab. As a Lab Technician, you will be a crucial member of our research and development team, responsible for helping us further our understanding of crop nutrition and post-harvest analysis. We’re looking for people to join the Leaf Lab who want to be part of a team that is committed to delivering world-class innovative research and development. This is a high-ambiguity, high-change environment where good judgement, flexibility and open communication are key.