The Week in Botany September 29, 2025
I mentioned that I’ve been busy with family business this month. That came to an end this week. I’m now looking ahead to the Plant Science Wales meeting and Black in Plant Science. I also need to look into attending the BSBI meeting in November, and getting my passport, so I can attend events in Europe next year. But this week I travelled to London, and there is a work reason.
Eagle-eyed readers who work their way right to the end will notice that the sending address has now changed. I got into the new campus this week. It looks nice, and maybe it’s the congestion charge working, but the air seems less chewy than last time I was there.
There will be another email of the papers and the news stories you’re sharing on Mastodon and Bluesky at the same time next week. Until next time, take care.
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
On Botany One
Cristian Atala: From Balcony Succulents to Mediterranean Orchids
Botany One interviews Dr. Cristián Atala, a Chilean botanist that aims to brings to light the overlooked complexity of plants.
Two nectar worlds under one bloom
Inside the flower, two types of nectaries work in harmony, attracting pollinators and plant defenders.
…and last’s week’s Week in Botany with scary bodyguards, local references and why you should treat plants with kindness..
News & Views
Double harvest: Vertical solar panels and crops thrive side by side
Imagine a field where solar panels and crops coexist—with no trade-off. It sounds like science fiction, but that's precisely what researchers from Aarhus University have now documented in a full-scale agrivoltaic pilot project in the Danish countryside.
Darbaker Prize
The Botanical Society of America and the Phycological Society of America are pleased to join together in seeking nominations for the 2025 Darbaker Prize in Phycology. This award is presented for meritorious work in the study of microscopic algae, based on papers published by the nominee during the last two full calendar years (2023-2024). The award is limited to residents of North America,.
NSF Held Captive
Trump directives have undermined a 75-year history of independence and threaten agency’s vaunted track record for excellence.
Daux. Dans la pépinière Caussat, on développe les arbres du futur
La pépinière Caussat mise sur des arbres résistants au climat de demain. Leader régional dans la culture d’arbres d’ornement, la pépinière Caussat, située au nord de Toulouse, s’engage dans une course contre la montre face aux effets du réchauffement climatique et à la raréfaction de l’eau.
Pollinators need more space and 10% habitat is not enough says a new study just published in Science
Pollinators such as wild bees, butterflies, and hoverflies are in trouble worldwide. A major new study, published in Science and led by Gabriella Bishop and other scientists at Wageningen University & Research, shows that the oft-quoted figure of 10% semi-natural habitat in farmland landscapes is far too little to safeguard pollinators.
The Dismantling of the US Forest Service Is Imminent
The public has less than a week remaining to comment on the administration’s plans.
Social media post sparks rediscovery of endemic Sri Lanka rainforest plant
Classified as “extinct in the wild” in Sri Lanka’s 2012 Red List, the endemic rainforest giant known as Pini- Beraliya (Doona ovalifolia) has been rediscovered in several locations, but the first discovery of the plant was triggered by a Facebook post.
University of Arizona opens groundbreaking TIME Lab to link past and present
History can be confined in textbooks or materialized in artifacts behind glass. At the University of Arizona, researchers see it written in the lines of wood, in the rings of trees.
‘Completely shattered.’ Changes to NSF’s graduate student fellowship spur outcry
The announcement comes months later than usual, leaving many would-be applicants stranded.
I’m a climate scientist. Trump’s U.N. address is a fire hose of misinformation
While many of my scientific colleagues and I anticipated things would get bad for science once Donald Trump was reelected president last year, the pace at which he and his congressional enablers have implemented their anti-science agenda nonetheless remains shocking and disturbing.
The Parallels between RFK Jr and Tofrim Lysenko: When Pseudoscience Infects National Leadership
His nation’s leadership placed him in a position of profound influence that would impact the health of a nation. Once installed, he offered rapid solutions for complicated problems. He fired career experts for following the best scientific evidence and executed unilateral decisions diametric to scientific consensus.
Pulling the stuffing out of plants…
Nigel Chaffey reviews The Stuff That Stuff Is Made Of: Things We Make With Plants by Jonathan Drori.
This Week in Botany
5 Years Ago: Does a thick leaf gas film protect against submergence on rice?
10 Years Ago: Every Botanist Needs an ORCID
15 Years Ago: Almond flowering problem in Australia
Scientific Papers
Decay stages of Jurassic wood debris from Scotland: evidence for the coevolution of fungal rot, arthropods and the nurse log strategy (FREE)
Sagasti et al describe a c. 150-million-year-old wood fragment from the Jurassic of Scotland using classic palaeobotanical techniques and microscopy. They interpret our new finding within the evolution of gymnosperms with a literature review of fossil nurse logs, and fungal and arthropod evolution.
Progressive oxygenation of developing leaves directs morphogenesis (FREE)
Panicucci et al how that developing leaves form a spatiotemporal oxygen gradient that is sensed through the oxygen sensing machinery. This pathway integrates local oxygen availability to regulate leaf morphogenesis: early hypoxia restricts cell expansion, while subsequent distal-to-proximal oxygenation enables specialized cell fates acquisition.
Bryophytes hold a larger gene family space than vascular plants (FREE)
A comprehensive super-pangenome analysis, incorporating 123 newly sequenced bryophyte genomes, reveals that bryophytes possess a substantially greater diversity of gene families than vascular plants. This includes a higher number of unique and lineage-specific gene families, originating from extensive new gene formation and continuous horizontal transfer of microbial genes over their long evolutionary history.
Transposable elements are vectors of recurrent transgenerational epigenetic inheritance ($)
DNA methylation loss at transposable elements (TEs) can affect neighboring genes and be epigenetically inherited in plants, yet the determinants and significance of this additional system of inheritance are unknown. Baduel et al demonstrate in Arabidopsis thaliana that transgenerational stability of experimentally-induced hypomethylation at TE loci is constrained by small RNAs derived from related copies.
CEPR2 perceives group II CEPs to regulate cell surface receptor-mediated immunity in Arabidopsis (FREE)
Rzemieniewski et al provide evidence that biotic stress induces expression of the group II CEP peptide CEP14. CEP14 and the related CEP13 and CEP15 trigger hallmark immune signalling outputs in a proline hydroxylation pattern-dependent manner in Arabidopsis. Genetic data indicate that group II CEP members contribute to cell surface receptor-mediated immunity against bacterial infection.
VRN2-PRC2 facilitates light-triggered repression of PIF signaling to coordinate growth in Arabidopsis (FREE)
Osborne et al show that VRN2 is enriched in the hypoxic shoot apex and emerging leaves of Arabidopsis, where it negatively regulates growth by establishing a stable and conditionally repressed chromatin state in key PHYTOCHROME INTERACTING FACTOR (PIF)-regulated genes that promote cell expansion. This function is required to keep these genes poised for repression via a light-responsive signaling cascade later in leaf development.
Dynamic shifts in plant-microbe relationships (FREE)
Plant-microbe interactions, ranging from mutualism to parasitism, are dynamic and influenced by host, microbial, and environmental factors. This review discusses how understanding these shifts can inform sustainable agriculture and ecosystem management.
Guns in Rosettes: The Arabidopsis chemical weapons arsenal (FREE)
Somssich et al provide an overview of our current knowledge on Arabidopsis and its defence mechanisms, in the context of microbial battlefronts.
Ending publication bias: A values-based approach to surface null and negative results (FREE)
Sharing knowledge is a basic tenet of the scientific community, yet publication bias arising from the reluctance or inability to publish negative or null results remains a long-standing and deep-seated problem, albeit one that varies in severity between disciplines and study types.
Critical habitat thresholds for effective pollinator conservation in agricultural landscapes ($)
Many species are declining, with lack of adequate habitat being a primary driver. Providing habitats in human-dominated landscapes is essential for maintaining populations and supporting ecosystem functions such as pollination, but habitat protection targets in such landscapes are poorly defined. Bishop et al. developed a framework to assess habitat needs based on the threshold at which populations respond more to increased habitat quality than quantity.
Phytohormones revisited: what makes a compound a hormone in plants ($)
Since the discovery of auxins as cell division factors a century ago, impressive scientific advances related to phytohormones have revolutionized plant sciences and human progress. This review examines the key features of the ten hormonal groups that operate in plants, here referred to as the ‘classical ten’: auxins, gibberellins (GAs), cytokinins (CKs), abscisic acid (ABA), ethylene (ETH), salicylates (SAs), jasmonates (JAs), brassinosteroids (BRs), peptide hormones (PEPs), and strigolactones (SLs).
In AoBC Publications
Virtual World Coupling with Photosynthesis Evaluation for Synthetic Data Production (FREE)
Antibiotic resistance genes detected in lichens: insights from Cladonia stellaris (FREE)
Careers
Note: These are posts that have been advertised around the web. They are not posts that I personally offer, nor can I arrange the visa for you to work internationally.
Associate Editor Mentoring, The South
Are you less than five years post-PhD, live in or are from the Global South, and looking to gain hands-on experience with an editorial board? Why not apply for the 2026 mentoring scheme with Journal of Applied Ecology!
Senior Research Officer (Postdoctoral Research Associate), Essex
Pallavi Singh Lab at University of Essex is seeking a motivated and ambitious Postdoctoral Research Associate (PDRA) to join the Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF) project ‘REVOLUTION: Unravelling the regulation and evolutionary innovations in grass species to engineer high water-use efficiency in rice’.
Postdoc position on crossover recombination in plants, Poznań
A three-year Postdoctoral position funded by the NCN MAESTRO project is available in the Laboratory of Genome Biology, led by Prof. Piotr Ziolkowski at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland.
Assistant Professor (tenure track) - Forest Ecophysiology, Vancouver
The Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences (Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Stewardship, Vancouver Campus, The University of British Columbia - UBC) invites applications for a tenure-track position in Forest Ecophysiology at the Assistant or Associate Professor level, to commence on July 1, 2026 or when a suitable candidate is found. We are seeking an outstanding, emerging scholar to lead world-class research in forest ecophysiology and its connections to forest resilience, with a focus on one or more of the following study areas: tree ecophysiology; plant abiotic or biotic stress physiology; forest mortality and climate change responses; forest carbon balance; tree water relations; or nutrient use.