🌻 The Week in Botany September 9, 2024
I’m back off holiday and decided to give how I blog and tweet a tweak. I’ve been a little grumpy as putting out 12 tweets a day on various channels is a lot of work, and none of it appeared on the weblog. This is annoying. Also, the tweets I put out for some papers didn’t capture what I thought was interesting. This is also frustrating.
So, as a change, instead of tweeting three personal choice papers a day, I’ve made short threads of tweets to post. These threads are around 200-300 words long, which means they now also appear on the website in the News in Brief category.
It means the site has gone from up to five posts a week to at least fifteen posts a week, which more accurately reflects the effort. But it would be quite a list if I put them all in, so I’ll just link to the most popular. If you want to see the others, you can click on the In Brief link to see more.
There’ll be another collection of the stories and papers you’re sharing on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky and Threads, at the same time next week. Until then, take care.
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
On Botany One
How High-Altitude Flowers Thrive in the Venezuelan Andes
Explore the fascinating relationship between flower colour changes and pollinator visits in high-altitude environments.
Teaching Botany: the Taylor Swift method applied to plants
Are you looking for a strategy to teach botany in a more captivating way? In this post, we interview Glaucia Silva, a young Brazilian botanist who got inspiration from botanical references found in Taylor Swift’s songs and made up a brilliant method to grab the attention of tired and bored biology students.
News & Views
Why Are So Few Plants Blue?
Blue skies: check. Blue birds: check. Blue leaves? Not so much.
Sex, plants and colonisation: reclaiming botany from the tendrils of empire
In her new book, Subramaniam presents an argument about the colonial history of science. The discipline of science was set up to serve empire, she reasons, rather than the reverse.
The biggest — and most expensive — mistakes people make with native plants
We think, “California native plants should grow easily here, because they’re native, right?” So people buy expensive plants and expect them to grow like weeds (as in anywhere at all without any tending) and the results are often disastrous.
This Massive New Guidebook Will Forever Change the Way You Look at Trees
Written by Smithsonian botanist W. John Kress, the book details more than 300 North American tree species in words, maps and photographs—and why we shouldn’t take them for granted.
A photographer captures life in America’s last remaining old-growth forests
“As humans, our everyday lives are sustained by the behaviors and interactions of forest organisms,” photographer David Herasimtschuk writes of old growth forests. “Yet, because these processes and relationships occur in places and at scales rarely observed, our connection with forest biodiversity and the role it plays in nurturing our well-being often goes completely unnoticed.”
UK conservationists and eBay team up against plant poaching
UK conservationists on Wednesday announced a collaboration with e-commerce giant eBay to combat the illegal plant trade, which is threatening the existence of some species.
Why repairing forests is not just about planting trees
An exploration of deforestation and restoration shows that woods are much more than trees. They depend on — and provide for — people, animals and microbes.
A one-time illegal logger grows back a forest for his people in Sumatra
On the Indonesian island of Sumatra lives a man named Efron Simanjuntak. With a stern face and thick, graying mustache, he roams the forests near the village of Bona ni Dolok. Once a player in the region’s illegal logging industry, he’s now a dedicated forest protector.
Scientific Papers
Centromere drive may propel the evolution of chromosome and genome size in plant (OA)
Plačková et al. hypothesized that centromere drive, where centromeres compete for inclusion in the functional gamete during meiosis, may also affect genome and chromosome size.
Herbarium collections remain essential in the age of community science (OA)
Eckert et al compare how well community science (iNaturalist) observations and digitized herbarium specimens represent the diversity, distributions, and modeling needs of vascular plants in Canada. They find that, despite having only a third as many records, herbarium specimens capture more taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity and more efficiently capture species’ environmental niches.
Photosynthetic light requirement near the theoretical minimum detected in Arctic microalgae (OA)
Hoppe et al present measurements from the MOSAiC field campaign in the central Arctic Ocean that reveal the resumption of photosynthetic growth and algal biomass buildup under the ice pack at a daily average irradiance of not more than 0.04 ± 0.02 µmol photons m−2 s−1 in late March. This is at least one order of magnitude lower than previous estimates (0.3–5 µmol photons m−2 s−1) and near the theoretical minimum light requirement of photosynthesis (0.01 µmol photons m−2 s−1).
Treed field borders net-export over 82,000 more hoverflies per km every week into canola crops than herbaceous field borders, regardless of mass-flowering crop bloom (OA)
Pizante et al sought to determine how field border type (herbaceous vs. treed), canola bloom, and border vegetation structure and composition (border width, canopy cover, grass height, grass cover, plant cover, flower availability, and density of trees, shrubs, snags, stumps, and downed woody debris) affect hoverfly movement into and out of crop fields from field borders.
A giant gardener of the Floodplains: The Amazonian manatee ($)
During an unusual event of extreme drought and rainfall scarcity in the Amazon in October 2023, Guterres-Pazin et al found 96 feces of the Amazonian manatee on the beaches of Lake Amanã (Central Amazon, Brazil). All feces contained seeds and some of them seedlings of aquatic herbaceous species, offering the opportunity to study the role of the manatee as an endozoochoric dispersal agent in the Amazonian floodplains.
Decoding the functionality of plant transcription factors ($)
This review provides a comprehensive understanding of these factors and mechanisms defining the activity of transcription factors (TFs). Understanding the dynamic nature of TFs has practical implications for modern molecular breeding programmes, as it provides insights into how to manipulate gene expression to optimize desired traits in crops.
Disruption in Jasmonic Acid Biosynthesis Influences Metabolism of Other Hormones in Arabidopsis ($)
Gupta et al studied how the disruption in the JA biosynthetic pathway in Arabidopsis thaliana affects the homeostasis of other hormones by measuring the concentrations of various hormones, including ABA (abscisic acid), AUX [auxin, specifically IAA (indole-3-acetic acid)], CKs (cytokinins), GAs (gibberellins), and SA (salicylic acid) in 10 days old Arabidopsis JA-deficient aos (allene oxide synthase) knock-out mutant seedlings.
Macroevolution of the plant–hummingbird pollination system (OA)
As a step towards understanding coevolution, this review focuses on the macroevolutionary consequences of plant–hummingbird interactions, a relatively underexplored area in the current literature.
Dual and spatially resolved drought responses in the Arabidopsis leaf mesophyll revealed by single-cell transcriptomics (OA)
Tenorio Berrío et al investigated tissue-specific responses to mild drought in young Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) leaves using single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq).
Climate change will exacerbate land conflict between agriculture and timber production (OA)
Bousfield et al combine predictions of agricultural suitability under different climate change scenarios (representative concentration pathways RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5) with timber-production maps to show that 240–320 Mha (20–26%) of current forestry land will become more suitable for agriculture by 2100.
Gymnosperm collecting in China: Past, present, and future ($)
Xie et al investigated the collecting status of gymnosperms in China using 48 673 herbarium specimens representing 180 Chinese gymnosperm species.
In AoBC Publications
Careers
Research Associate (Fixed Term), Cambridge
Applications are invited for a Post-doctoral Research Associate position in the group of Dr Sebastian Schornack (www.schornacklab.net, twitter: @dromius) at the Sainsbury Laboratory (SLCU) Cambridge University, to study plant cell and developmental processes that are modulated by microbial effectors.
Associate Professor in Climate Change Ecology, Durham
The Department of Biosciences at Durham University seeks to appoint an Associate Professor with research and teaching interests broadly in the field of climate change ecology. The post is part of a significant and integrated University investment into the environmental and economic implications of ‘Just Transitions’ so we are particularly keen to hear from applicants with experience of macroecological modelling and interests in using theoretical or AI-based approaches to give biological focus to economic and legal instruments.
Research Associate (Fixed Term), Cambridge
A post-doctoral Research Associate position is available in the Bhatia group starting in November 2024 at the Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University. The lab will investigate the mechanistic basis of the function of the plant hormone cytokinin (CK) in plant development using Arabidopsis thaliana as model.
Research Assistant (Fixed Term), Cambridge
A Research Assistant position is available in the Bhatia group starting in November 2024 at the Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University. The lab will investigate the mechanistic basis of the function of the plant hormone cytokinin (CK) in plant development using Arabidopsis thaliana as model.
PhD position - Characterization and optimization of Salicornia biomass quality under saline and contaminated soils, Wageningen
In this project the PhD student will characterize the genetic diversity in Salicornia, a halophyte that is able to grown even when watered with sea water, and Crambe, a species that is able to tolerate high concentrations of heavy metals.
Waterhouse Lab: Postdoctoral Scholar, California
The Department of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) invites applications for postdoctoral scholar, under the direction of Dr. Hannah Waterhouse to understand how cover crop management (planting/termination timing x species mix x termination method) influences water and nitrogen cycling with the goal of creating best management practice guidelines on how to minimize water use while maximizing water quality protection and nitrogen provisioning in semi-arid environments.
Assistant Professor in Precision Agriculture, Montana
MSU’s College of Agriculture seeks an Assistant Professor with a strong background in one or more precision-agriculture-related areas such as agronomy, plant sciences, agricultural engineering/technology, digital agricultural data science, grower decision-support, agricultural economics, on-farm research, artificial intelligence, soil, spatial, and/or pest science.
Post-doctoral Researcher of Hemp, Ohio
The Hemp Lab in the Agriculture Research Development Program (ARDP) at Central State University is seeking a post-doctoral scientist to conduct hemp breeding, field trials, and product development. The candidate should have strong experience cultivating hemp and developing new products. The selected individual should also be well skilled in use of analytical instrumentation, chiefly gas and liquid chromatography systems. The candidate will work with closely with the project PI. Supervision and mentoring of student researchers is expected.
Research Associate in Environmental Sciences, Virginia
The successful candidate will lead original research in the Plant Ecology and Remote Sensing Lab, focusing on leveraging a new technology to map canopy structural details in 3D in forests in the eastern United States. The mapping effort will provide the position and orientation (angle relative to the horizontal plane) of every leaf in a canopy. The work will reveal how plant traits influence tree growth and resource use, deepening our understanding of how forest trees compete for water and light.
TTU Post Doctoral Research Associate in Plant Genetic Engineering, Texas
The Janga lab research focuses on the improvement of crop plants using genetic engineering and genomics technologies. The lab is seeking a postdoctoral candidate with a strong experience in plant tissue culture, molecular biology, and bioinformatics. The ideal candidate will have a track record of success in research, a high motivation to work on the project, experience working with recalcitrant crops for genetic transformation, cloning techniques, and good communication skills. The postdoc will lead the efforts to improve the crop plants by applying NGS based genetic approaches, functional screening, and genetic transformation of several crops.
Scientist, Wisconsin
This position will conduct research on fruit crop physiology under the supervision of Dr. Amaya Atucha. Responsibilities include the design and execution of research projects related to the role of environmental stress on the development of cranberry fruit rot disease at the Cranberry Research Station and the Atucha lab in the UW-Madison campus; work with a multidisciplinary team of scientists as part of a national grant on cranberry fruit rot and coordinate research project with collaborators at UMass and Rutgers University; prepare progress reports to present at stakeholder and scientific meetings; and author peer-review scientific publications from research project.
Research Fellow in Plant Natural Product Biosynthesis, Melbourne
The Research Fellow in Plant Natural Product Biosynthesis will focus on characterising the biochemical pathways for flavonoid biosynthesis in eucalypts, specifically investigating the molecular mechanisms of flavonoid O- and C-methylation. This role involves both applied and basic research, contributing to the development of plantation eucalypts as a commercial source of flavonoids through collaboration with industry.