đ± TWiB August 2, 2021
This week it was Black Botanists Week on Twitter. It's both an inspirational and frustrating hashtag to follow. The reason for both feelings is that it's crammed full of amazing researchers doing fascinating work, and there's so much to see that I feel I must have missed a lot of it.
As always I'm selecting the stories shared by people following @BotanyOne on Twitter. I try to choose from an equal number of days so no one story dominates the week, but this week it's been impossible to ignore the forest fires, as they're everywhere. I could probably have filled the news section entirely with forest fire stories.
I hope there'll be more cheerful news next week. In the meantime, stay safe.
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
In Botany One
Celebrating Botanyâs 400th birthday! â www.botany.one
Nigel Chaffey reviews "Roots to seeds: 400 years of Oxford botany" by Stephen A Harris.
Geographic variation in shoot structure linked to fruit size in Camelia japonica â www.botany.one Does fruit size influence shoot structure across a latitudinal gradient in southern Japan?
Many mangrove restorations fail. Is there a better way? â www.botany.one
These carbon-hoarding, coastline-protecting forests are sponges for greenhouse gases. Doing plantings right and involving local communities are key to saving them.
What makes a pitcher plant's trap so slippery? â www.botany.one Research into the wettability of a pitcher plant's trap reveals that its the grooves you can see that make it so slippery - and the grooves you can't.
The rise and fall of carbohydrates in the trees of the north â www.botany.one A new study tracks how paper birch trees prepare for a Canadian winter.
Pulling trees from clouds with mobile laser scanning â www.botany.one A new algorithm offers to take up the hard work of turning data points into tree models.
The mighty ash, tree of materials, mythology and medicine â www.botany.one
Nigel Chaffey reviews "Ash" by Edward Parker.
News & Views
Anatomy of a monster: How the Dixie fire became California's biggest of the year â www.latimes.com When the first sparks ignited in the dense forest of Plumas County, the conditions were primed for a monster.
Deforestation is leading to more infectious diseases in humans As more and more forest is cleared around the world, scientists fear that the next deadly pandemic could emerge from what lives within them.
How do some pathogens infect hundreds of plants? How is it possible for a single fungus to infect dozens or even hundreds of different plants? Not only having effectors but also the ability to activate them at the right place and time determines the pathogenâs host range.
Siberia wildfires: Russia army planes and thousands of firefighters battle blazes About 800,000 hectares of forest destroyed so far in region enveloped by smoke as Russia suffers through âabnormal heatwaveâ
Wildfires scorch Spain and cause 'disaster without precedence' in Sardinia Devastating wildfires have spread across parts of southern Europe, tearing through the Spanish and Greek countryside and forcing around 1,000 people from their homes on the Italian island of Sardinia.
Epigenetics: a new way to improve drought tolerance in trees Scientists from several institutions have studied the role of epigenetics in drought tolerance in poplar. Their results show that epigenetic modifications during a drought target genes involved in the hormonal response to drought and can induce genetic mutations.
Whoâs getting pulled in weed-out courses for STEM majors? â www.brookings.edu
Conversations about STEM majors frequently consider the role of âgatekeepingâ and âweed-outâ courses at the undergraduate level. Ostensibly, performance in these gateway courses signals to students that their prospects in the field are based on academic ability onlyâbut we have good reason to believe there may be some noise, and perhaps bias, that undermines the strength of this signal.
Succession revealed: a saga of environmental stress, facilitation and competition Anthony Davy provides an insight into a 35-year longitudinal study of salt marsh development from intertidal flat to a mid-marsh platform at Odiel Marshes in south-western Iberia. The unexpected rapidity of this primary succession highlights the central role of facilitation.
Senegalese plant circular gardens in Green Wall defence â www.aljazeera.com The project aims to create hundreds of specially designed circular gardens in a bid to boost food security.
State of the World's Mangroves A comprehensive new report shows the benefits of mangrovesâand how they can be saved.
Scientific Papers
Crop adaptation to climate change as a consequence of long-term breeding
Snowdon et al. reflect on retrospective breeding progress in major crops and the impact of long-term, conventional breeding on climate adaptation and yield stability under abiotic stress constraints. Looking forward, they outline how new approaches might complement conventional breeding to maintain and accelerate breeding progress, despite the challenges of climate change, as a prerequisite to sustainable future crop productivity.
Fossilization processes have little impact on tipâcalibrated divergence time analyses
O'Reilly and Donoghue demonstrate that systematically distributed missing data negatively influence clade age estimates, but that successive stages within the taphonomic process introduce greater differences in age estimates, when compared to estimates obtained from untreated data.
Active suppression of leaflet emergence as a mechanism of simple leaf development
Challa et al. show that the CINCINNATA-like TEOSINTE BRANCHED1, CYCLOIDEA, PROLIFERATING CELL FACTORS (CIN-TCP) transcription factors activate the class II KNOTTED1-LIKE (KNOX-II) genes and the CIN-TCP and KNOX-II proteins together redundantly suppress leaflet initiation in simple leaves.
ReadCube: rdcu.be/cp4HC
Genomics accelerated isolation of a new stem rust avirulence geneâwheat resistance gene pair
Upadhyaya et al. identify both the Sr27 gene in wheat and the corresponding AvrSr27 gene in Pgt and show that virulence to Sr27 can arise experimentally and in the field through deletion mutations, copy number variation and expression level polymorphisms at the AvrSr27 locus.
ReadCube: rdcu.be/cp4Ct
IRONMAN Tunes Responses to Iron Deficiency in Concert with Environmental pH
Gautam et al. show that ectopic expression of the IRONMAN peptides IMA1 and IMA2 improves growth on calcareous soil by inducing biosynthesis and secretion of the catecholic coumarin fraxetin (7,8-dihydroxy-6-methoxycoumarin) via increased expression of MYB72 and SCOPOLETIN 8-HYDROXYLASE (S8H), a response that is strictly dependent on elevated environmental pH (pHe). By contrast, transcription of the cytochrome P450 family protein CYP82C4, which catalyzes the subsequent hydroxylation of fraxetin to sideretin, which forms less stable complexes with Fe, was strongly repressed under such conditions.
Lodeyro et al. describe various interventions into chloroplast redox networks that resulted in increased tolerance to multiple sources of environmental stress. They included manipulation of endogenous components and introduction of electron carriers from other organisms, which affected not only stress endurance but also leaf size and longevity.
DNA Purification-free PCR from Plant Tissue
Jia et al. developed a method for DNA purification-free PCR using plant tissues. This allows for low cost and high throughput genotyping such as more than 1000 samples per day per person.
Current status of structural variation studies in plants
Yuan et al. review the current status of Structural Cariation (SV) studies in plants, examine the roles that SVs play in phenotypic traits, compare current technologies and assess future challenges for SV studies.
Identifying gaps in the photographic record of the vascular plant flora of the Americas â www.nature.com
Field photographs of plant species are crucial for research and conservation, but the lack of a centralized database makes them difficult to locate. Pitman et al. surveyed 25 online databases of field photographs and found that they harboured only about 53% of the approximately 125,000 vascular plant species of the Americas. These results reflect the urgent need for a centralized database that can both integrate and complete the photographic record of the worldâs flora.
ReadCube: rdcu.be/cqPwZ
Careers
Senior Research Associate - Plant-Soil Interactions We are looking for an enthusiastic and effective researcher to work on a new EU Horizon 2020 Research and innovation Framework Programme project âTransforming Unsustainable management of soils in key agricultural systems in EU and China. Developing an integrated platform of alternatives to reverse soil degradationâ
Applications Now Open For the 2021-2022 Plantae Fellows Program Are you a creative and articulate plant scientist looking to connect with other like-minded folks? We need your help to nurture and grow PlantaeâŠ
The Plant Cell is accepting applications for Assistant Features Editors Are you an early career researcher passionate about plants, writing, and science communication? The Plant Cell is accepting applications for new AssistantâŠ
Plant Physiology is recruiting Assistant Features Editors for 2022 This past January, Plant Physiology welcomed 16 new Assistant Features Editors to the editorial board. Together with Assistant Features Editors recruited inâŠ
Assistant or Associate Professor of Biology The Department of Biology at SLU seeks a full-time tenure-track faculty member at the Assistant or Associate Professor level. We seek an organismal biologist addressing fundamental questions in evolution and/or ecology, including, but not limited to, evolution in response to global change, urban evolution and ecology, plant-animal interactions, disease ecology, historical and contemporary biogeography, and genetic and environmental underpinnings of phenotypic variation.
Assistant Ecological Consultant Our Ecology business comprises a highly skilled team focused on providing services to a wide range of clients, particularly developers, utility companies and the renewable energy and rural industries, and as a result of our success in this area, we have a vacancy for an Ecological Consultant. The successful candidate will join a team of Ecology professionals who work closely with colleagues in other disciplines, such as Planning, Landscape and Archaeology.
Research Fellow (forestLAB Programme) The post we are offering is within the Gabon programme of the Division of Biological and Environmental Sciences of the Faculty of Natural Sciences. The Gabon programme carries out a broad portfolio of original ecology research aimed at producing excellence in environmental and social governance and tangible outcomes for sustainable landscapes, biodiversity conservation and climate resilience at local to global scales.
Research Scientist â Genomics (Tree Fruit) Working at the Summerland Research and Development Centre the scientist will be expected to develop genomic or âmulti-omicâ approaches to accelerate germplasm development, identify desirable novel traits (e.g. traits of commercial importance; abiotic and biotic stress tolerance) to be taken up by breeding and other research programs, and address other concerns associated with these horticultural crops.
Plant Scientist in Petaluma, CA Weâre seeking an exceptional individual to lead FYTOâs cutting edge aquatic plant science research
Assistant Professor of Chemistry The successful candidate will be expected to teach in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Program and at all levels in the Chemistry Department and contribute to the development and teaching of a diverse and inclusive curriculum, including interdisciplinary programs and other college-wide initiatives such as the 360 Program and the Emily Balch Seminars.
Research Associate | Jobs | Imperial College London You will be leading lab-based experimental research to investigate molecular regulators underpinning plant regeneration. The position is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and aims to identify and validate key genes regulating regenerative capacity via a comparative/evolutionary-developmental approach.
Chief Botanist The Chief Botanist is a key leadership position at NatureServe and provides strategic direction on the development of scientific methods, data, analyses, and information products designed to promote the lasting conservation of North American plants.
Graduate assistantship available in the Tree Ecophysiology Lab to study source-sink relationships in fruit trees We are looking for a graduate student to help us develop a systematic understanding of the relationship between canopy area and fruit load. This will be addressed in the context of water and carbon supply and demand. This project will produce knowledge that is directly relevant to producers while addressing fundamental hypotheses of water and carbon.
National Collections Relocation Curatorial Technician As one of our National Research Collections Relocation Curatorial Technicians, you will prepare the Collections for the move and assist with the relocation itself. Â As part of a team, you will work closely with other Collections staff and contribute to the relocation of 12+ million specimens spanning the Australian National Insect Collection, Australian National Wildlife Collection and the Australian National Herbarium.
Research Associate in Auxin Biology Applications are invited for a Research Assistant/Research Associate position in the group of Dr Alexander Jones at the Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge University. The cellular dynamics of the plant hormone auxin underpin myriad aspects of plant development and environmental responses. The Jones group at SLCU has recently engineered a series of high affinity FRET biosensors to track such auxin dynamics in high resolution.
USFS Postdoctoral Fellowship in Hydrology Under the guidance of a mentor, the participant will conduct hydrological research on water quantity and quality issues, especially as they relate to forest land management, land use, and climate change. The participant will study the linkage between forests and water resources across the southeastern US (with emphasis in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas) through data analysis and model development.
Supervisory Vegetation Specialist Under the guidance and direct supervision of the Deputy Chief of the Yellowstone Center for Resources (YCR), incumbent is responsible for the development, coordination, and implementation of management plans, policies, and programs to protect, inventory, maintain, monitor, manage, control or restore vegetation in Yellowstone National Park. In addition, the position serves as the park's wetlands compliance coordinator and interfaces with other divisions to assist in natural resource technical assistance requests and also oversees the invasive and backcountry monitoring programs.
Postdoc Position Your work place is located at the Chair for Systematics, Biodiversity & Evolution of plants at Menzinger Str. 67 in Munich. There is a close cooperation with the Botanical Garden MĂŒnchen-Nymphenburg and the Botanische Staatssammlung MĂŒnchen. T
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