đš TWiB February 14, 2022
Valentine's Day is here and if love isn't in the air, then there might at least be some reconciliation. The situation with the IPMB Conference has developed. The ASPB has put out another blog post.
"After the events of last week surrounding the 2022 IPMB Congress, and more specifically the treatment of those who spoke up, ASPB offered specific ideas and proposals to IPMB leadership that might have allowed us to continue to provide logistics support for the conference. But these proposals were not accepted by the IPMB representatives with whom we were communicating."
As a result, the ASPB have withdrawn their support for the 2022 IPMB Congress.
That's a big step. I would guess they've already sunk quite a bit of effort into the event. They could have tried for more compromise or a declaration that in the future, they'd insist on certain policies. Cutting support does signal that the ASPB is more serious about change now than at some point in a hypothetical future. While the ASPB may have departed, we can now see if the IPMB deliver substantial change.
I've been warned that my internet will be down temporarily tomorrow. I'm assuming it's just for the day. I don't have an email with you at the same time next week then you'll know I got that badly wrong. Until then, take care,
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
In Botany One
Photochemical performance of bunchgrass reproductive structures â www.botany.one How does drought influence the photochemical performance of reproductive structures of native and exotic bunchgrasses of the Great Basin?
Modelling ecosystem services of diversified agriculture â www.botany.one Combining modelling approaches to better understand cultivated plant community functioning
Cycads studied to reconcile fossil and molecular evidence for evolutionary timescales â www.botany.one Scientists used plastomic and biogeographical data to determine when different types of cycads first evolved. Their findings challenge previous ideas about when cycads first appeared and where they come from.
What happens to carnivorous plants when the insects bite back? â www.botany.one A moth could be interfering with a pitcher plant's reproduction by developing a taste for flowers - or at least parts of a flower.
Plants that have adapted to exploit human activity now depend on disturbance â www.botany.one Plants that have grown in partnership with human activity in meadows can be a great source of seeds for restoration projects, but their ability to germinate is also a problem.
News & Views
What is the cost of bioinformatics? A look at bioinformatics pricing and costs â medium.com Chances are, you might not have a clear picture of what your genomics analyses cost; particularly on the individual job or sample level.
Deluge of dog pee and poo harming nature reserves, study suggests Urine and faeces creating nitrogen and phosphorus levels that would be illegal on farms, scientists calculate
South LA business finds success in community plant barter system â spectrumnews1.com When they transformed their 200-square-foot backyard in South Los Angeles from dirt to a miniature farm, Taylor Harrison said at first nothing came out perfect. However, mastering the process is what Harrison fell in love with.
Degradation of a Negative Immune Regulator Enhances Immune Responses Are CPK28 proteins under further control to maintain BIK1 homeostasis and fine-tune immune signaling?
Rare kinds of coffee, wine, and other foods could go extinct Coffee, wine, and wheat varieties are among the foods we could lose forever.
How Australia can boost the production of grains, while lowering its carbon footprint The need to feed a rising global population means agriculture is one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonise. This is especially true for growing grains â think wheat, barley, legumes and canola.
Living Science: Authorship then and now A researcher should only be an author on a paper if they have contributed to it in a substantive way.
Beaver Dams Help Wildfire-Ravaged Ecosystems Recover Long after Flames Subside â www.scientificamerican.com Dams mop up debris that would otherwise kill fish and other downstream wildlife, new observations suggest
Gold Coast botanist discovers new rainforest tree species 'minutes from the M1' â www.abc.net.au When botanist Lui Weber visited his local physiotherapist for back treatment, he left with his head spinning after discovering a new rainforest tree species, the Wongawallan walnut (Endiandra wongawallanesis), in his backyard. Â
The first global list of all legume species â www.kew.org The first community-verified global checklist of legumes has been created, improving research and conservation for thousands of species.
Gene-edited wheat resists dreaded fungus without pesticides New strain survives powdery mildew, a costly disease, without side effects
Scientific Papers
The Angiosperm Terrestrial Revolution and the origins of modern biodiversity
The rise of angiosperms triggered a macroecological revolution on land and drove modern biodiversity in a secular, prolonged shift to new, high levels, a series of processes Benton et al. name the Angiosperm Terrestrial Revolution.
CRISPR-CAS mediated transcriptional control and epi-mutagenesis
Advances in CRISPR-dCAS based systems for transcriptional control and epi-mutagenesis have created systems capable of recruiting an increased number and variety of effector proteins to a target.
Metaâanalysis of induced antiâherbivore defence traits in plants from 647 manipulative experiments with natural and simulated herbivory â besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Ojha et al. conducted meta-analysis of 647 experiments (paired control and treatment) from 192 studies to address sources of variation in induced anti-herbivore defensive traits. This covered different agents of herbivory (insect, mammal and clipping), studies in greenhouse and in field settings, and covered 24 types of defence traits in 163 species from 50 families across 24 angiosperm orders. They used meta-regression modelsâmulti-level random-effects (MLREs) and robust variance estimators (RVEs)âto quantify variation due to study setting, herbivore type, chemical identity, angiosperm order, volatility, fertilization, and publication year as moderator variables.
Ca2+ signaling in plant responses to abiotic stresses
Dong et al. focus on salt/osmotic stress and responses to altered nutrient availability as model cases to detail novel insights into the identity of components that link stress perception to Ca2+ signal formation as well as on new insights into mechanisms of Ca2+ signal implementation.
Soybean-BioCro: a semi-mechanistic model of soybean growth
The BioCro family of crop models are semi-mechanistic models scaling from biochemistry to whole crop growth and yield. BioCro was previously parameterized and proved effective for the biomass crops Miscanthus, coppice willow and Brazilian sugarcane. Matthews et al. present Soybean-BioCro, the first food crop to be parameterized for BioCro.
A darkâtolerant diatom (Chaetoceros) cultured from the deep sea
Although the extreme conditions of the deep sea (especially the darkness) are not suitable for the growth of photosynthetic algae, accumulating evidence indicates that there are diverse healthy phytoplankton living in this environment. However, living phytoplankton from the deep sea have rarely been isolated and cultivated, and so our understanding of where they come from and how they adapt to (or tolerate) the deep-sea extreme environment is limited. Under long-term dark stress and subsequent light treatment, Mou et al. successfully isolated a diatom from a depth of 1000 m in the Western Pacific Ocean. Morphological observations and molecular phylogenetic analysis revealed that it is affiliated to the genus Chaetoceros and thus they tentatively named it Chaetoceros sp. DS1.
Pepper pathogens: XopS pumps the brakes on the pepper immune response
All around us plants and pathogens are locked in an eons-long arms race. Plants continuously evolve ways to detect microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) and develop MAMP-triggered immunity (MTI). Meanwhile, pathogens evolve ways to evade MTI pathways or use such pathways against the host plant. Uncovering the molecular mechanics of these conflicts promises to lead to pathogen-resistant crops without the need for toxic chemical pesticides.
Assessing extinction risk across the geographic ranges of plant species in Europe â nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Plants play fundamental roles in ecosystems, yet merely 10% of species have an assessment of their global extinction risk. Through the integration of national Red Lists and comprehensive global plant distribution data, Holz et al. identify previously unassessed plant species in Europe that are threatened throughout their geographic range and thus at risk of global extinction. Their workflow can be replicated to facilitate the integration of disparate national monitoring efforts around the world and help accelerate global plant risk assessments.
The endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-located ATP/ADP-antiporter (ER-ANT1) occurs specifically in vascular plants. Structurally different transporters mediate energy provision to the ER, but the cellular function of ER-ANT1 is still unknown. Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) mutants lacking ER-ANT1 (er-ant1 plants) exhibit a photorespiratory phenotype accompanied by high glycine levels and stunted growth, pointing to an inhibition of glycine decarboxylase. To reveal whether it is possible to suppress this marked phenotype, Altensell et al. exploited the power of a forward genetic screen.
Li et al. compared the winter dormancy process in closely related evergreen (Iris japonica) and deciduous (I. tectorum) iris species across crucial developmental time points. Both iris species exhibit a âtemporaryâ winter dormancy process with distinct durations, and could easily resume growth under warm conditions. To decipher transcriptional changes, full-length sequencing for evergreen iris and short read RNA sequencing for deciduous iris were applied to generate respective reference transcriptomes.
Careers
RHS Apprenticeships Get the skills and qualifications you need for a career in horticulture with our two or three-year apprenticeship programmes
Research Fellow A BBSRC funded Research Fellow position is available in the emerging field of metabolic immunity. We are seeking a highly motivated and enthusiastic cell biologist with expertise in plant live cell microscopy and a strong accompanying suite of skills in either molecular biology or chemistry. This exciting project will deploy next generation genetically encoded reporters to understand organellar contributions to energy metabolism during plant disease and defence responses in the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana.
Broodbank Research Fellowship x 3 (Fixed Term) The Managers of the Broodbank Fund invite applications for three fellowships to be held in any Department in the School of the Biological Sciences at the University of Cambridge from 1 October 2022 or otherwise by negotiation. The Research Fellow is required to carry out research in biochemistry or biophysics, with special reference to the principles and practice of food preservation. These terms will be interpreted broadly to include fundamental research including molecular processes.
Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Ecology and Conservation We are seeking to appoint a talented Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Ecology and Conservation. You will be experienced in quantitative ecology and will be expected to deliver biostatistics to students at all levels of our Ecology and Conservation, Biological Sciences and Biomedical Sciences (IBMS accredited) undergraduate programmes and should be able to give context to biostatistics for a range of disciplines. In addition, you will teach more broadly across our Ecology and Conservation provision, including our highly successful foundation year. We are particularly keen to hear from candidates with a background in landscape/habitat ecology & management.
Post Doctoral Research Fellow in Johnston Molecular Characterization group in Seeds Regulatory Science is currently seeking a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and Molecular Genomics to join its dynamic team. The position will be in Global Business Center in Johnston, IA.
Junior Research Scientist in quantitative genetics and genetic diversity of root development in white lupin Your research project will consist in leading quantitative genetics approaches and comparative genomics of root development in white lupin (cluster roots). This will be done in challenging conditions (from phosphate starvation to drought, elevated CO2 and alkaline stress). You will first develop association genetics (GWAS) using existing root phenotyping tools (PhĂŠnoROOT platform). You will use 300 white lupin accessions (wild, ancient cultivars and breeding lines) for which sequencing data are available (GBS). Secondly, you will set up an approach to phenotype root systems of various Lupinus species, some of which do not produce cluster roots or produce non-functional cluster roots. In parallel, you will perform a shallow sequencing of their genome.
Postdoc position in Plant Developmental Biology We are looking for a highly motivated individual to join our ongoing research project on transcriptional regulation of chromosomal gene clusters in the model species Arabidopsis thaliana. The projectâs main focus is to use a combination of bioinformatic analyses and molecular approaches to study the function and evolution of chromosomal gene clusters active during stamen development.
Junior Research Scientist on the ecophysio-genetic mechanisms of the adaptive response of fruit trees to climate change You will be assigned to the UMR BFP (Fruit Biology and Pathology) which is attached to INRAE and the University of Bordeaux and which hosts slightly over 150 people. It is composed of five teams, which are interested in three areas of plant science: (i) adaptation of plants and fruit trees to climate change, (ii) development and metabolism of reproduction in fleshy fruits, and (iii) non-cultivable plant pathogens (viruses and phytoplasmas) and their interactions with their host plants and vectors. You will be part of the A3C (Adaptation of Cherry Trees to Climate Change) team which currently includes 12 permanent staff (1 DR, 1 CR, 4 IR-IE, and 6 technicians).
Research Intern (Plant Systematics Lab) The Plant Systematics lab of the Morton Arboretum is recruiting a full-time temporary Research Intern. The intern will work with the Research Coordinator for our NSF-funded bur oak study during field collecting trips, sampling oaks throughout much of eastern North America. We seek applicants with an interest in plant biodiversity, genetics, or ecology who have experience with plant identification and working outdoors. This position requires extensive and fully funded travel, so adaptability and comfort working outside in varied weather conditions are essential.
Molecular Biologist We are seeking an experienced and ambitious molecular biologist to investigate applied biological problems and advance new technologies developed by scientists at The Sainsbury Laboratory and their collaborators.
Assistant or Associate Professor, Forage Crop Production & Weed Management The Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Wyoming invites applications for an Assistant or Associate Professor for an academic year (9-month), tenure-stream position focused on forage crop production and weed management in forage-based cropping systems. The incumbent will be based on the main UW campus in Laramie.
Trait Integration Genome Design Scientist II The primary responsibilities of this role, Trait Integration Genome Design Scientist II, are to:  Execute the technical strategy to design improved cohorts of germplasm that are aligned with Product Concept targets from initial crossing through the handoff to Product Development; Forward-design genomes to create products aligned to customer needs via smart deployment of discrete genomic targets from our global germplasm pool or other means of genomic manipulation; Lead projects in collaboration with partner teams across Crop Science (regional Plant Health teams, Genome Design, Biotechnology) to accelerate discovery and effective utilization of new genomic targets associated with key traits;
Asst Professor - Forest Ecology The University of Wyoming seeks to hire a tenure-stream faculty member with expertise in forest ecology. The appointment will be as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Botany (http://www.uwyo.edu/botany). The successful candidate will build a strong externally funded research program in forest ecology to advance our understanding of forest dynamics in a rapidly changing world at any level of biological organization or spatio-temporal scale. Possible areas of expertise include, but are not limited to, population and community responses to changing climate and disturbance regimes, traditional ecological knowledge of forest ecology and management, evolutionary ecology of forests, plant physiological ecology, forest ecosystem ecology, spatial analysis and remote sensing, computational statistical modeling, and mechanistic process-based modeling.
PhD Botrytis resistance in Rosaceae We are looking for an enthusiastic, communicative and highly motivated PhD student to work on increased resistance to Botrytis. Botrytis can cause gray mold on more than 1000 plant species leading to crop losses of up to 80%. For decades scientists and breeders aim to develop tools enabling selection for increased resistance to Botrytis. Although several protocols describing Botrytis assays, differential gene expression and QTL- or S- gene studies are available, no resistance gene has been identified so far, and translation of results into applications and breeding of Botrytis resistant crops remains minimal, especially in polyploid crops.
Seasonal Ecology Fieldworker We require Seasonal Ecology Fieldworkers in Glasgow and London to help deliver our exciting orderbook. Successful candidates will be part of the LUC team between April and September (incl).
Open Rank Professor - Theoretical Plant Quantitative Geneticist The Department of Agronomy and Horticulture within the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources (IANR) at University of Nebraska-Lincoln is seeking applicants for an open rank. tenure-leading/tenured position in Plant Theoretical Quantitative Genetics. This position will contribute to the integrated research and teaching land-grant mission of IANR, as effective scholar and citizen, including supporting student recruitment and IANR science literacy.
Junior Professorship for âMolecular Plant Physiologyâ The successful candidate's responsibilities will include developing a cutting-edge research program to lead and recruit an associated team in the field of molecular plant physiology and/or plant systems biology.
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