🌱 TWiB January 17, 2022
Here's another round-up of what you're sharing on Twitter. Usually, all the politics is removed, but there is a post that intentionally touches on it from Kew this week. I've included it as it's a response to a political attack from a think-tank on their science and heritage work and it got a lot of shares.
Another thing that's getting talked about a lot is the new Green Planet series on the BBC. It's a reminder I need to make time to watch more television, as I haven't seen any of it yet. I imagine one way of finding it to watch outside the UK would be searching Reddit's VideoDocumentaries page, but I don't know if any episodes would be visible for long.
So if I end up watching television this week, it'll be for work and not relaxation. Whatever you do this week, stay safe, and the next email round up should be with you around the same time next week.
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
In Botany One
Roles of wood anatomical traits in the coexistence of Mexican oak species — www.botany.one Can wood anatomical traits of oak species explain their coexistence along environmental gradients in the mountains of Mexico?
Herbivores can cause dioecious plants to partly swap sex — www.botany.one Rather than inherently being 'male' or 'female', Mercurialis annua can produce flowers as a plastic response to its environment.
What does chlorophyll leave behind after a billion years? — www.botany.one Scientists have identified one of the earliest multicellular algae. Their new method could help unlock much more information from Precambrian fossils.
Why are there no Arctic mangroves? — www.botany.one Research from Japan reveals that mangroves can't cope with cold feet.
It's far from certain that peat bogs can continue absorbing carbon dioxide at current rates — www.botany.one A common claim is that rising carbon dioxide is actually good for plants. Research from Sweden shows that reality is more complicated.
News & Views
How bringing back the wild yam is feeding the hungry in drought-hit Madagascar Every December, the arrival of rain signals the beginning of the “hungry season” in Madagascar. It will be months before the next rice harvest on the island, which is experiencing the worst drought in 40 years in the south of the country. One million people are struggling to find food in the region due to what the World Food Programme described as the “first climate-induced famine”.
Extending our reach: What we are doing (and not doing) and why it matters — www.kew.org Richard Deverell, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew talks about our commitment to being a place for everyone.
Climate change threatens coffee – but we’ve found a delicious wild species that could help save your morning brew — theconversation.com Consumers may be happy, but climate change is making coffee farmers bitter. Diseases and pests are becoming more common and severe as temperatures rise. The fungal infection known as coffee leaf rust has devastated plantations in Central and South America.
Plant Functional Traits Course 6 Norway: Sign up now! Plant Functional Traits Courses (PFTC) offer hands-on training in applications of plant functional trait ecology within a real-life field research project setting. During this 6th PFTC course, students will collect and explore plant functional trait data in the field and use trait-based approaches within global change research and ecosystem ecology. Following the course, students will have opportunities to participate in / lead publications using the data.
Tips for writing academic paper threads — kamounlab.medium.com The Title of your article is your billboard, but you can also advertize your work with paper threads. Here is how to make the most out of this latest genre in scientific writing, which has taken academic Twitter by storm.
The Science And Art Of Really Seeing Weird Plants — www.forbes.com Paintings of a few weird and wonderful bizarre plants that are far stranger than any in science fiction, and that exemplify the incredible strategies that plants need to survive
Which is better – a sown ornamental wildflower meadow or a biodiversity meadow created by reduced mowing? — pollinators.ie Read about this MSc project in Trinity College Dublin which compared ornamental meadows sown with wildflower seed mixes versus biodiversity meadows created by reduced mowing in which no seeds were sown
Dhruv Patel is daring plants to take a risk — allianceforscience.cornell.edu Dhruv Patel is using gene editing tools to research photosynthesis, a process he first noticed in the parking lot of the Los Angeles motel his family managed.
The RBGE Herbarium: Exploring Gesneriaceae, the African violet family By volunteering on this Zooniverse project, you’ll also be supporting an overarching project that studies how volunteers interact with citizen research projects -- Engaging Crowds: citizen research and heritage data at scale, is part of Towards a National Collection, an £18.9 million Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded programme which launched in 2020. As one of the programme’s foundational projects, this open-source research will benefit society more widely in showing how volunteers interact with projects and how citizens can change the future of research.
First, do no harm! The fundamental rule of creating pollinator habitat that you need to know — jeffollerton.co.uk I had an interesting conversation with a landscape architect on Wednesday who was asking for some advice about creating urban habitat for pollinators. The plan was to strip turf from under the trees in a city greenspace in order to put in some flowering plants as nectar and pollen sources. I often get asked about this, not only by landscape architects, but by professional gardeners, park committees, local residents groups, and so forth. My initial advice, following the Greek physician Hippocrates, is always the same: “First, do no harm.”
Earth is running low on animals as the climate changes. Plants are next. Many plants need to migrate to survive climate change, but they’re losing their animal rides.
Scientific Papers
Saxifraga viridiflora (Saxifragaceae), an unusual new species from Guangxi, China — phytokeys.pensoft.net Saxifraga viridiflora, a remarkable new species of the genus Saxifraga sect. Irregulares (Saxifragaceae) from Guangxi, is described and illustrated herein. This new species morphologically differs from all known S. sect. Irregulares taxa by its greenish petals, verruculose sepals, and thick leathery leaf blade abaxially scarlet with white spots.
CRISPR guides induce gene silencing in plants in the absence of Cas
Sharma et al. report the use of CRISPR-Cas13 in plants to reduce both viral and endogenous RNA. Unexpectedly, they observe that crRNA designed to guide Cas13 could, in the absence of the Cas13 protein, cause substantial reduction in RNA levels as well.
A taxonomic, genetic and ecological data resource for the vascular plants of Britain and Ireland
The vascular flora of Britain and Ireland is among the most extensively studied in the world, but the current knowledge base is fragmentary, with taxonomic, ecological and genetic information scattered across different resources. Henniges et al. present the first comprehensive data repository of native and alien species optimized for fast and easy online access for ecological, evolutionary and conservation analyses. The inventory is based on the most recent reference flora of Britain and Ireland, with taxon names linked to unique Kew taxon identifiers and DNA barcode data.
Ying et al. demonstrate that a DOMAIN OF UNKNOWN FUNCTION 506 (DUF506) protein, AT3G25240, negatively regulates Arabidopsis thaliana RH growth. The AT3G25240 gene is strongly and specifically induced during phosphorus (P)-limitation. Mutants of this gene, which we call REPRESSOR OF EXCESSIVE ROOT HAIR ELONGATION 1 (RXR1), have much longer RHs, higher phosphate content and seedling biomass, while overexpression of the gene exhibits opposite phenotypes.
Climate warming may increase the frequency of cold-adapted haplotypes in alpine plants — www.nature.com
Wessely et al. incorporate assumed intraspecific niche variation into a dynamic range model and explore possible consequences for six high-mountain plant species of the European Alps under scenarios of twenty-first century climate warming. At the species level, the results indicate massive range loss independent of intraspecific variation. At the intraspecific level, the model predicts a decrease in the frequency of warm-adapted haplotypes in five species.
Wong-Bajracharya et al. demonstrate that the beneficial fungus Pisolithus microcarpus encodes a miRNA that enters plant cells and stabilizes the symbiotic interaction. These results demonstrate that beneficial fungi may regulate host gene expression through the use of miRNAs and sheds light on how beneficial microbes have evolved mechanisms to colonize plant tissues.
Mutation bias reflects natural selection in Arabidopsis thaliana — www.nature.com
Since the first half of the twentieth century, evolutionary theory has been dominated by the idea that mutations occur randomly with respect to their consequences. Monroe et al. test this assumption with large surveys of de novo mutations in the plant Arabidopsis thaliana. In contrast to expectations, they find that mutations occur less often in functionally constrained regions of the genome—mutation frequency is reduced by half inside gene bodies and by two-thirds in essential genes.
Green space and mortality in European cities: a health impact assessment study — www.thelancet.com
Natural outdoor environments including green spaces play an important role in preserving population health and wellbeing in cities, but the number of deaths that could be prevented by increasing green space in European cities is not known. Pereira Barboza et al. aimed to estimate the number of natural-cause deaths among adult residents that could be prevented in cities in 31 European countries, if the WHO recommendation for universal access to green space was achieved.
Climate legacies determine grassland responses to future rainfall regimes
Climate variability and periodic droughts have complex effects on carbon (C) fluxes, with uncertain implications for ecosystem C balance under a changing climate. Responses to climate change can be modulated by persistent effects of climate history on plant communities, soil microbial activity, and nutrient cycling (i.e., legacies). To assess how legacies of past precipitation regimes influence tallgrass prairie C cycling under new precipitation regimes, Broderick et al. modified a long-term irrigation experiment that simulated a wetter climate for >25 years.
Ecological network complexity scales with area
Larger geographical areas contain more species—an observation raised to a law in ecology. Less explored is whether biodiversity changes are accompanied by a modification of interaction networks. Galiana et al. use data from 32 spatial interaction networks from different ecosystems to analyse how network structure changes with area. They find that basic community structure descriptors (number of species, links and links per species) increase with area following a power law. Yet, the distribution of links per species varies little with area, indicating that the fundamental organization of interactions within networks is conserved.
Careers
Postdoctoral position in the Molecular Plant-Bacteria interactions group
We are looking for highly motivated individuals with a strong research background in plant biochemistry, molecular biology and/or genetics, and a PhD degree in a related discipline. Previous experience on plant signaling or plant-pathogen interactions is desirable, and laboratory experience with basic protein biochemistry and molecular biology techniques is required. Good communication and interpersonal skills are essential, as well as good English speaking, reading and writing skills. The successful candidate will join a highly dynamic, interdisciplinary and international lab.
Postdoctoral Research Associate in Tropical Forest Ecology Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Associate (PDRA) position to investigate the spatial ecology of tree-insect interactions in tropical forests. The position is part of a project funded by the Leverhulme Trust and led by Dr Sofia Gripenberg (University of Reading) with project partners at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Panama) and the University of Oxford. The project will use aerial-based mapping to generate tree distribution maps that – in combination with ground-based surveys and experiments – will be used to test predictions derived from the classical Janzen-Connell hypothesis, but at spatial scales at which they have rarely been tested before. More specifically, the project aims to test the hypothesis that reproductive tree individuals that are spatially isolated from conspecifics escape attack by host-specific insects attacking seeds and young seedlings in their vicinity, with potential implications for plant diversity maintenance in tropical forests.
Assistant Professor The Department of Crop and Soil Sciences (CSS) in the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences (CAHNRS) at Washington State University (WSU) seeks a dynamic, motivated, and collaborative leader/educator to develop an innovative agricultural and natural resources communication program that aligns with university, student, and industry needs. The position offers an exciting opportunity to develop new courses, as well as a new minor in Agricultural and Natural Resources Communication.
Diversity Equity & Inclusion Outreach Programs Coordinator This new position coordinates all aspects of the Botanical Society of America’s DEI programs, including the PLANTS (Preparing Leaders and Nurturing Tomorrow’s Scientists) grant program which encompasses an annual science identity workshop for undergraduates, a faculty professional development workshop and a conference mentoring program for undergraduates that are underrepresented in science. This position is also responsible for coordination of DEI Committee activities, professional development webinars and workshops, and efforts to collaborate with other scientific societies in our inclusion and equity efforts.
Research Biologist (Computational)/Agronomist/Agricultural Engineer (Computational) This position serves as a Research Biologist (Computational) or Research Agricultural Engineer (Computational) or Research Agronomist assigned to the USDA-ARS Forage Seed and Cereal Research Unit in Corvallis, Oregon. The person hired into the position will use modeling or simulation approaches to research the integration of hemp into existing U.S. crop production.
Editor We are seeking an Editor to strengthen and complement the editorial team and to continue raising the Journal’s profile worldwide. To complement our Editor team, we are looking for an active researcher broad interests in plant ecology. Expertise in community or population ecology is particularly welcomed but nor required.
Postdoc Position in Plant Microbiome Research in the ERC Project DIVERSIPHAGY We are looking for Postdoc (f,m,d) with proven expertise in plant molecular biology and microbiology. Prior experiences to study plant/root-microbe interactions and microbiome (e.g. FlowPot System, SynComs) are highly advantageous. Excellent English communication skills as well as teamwork abilities are expected. Work within the project will include microbial, cell biological (confocal microscopy), biochemical (proteomics), genetic and (single-cell) transcriptomic approaches using Arabidopsis and commensal bacteria as model organisms. No prior experience with autophagy is required!
Postdoctoral Scholar The Lasky Lab at The Pennsylvania State University is seeking a Postdoctoral Fellow with expertise in evolutionary and ecological genetics. Primary responsibility of the Postdoctoral Fellow will be to identify putative climate-adaptive and parasite resistance alleles in sorghum, a key global food security crop, using whole genome resequencing, evolutionary analyses, and ecological modeling. The Postdoctoral Fellow will also collaborate with a team of postdocs at Penn State, Colorado State University and CERAAS-Senegal on field and controlled-environment experiments to test hypotheses on the adaptive value of these alleles; and contribute to development of molecular breeding technology that will allow African breeding programs to deploy these alleles in climate-resilient varieties.
Postdoctoral Scholar The Lasky Lab at The Pennsylvania State University is seeking a Postdoctoral Fellow with expertise in plant stress physiology and genetics. The primary responsibility of the Postdoc will be to develop and test hypotheses on the adaptive value of putative climate-adaptive alleles and alleles resistant to parasitic plants in sorghum, a key global food security crop. The Postdoctoral Fellow will use physiological and genetic approaches in controlled-environment and field experiments. Much of this research will focus on identifying resistance mechanisms to the parasitic plant Striga, leveraging the parasitic plant quarantine facility at Penn State.
Asst Professor The Department of Biological Sciences at University of North Texas (UNT), a Hispanic-Serving Institution and a Carnegie Research Tier 1 institution, invites applications for a tenure-track position at the Assistant Professor level in Biochemistry. Preference will be given to applicants with research interests focused on Plant Biochemistry and a desire to develop an active research program using modern tools in biochemical, biophysical and structural biology.
Postdoc in Macroecology and Diversity of European Vegetation Temporary position with a contract until 31 December 2023, non-academic
PhD Fully Funded Position in Plant Development, Genomics and Evolution We are looking for an enthusiastic, communicative, and highly motivated colleague with experience in plant biology to carry out a PhD in our group. You will be working on an NWO-VIDI funded project, investigating the evolution of exodermis in flowering plants. Exodermis is a barrier cell type protecting roots in fluctuating environments. The evolutionary path and molecular regulators of exodermis are waiting for discovery.
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