🌱 TWiB July 12, 2021
I've been away in Ceredigion this week, so a lot of the work on the @BotanyOne Twitter account has been done by Juniper Kiss. I've put this week's email together from her work and some material I found from Friday.
This week we'll be preparing for Botany 2021 and Plant Biology 2021, but the email should arrive at the usual time next Monday morning.
Until then, take care.
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
In Botany One
Plant chemicals are more important in carnivory than previously thought — www.botany.one Plant carnivory, at the metabolic level, likely evolved from at least two distinct functions–attraction and defence.
Where Have All The Good Men Gone? Don’t Despair – Make Some Yourself (That’s What Plants Do..) — www.botany.one Observed rates of evolution in the experiment were among the highest yet recorded.
No need for orchids: mycorrhizal fungi do not depend on their hosts in Australia — www.botany.one Several fungi had distributions extending into central and northern parts of the continent, illustrating their tolerance of an extraordinarily wide range of environmental conditions.
The trade-off between stem biomechanics and hydraulics in Bauhinia lianas and trees — www.botany.one Within the Bauhinia genus is there a trade off between stem strength and hydraulic efficiency?
Global warming will limit opportunities for a sexually-deceptive orchid — www.botany.one
Climate changes will not reduce currently available niches of the orchid but will cause significant habitat loss of its pollinator.
News & Views
Structural colour: More than meets the eye
Ever wondered how the feathers on a peacock or hummingbird achieve their signature glint? Or why some leaves give off a silvery shimmer, even in low light?
The world’s wetlands are slipping away. This vibrant wildlife sanctuary underscores the stakes. — www.nationalgeographic.com It’s been 50 years since an international treaty to protect wetlands was created but, around the world, wetlands are still disappearing three times faster than forests.
Investing 0.1% of global GDP could avoid breakdown of ecosystems, says UN report Nature’s financial value must be considered to avoid ‘irreversible’ degradation to biodiversity and land
Wageningen scientists discover how the potato blight pathogen penetrates the plant In the 19th century, the notorious pathogen Phytophthora infestans caused a large famine in Ireland and other parts of Western Europe. To this day, it continues to pose a major threat to global food production. It has long been a mystery how this microscopically small organism and other members of the Phytophthora genus mechanically gain entry through the protective layer on the leaves of crops. In a unique collaboration, Wageningen University & Research experts in plant pathology, cell biology and physics have now found an answer to this question.
No Soil. No Growing Seasons. Just Add Water and Technology. A new breed of hydroponic farm, huge and high-tech, is popping up in indoor spaces all over America, drawing celebrity investors and critics.
Brazil’s Amazon Has Highest Number of Fires for June in 14 Years Brazil’s Amazon in June recorded the highest number of fires for the month since 2007 with the government’s environmental track-record and policies coming under growing scrutiny.
Carnivorous plants: the meat-eaters of the plant world Carnivorous plants have developed a terrific array of weird and wonderful adaptations that help them flourish in nutrient-poor environments.
What fractals, Fibonacci, and the golden ratio have to do with cauliflower — arstechnica.com Self-selected mutations during domestication drastically changed shape over time
Scientific Papers
The growing and vital role of botanical gardens in climate change research
Primack et al. review recent progress and describe promising future directions for research and public engagement at botanical gardens.
Global Coordination in Plant Physiological and Rooting Strategies in Response to Water Stress
Plants employ a range of strategies to modulate the impact of water stress, including changes to rooting depth and hydraulic conductance (e.g., xylem conductance). However, it is still poorly understood how these strategies vary in relation to climate and land cover types and how they could coordinate globally. Based on daily microwave vegetation optical depth (VOD) from AMSR-E and AMSR2 over 2002–2011, Liu et al. estimate two proxies for stress regulation.
Emerging satellite observations for diurnal cycling of ecosystem processes — www.nature.com
Xiao et al. review the emerging satellite observations that have the potential for studying how plant functioning and ecosystem processes vary over the course of the diurnal cycle.
Plant herbivore protection by arbuscular mycorrhizas: A role for fungal diversity?
The symbiotic association between arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and terrestrial plants can enhance plant defences against insect herbivores. Despite advances in our understanding of how AM fungi affect plant tolerance and resistance based defence mechanisms, Frew et al. contend that the role of fungal diversity in these interactions continues to be largely overlooked.
Plant Ecology: Getting the metabolites right A study of almost 800 Arabidopsis thaliana plants from across Europe reveals how the environment and evolutionary pressures shape their metabolites.
The Role of Botanical Families in Medicinal Ethnobotany: A Phylogenetic Perspective — www.mdpi.com The goal of this work is to shed light on the role of botanical families in ethnobotany, depicting in a molecular phylogenetic frame the relationships between families and medicinal uses of vascular plants in several Catalan-speaking territories. The simple quantitative analyses for ailments categories and the construction of families and disorders matrix were carried out in this study
Careers
The blueberry breeding and genomic lab addresses various questions to understand the genetic basis of important traits for blueberry breeding. This is a 12-month non-tenure-accruing position, available in the Horticultural Science Department Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, at the University of Florida.
Postdoctoral Research Associate: New Guinea TIPAs — careers.kew.org We are seeking a full-time Post-Doctoral Research Associate to work on a recently awarded philanthropic grant for Kew’s Tropical Important Plant Areas (TIPAs) programme in New Guinea, specifically in West Papua Province, Indonesia.Â
Postdoctoral Researcher (Balk Lab) An exciting opportunity has arisen for a biochemist/plant biologist to join a BBSRC-funded project in the group of Janneke Balk in collaboration with Professor Dale Sanders and with Nick Le Brun at the University of East Anglia, to enhance our understanding of iron sensing in plants.
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The email is funded by the Annals of Botany Company.