đ±TWiB July 5, 2021
There is some politics in this week's email. Normally I avoid including political stories. This week, the stories are in because people following @BotanyOne on Twitter are sharing them and because they have some relevance to botany.
Next week's issue should be with you around the same time next week, but it might be a bit shorter than usual. I'll be away on holiday for most of the week, and while I think I have the news scanning system working there's a possibility it'll crash once I walk out of the door.
Until next week, take care,
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
In Botany One
Take away the deer and more subtle effects on plant communities become apparent â www.botany.one A twenty-year survey in western Canada shows how deer can obscure other ecological effects in forests.
Plants can become less uniform by duplicating their genome â www.botany.one Though the experiment was limited to two genotypes of a single species, these findings support the idea that whole genome duplication can indeed increase plasticity.
The reason domesticated lentils are fussy about their lighting is in their genes â www.botany.one A comparison with wild lentils highlights how gene expression varies when light shifts from red to near infra-red light.
Variation between alpine and coastal populations of Vaccinium vitis-idaea â www.botany.one Can changes in ploidy level explain why certain Arctic and alpine species are able to survive at lower latitudes and elevations?
Kentucky crayfish aids plant on the run â www.botany.one
What looks like a pile of mud to a human is an oasis to a dwarf sundew.
News & Views
Reckoning with elitism and racism in conservation: Q&A with Colleen Begg â news.mongabay.com Long-running concerns about discrimination, colonial legacy, privilege, and power dynamics in conservation have come to the forefront with the recent resurgence of the social justice movement. But will this movement lead to lasting change in the sector?
New findings to boost barley yields at higher temps â phys.org An international team of researchers has identified a novel mechanism in barley plants, which could help crop growers achieve high yields as temperatures rise.
Earth is trapping âunprecedentedâ amount of heat, Nasa says Scientists from agency and Noaa say Earthâs âenergy imbalanceâ roughly doubled from 2005 to 2019 in âalarmingâ way
New insight into photosynthesis could help grow more resilient plants â phys.org A research team led by Washington State University has created a computer model to understand how plants store energy in the thylakoid membrane, a key structure to photosynthesis in plant leaves.
Toriesâ âtoothlessâ UK policies failing to halt drastic loss of wildlife More money is being spent destroying the environment than protecting it, MPsâ report finds
Florida enacts sweeping law to protect its wildlife corridors The Florida Wildlife Corridor Act was passed unanimously. It aims to protect green spaces, drinking water, and wildlife such as panthers.
Preprints and peer review at eLife We remind researchers that we now only peer review articles posted by the authors on a preprint server.
These Superheroes Could Sharply Reduce Heat Deaths â www.nytimes.com At a time when climate change is making heat waves more frequent and more severe, trees are stationary superheroes: They can lower urban temperatures 10 lifesaving degrees, scientists say.
Volunteer Farmer Trainers as agents of change CGIAR researchers and partners found success in getting the latest findings to the field via the Volunteer Farmer Trainers project, whereby local farmers were trained by extension workers to share practical knowledge and methods with others in their communities.Â
Scientific Papers
Genetic basis and dual adaptive role of floral pigmentation in sunflowers
Todesco et al. analyze the genetic and environmental factors that underlie patterns of floral pigmentation in wild sunflowers. While sunflower inflorescences appear invariably yellow to the human eye, they display extreme diversity for patterns of ultraviolet pigmentation, which are visible to most pollinators. They show that this diversity is largely controlled by cis-regulatory variation at a single MYB transcription factor, HaMYB111, through accumulation of UV-absorbing flavonol glycosides.
Structural basis for VIPP1 oligomerization and maintenance of thylakoid membrane integrity â www.cell.com
Gupta et al. use cryo-electron microscopy to determine structures of cyanobacterial VIPP1 rings, revealing how VIPP1 monomers flex and interweave to form basket-like assemblies of different symmetries.
Desert hyacinths: An obscure solution to a global problem? âDesert hyacinthsâ (Cistanche) are a remarkable genus of parasitic plants, some of which are traded widely for herbal medicine or have historical local importance as food. Despite their importance, little or nothing is known about the biology of most species and their taxonomy remains confused, hindering identification.
The plant NADPH oxidase RBOHD is required for microbiota homeostasis in leaves
Pfeilmeier et al. evaluated Arabidopsis thaliana mutants with defects in different parts of the immune system for an altered bacterial community assembly using a gnotobiotic system. While higher-order mutants in receptors that recognize microbial features and in defence hormone signalling showed substantial microbial community alterations, the absence of the plant NADPH oxidase RBOHD caused the most pronounced change in the composition of the leaf microbiota.
To understand the molecular mechanisms governing primary root development, Wang et al. performed a dynamic transcriptome analysis of two maize (Zea mays) inbred lines with contrasting primary root length at nine time points over a 12-day period. A total of 18 702 genes were differentially expressed between two lines or different time points.
Williams et al. examined changes in flowering time from 1901â2009 in South Africa in the widespread, diverse genus Pelargonium. They combined records from more than 6,200 herbarium specimens of 129 species with historical weather data on temperature to examine the impact of climate change on flowering phenology.
Anest et al. analysed the evolutionary history of the genus Euphorbia, a model clade with both high architectural diversity and a wide environmental range. They conducted comparative analyses of 193 Euphorbia species world-wide using 73 architectural traits, a dated phylogeny, and climate data.
Using a combination of advanced whole-plant imaging and hydraulic pressure measurements, Fichman and Mittler studied the activation of all four systemic signals in wild-type and different Arabidopsis thaliana mutants subjected to a local treatment of high-light (HL) stress or wounding. Their findings reveal that activation of systemic membrane potential, calcium, reactive oxygen species and hydraulic pressure signals, in response to wounding, is dependent on glutamate receptor-like proteins 3.3 and 3.6.
How noncoding open chromatin regions shape soybean domestication â www.cell.com Open chromatin regions (OCRs), a generally conserved genomic feature amongst plant species, contain noncoding cis-regulatory elements for gene regulation. Wang et al. recently investigated how OCR structures and noncoding regions might have influenced the domestication of soybean. This knowledge could guide genome editing on future improvements of agronomic traits.
Careers
Research assistant (PhD student) The position is embedded in a DFG funded Emmy Noether project about âPhenology of tropical tree species - environmental cues, molecular mechanisms, and consequences for plant-animal interactionsâ. The announced position will focus on identifying climatic cues that trigger phenological transitions in four neotropical tree species.
Content Producer - Plants & Fungi
Kew is looking for someone to tell their stories. It looks like a good position. If you want to tell the world about plants, you should apply.
Seed Collections Manager An opportunity exists for a Seed Collections Manager to join the seed biologists and conservationists at the Millennium Seed Bank, based at Wakehurst Place in West Sussex.
Doctoral Student in Plant Molecular Biology â www2.helsinki.fi Newly established research group of Academy Research Fellow Anne VatĂ©n at HiLIFE invites applications for a DOCTORAL STUDENT in plant molecular biology to study stomatal development and its regulation by complex environmental variables.
Conservation Science Analyst Working with the Conservation Assessment and Analysis team, the post holder will be expected to leverage Kewâs scientific data using data mining and Artificial Intelligence techniques and tools to address key research questions concerning global environmental change.
Multiple academic positions in Biological Sciences.
Natural Resource Specialist 3 The Oregon Department of Agriculture is seeking a Natural Resource Specialist to help support the Nursery and Christmas Tree Program. If you believe you make a good candidate for this position, then look no further, and apply for the Natural Resource Specialist 3 (Field Coordinator).
Associate Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Data Driven Evolution and Biodiversity
A position as Associate Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Data Driven Evolution and Biodiversity is open at UmeÄ Plant Science Centre, Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, SLU, UmeÄ, Sweden. The subject area is Genomics, with focus on data driven research on evolution, adaptation and biodiversity in trees.
Plant Biology Greenhouse Coordinator in Urbana, IL for University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign The Department of Plant Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign is accepting applications for a full-time Greenhouse Coordinator who will lead the operations of the Plant Biology Greenhouses and Conservatory to achieve care of plants, research protocol planning, personnel management, and policy development in an effective and efficient manner.
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. (TUdi). Â
Postdoctoral Research Assistant The School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee is a world-class academic institution with a reputation for the excellence of its research, its high quality teaching and student experience, and the strong impact of its activities outside academia. With 900 staff from over 40 countries worldwide the School provides a dynamic, multi-national, collegiate and diverse environment with state-of-the-art laboratory, technology and teaching facilities.
PhD Position Plant-microbiome Interaction In this PhD position, you will use experimental work and data integration approaches to unravel trade-offs in the plant-microbiome interaction under stress.
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