đ± TWiB June 28, 2021
It's been a strong week for New Phytologist this week. I'll have to see if that's due to a flaw in the new system from collecting tweets, clever strategy on their part that I can copy or luck. They have about half the entries in the Scientific Paper section, as well as a blog post and even an entry in the Careers section.
Also impressive this week is Katharine Woods, The Teabreak Gardener, who raised ÂŁ950 for a hospice with her first garden open day. Given the year so far, that's welcome good news. Hopefully, there'll be more next week.
Until then, take care,
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
In Botany One
Carnivorous plants have evolved to hunt in packs â www.botany.one
They have not yet learned how to open doors.
Exploring the use of genetically modified trees to combat diseases in citrus in Argentina â www.botany.one
Among other scientists, Agustina De Francesco and colleagues are using novel genetic methods to keep limes, oranges and other citrus in your kitchen.
Also available in Spanish.
The broken remains of pectin give clues to the culprit â www.botany.one By tracking how cell walls were loosened, a team has been able to show which enzyme is helping fruit ripen.
Two plants in a pot, intraspecific root competition in soybean and sunflower â www.botany.one Can a split pot design provide insights into belowground competition between neighbouring plants?
Estimates of leaf size set to get closer to reality â www.botany.one A one-size-fits-all estimate of leaf area has drawbacks if not all your leaves are the same shape.
News & Views
Why âtiny forestsâ are popping up in big cities â www.nationalgeographic.com Community forests the size of a basketball court can make an outsized difference, providing shade, attracting plants and animals, and even storing a bit of carbon.
âWe need to talkâ: ways to prevent collaborations breaking down Scientists who plan to partner on a research project should identify pressure points and consider a team charter at the outset.
My first garden open day Iâve been blogging about my garden for three years but it was exposed to in-person public scrutiny last week on my first ever garden open day. I organised timed tours on the hour throughout the day and welcomed 56 visitors. Friends baked cakes and helped out selling teas and plants and we raised ÂŁ950 pounds for my favourite hospice charity.
Australia or Africa? The botanical controversy over who can call their plants 'Acacia' â www.abc.net.au Australia is not alone in having a deep connection to acacias. Plants called acacia are found around the tropics and throughout Africa, where they also hold enormous cultural and economic significance. And in the 2000s, this unassuming posse of plants was at the centre of one of the world's biggest botanical controversies: who gets to call their acacias "Acacia"?
Why trees grow at night A study led by the Swiss Research Institute WSL has now shown that tree growth takes place primarily in the dark, mainly because in daylight, it is inhibited by dry air, even in moist soil conditions.
Kenya National Biosafety Authority Approves Genetically Modified Cassava- Crop Biotech Update (June 23, 2021) On June 22, 2021, the Kenya National Biosafety Authority (NBA) approved the environmental release of genetically modified (GM) cassava event 4046, resistant to cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) developed by the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO).
Seagrass: Another Vital Carbon-Sequestering Ecosystem Threatened by Climate Change â therevelator.org Underwater meadows have rapidly disappeared around the world, but new research suggests they may be the easiest coastal habitat to restore.
Climate warming can influence fungal communities on oak leaves across the growing season Climate warming plays a larger role than plant genes in influencing the number and identity of fungal species on oak leaves, especially in autumn. Recently published research sheds light on how warming and tree genes affect the dynamics of fungal communities across the season.
Fieldwork for a better future UCI partners with Irvine Ranch Conservancy for climate change adaptation study of plant and microbial ecosystems on Loma Ridge
Demand for soy puts pressure on Pantanal, Brazil's largest wild wetland â news.mongabay.com Global demand for soybean has seen annual production of the crop in Brazil soar from 30 million tons in 2000 to 125 million tons today. Most of the agrochemicals consumed in Brazil are used on this crop.
What Do the Birds and the Bees Have to Do With Global Food Supply? A new report from the United Nations suggests that the loss of certain pollinating species could threaten the planetâs food supply.
Scientific Papers
Symbiont switching and trophic mode shifts in Orchidaceae
Wang et al. built a comprehensive DNA dataset of Orchidaceae fungal symbionts and a dated plant molecular phylogeny to test the hypothesis that shifts in orchid trophic modes follow a stepwise pattern, from autotrophy over partial mycoheterotrophy (mixotrophy) to full mycoheterotrophy, and that these shifts are accompanied by switches in fungal symbionts.
Mechanobiology of cell division in plant growth - Robinson Cell division reduces mechanical stress locally by producing smaller cells and alters mechanical properties by reinforcing the mechanical wall network, both of which can alter overall tissue morphology. Division orientation is often regarded as following geometric rules, however recent work has suggested that divisions align with the direction of maximal tensile stress. Mechanical stress has already been shown to feed into many processes of development including those that alter mechanical properties.
Low bee visitation rates explain pollinator shifts to vertebrates in tropical mountains
Dellinger et al. combine phylogenetic and distributional data for 138 species of the Neotropical plant tribe Merianieae (Melastomataceae) with pollinator observations of 11 and field pollination experiments of six species to test whether the mountain environment may indeed drive such shifts.
Haplotype analyses reveal novel insights into tomato history and domestication to show long-distance migrations and latitudinal adaptations A novel haplotype-based approach that uses Procrustes analysis and automatic classification was used to provide further insights into tomato history and domestication. Agrarian cultures domesticated species of interest by introducing complex genetic modifications. For tomato, two species, and for one of them two botanical varieties: are thought to be involved in its domestication: the fully wild Solanum pimpinellifolium (SP), the wild and semidomesticated S. lycopersicum var. cerasiforme (SLC) and the cultivated S. l. var. lycopersicum (SLC). The new approach showed that SP evolved into SLC during a gradual migration from the Peruvian deserts to the Mexican rainforests and that Peruvian and Ecuadorian SLCs were the result of more recent hybridizations.
occCite: Tools for querying and managing large biodiversity occurrence datasets
Owens et al. present an R package, occCite (v. 0.4.7), to aid researchers in querying large species occurrence data aggregators (specifically, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, GBIF, and the Botanical Information and Ecology Network, BIEN), and store metadata such as primary data providers, database accession dates, DOIs, and the taxonomic source used for search terms.
Regulation of touch-stimulated de novo root regeneration from Arabidopsis leaves
Root regeneration from the wounded leaf requisites touch-driven auxin accumulation and PLETHORA regulatory module.
Zweifel et al. present the first comprehensive field study of hourly-resolved radial stem growth of seven temperate tree species, based on 57 million underlying data points over a period of up to 8 years.
Ecosystem engineering by deepânesting monitor lizards
In which Doody et al. compare loss of species to a game of Jenga. You don't want to lose the wrong one.
Replicating minichromosomes as a new tool for plastid genome engineering â www.nature.com
Jakubiec et al. present a new method for transgene introduction and expression in chloroplasts that, unlike classically used approaches, does not require transgene insertion into the chloroplast genome.
Available via ReadCube.
Towards a statistically robust determination of minimum water potential and hydraulic risk in plants
MartĂnezâVilalta et al. compare alternative approaches to estimate Κmin and assess the corresponding uncertainties and biases; propose statistically robust estimation methods based on extreme value theory (EVT); and assess the implications of our results for the characterization of hydraulic risk.
Root biology in the 21st century: challenges and opportunities Root systems can be managed and bred to do their work better â to efficiently and effectively acquire soil resources and partner with soil organisms to support shoot growth despite an array of abiotic and biotic stresses.
Genome design of hybrid potato â www.cell.com
Reinventing potato from a clonally propagated tetraploid into a seed-propagated diploid, hybrid potato, is an important innovation in agriculture. Due to deleterious mutations, it has remained a challenge to develop highly homozygous inbred lines, a prerequisite to breed hybrid potato. Zhang et al. employed genome design to develop a generation of pure and fertile potato lines and thereby the uniform, vigorous F1s.
Careers
Fiber Development Scientist GALY is looking for a talented expert in plant cell wall development for our mission to make cotton fiber from lab grown cells. This position requires candidates to have direct experience with plant cell walls/physiology. Please feel free to reach out to me for more details!
Ph.D. or R.A. position in systems biology of photosynthesis and nitrogen use
The Brooks lab is recruiting a graduate student or research assistant to study gene regulatory networks using systems biology approaches.
Junior Group Leader in Genome-assisted Breeding The Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG) is currently seeking a Junior Group Leader in the area of genome-assisted breeding. We look for Junior applicants to start an independent Research Group at CRAG.
Junior Group Leader in Synthetic Biology The Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG) is currently seeking a Junior Group Leader in the area of synthetic biology. We look for Junior applicants to start an independent Research Group at CRAG.
MSc Lead and Researcher Kew is launching a new MSc in partnership with Queen Mary University of London focusing on Biodiversity, Conservation and Restoration, and we are looking for an enthusiastic research scientist and higher education teaching specialist to be the Co-Director of the MSc.
Research Associate in Receptor Evolution (Fixed Term) Applications are invited for a post-doctoral research associate in Receptor Evolution to work with Prof Uta Paszkowski at the Crop Science Centre and start between 1 August and 1 September 2021. Funds will be available for this post for 3 years in the first instance.
Senior Curator-Botanist (Africa) This is an excellent opportunity to join the dynamic Herbarium Curation team in the Science Collections department. The successful candidate will curate the Herbarium collections to a high standard, which includes processing new acquisitions, preparing loans and working with Kew databases.
Research Associate in Ligand-Receptor Interactions (Fixed Term) Applications are invited for a post-doctoral research associate in Ligand-Receptor Interactions to work with Prof Uta Paszkowski at the Crop Science Centre, Department of Plant Sciences, starting between 1 August and 1 September 2021.
Research Associate in Agricultural Sustainability (Fixed Term) The goal of the position is to quantify the environmental benefits of reduced nitrogen fertiliser application at the village-scale in mixed wheat-rice cropping systems. The assessments will accompany Leaf Colour Charts developed by partners at the Punjab Agricultural University as a low-cost tool to support decisions on the timing and quantity of fertiliser applications (see https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2019.06.006).
Research Associate A Research Associate position is available to contribute to a high-profile collaborative project with the Bristol centre for agricultural innovation, the New Phytologist Foundation, and Professor Griersonâs lab at the University of Bristol. This project involves research engagement and impact beyond academia and seeks to identify the important questions for plant science research through a public consultation and dissemination of these responses
Multidisciplinary Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021 3 Postdoctoral fellowships (2 years) in Bacteria cell wall systems biology, soil pore architecture, and image analysis of wood formation
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