đ± TWiB November 29, 2021
Last week I managed my time well enough to compile the newsletter on Friday afternoon, which gave me my first full weekend off in a long while. I'm going to see if I can do the same again this week.
Getting a bit more rest meant I had more time to see Jacob Suissa give a masterclass in how to get people to read your paper this week, with a series of tweets showing why ferns are worth a closer look.
Other impressive news is the Edinburgh Journal of Botany is now Diamond Open Access. If you're wondering what form of Open Access that is, it's free to read and free to publish in.
Assuming one of the new COVID variants doesn't get me, there'll be another issue at the same time next week. Until then, take care.
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
In Botany One
Tree species mixing increases stand productivity and density â www.botany.one
The benefits of the mixture come on top of the other well-known superiority of provisioning and regulation services.
Morpho-anatomical affinities of three paleoendemic podocarp genera â www.botany.one Despite the probable extinction of closely related sister species and genera, and the evolution of morphological structures as adaptations to changing environmental conditions, they still share basic reproductive traits with other podocarps.
Evolutionary history of two rare conifers from the QinghaiâTibet Plateau â www.botany.one
This study sheds light on the evolution of two endemic juniper species from the QinghaiâTibet Plateau and their responses to Quaternary climate fluctuations.
Principles of resilient coding for plant ecophysiologists â www.botany.one
đŽ Tired: Remembering if âACi_sol_C_1.xlsxâ or âACi_sol_D_v3.xlsxâ has correct parameter estimates.
đ Wired: Using reproducible, scalable code to analyse data.
Biodiversity in agricultural land: better in bioenergy crops â www.botany.one This study shows that using plant material to produce bioenergy also has a positive effect on overall biodiversity.
News & Views
Loss of tree species has cumulative impact on biodiversity â www.britishecologicalsociety.org Diseases affecting different UK tree species have been shown to have a multiplying effect on the loss of associated biodiversity, according to new research published in the Journal of Ecology by James Hutton Institute scientists and partners in the UK and Portugal.
Irish Sky Garden â Skibbereen, Ireland â www.atlasobscura.com This floating garden in the sky is straight out of a fairy tale, but the real thing is nothing short of magical.Â
Prestigious prize visa: UK Global Talent fast-track scheme for scientists hasnât received any applications since it launched A fast-track visa route for Nobel prize laureates and other award-winners in science, engineering, the humanities and medicine has failed to attract any applicants
The carbon most crucial to avoiding climate disaster has been mapped | Science News Releasing the carbon stored in vulnerable ecosystems could push global warming past 1.5 degrees Celsius
âOutlawâ loggers VicForests and a regulator's 'charade' put drinking water at risk, data reveals - ABC News â www.abc.net.au âVicForests would not be able to survive without continuing to log illegally and continuing to log important areas for biodiversity.â
Protect > Manage > Restore: Are we overlooking the obvious in our rush to reforest? Prioritising protection for threatened carbon-storing landscapes can deliver most immediate ROI for climate mitigation, study suggests
Community tree nursery and garden bring a ray of hope to Zimbabwean village â news.mongabay.com Tobacco production and brick making are needed sources of income for the Zimbabwean village of Guruve, but are also contributing to the rapid deforestation of woodlots to feed the growing industries. To address deforestation, a community women-led tree nursery project has planted more than 200 native tree species in the past year and anticipates planting 2,000 more by the end of this year.
The surprising ancient history of the hedge apple â www.nationalgeographic.com When the fruits of the Osage orange tree fall to the ground in autumn, they demand notice. For one thing, theyâre the size of softballsâthe largest fruit of any tree native to North America. For another, theyâre bright green. On top of that they have a strange story that few people know.
Scientific Papers
The sensitive fern, Onoclea sensibilis L., is a widespread species in eastern North America and has an atypical timing of spore dispersal among temperate ferns. During the early summer, this dimorphic species produces heavily modified spore-bearing fronds with leaflets tightly enveloping their sporangia and spores. These fronds senesce and persist above ground as dead mature structures until the following early spring when the leaflets finally open and spores are dispersed. While this timing of spore dispersal has been observed for over 120 years, the structural mechanisms underpinning this phenology have remained elusive.
Contrasting effects of tree origin and urbanization on invertebrate abundance and tree phenology
Kjellberg Jensen et al. quantified the abundance of invertebrates on a subset of native and non-native tree species through shake-sampling, sticky-traps and frass collection. In the urban environment, non-native trees hosted significantly fewer invertebrates compared to native trees. Furthermore, the non-native trees had a delayed phenology compared to native species, while the peak of caterpillars associated with the subset of trees surveyed for this measure was significantly earlier compared to that of the native species studied. The effect of tree species origin on urban invertebrate abundance was of a greater magnitude (effect size) than the effect of urbanization on invertebrate abundance in native tree hosts.
Differential reward in âmaleâ versus âfemaleâ pollen of functionally dioecious Solanum Higher levels of proteins and amino acids in porate pollen of âmaleâ flowers in our functionally dioecious Solanum species suggests a greater nutritive reward for bees foraging on âmaleâ plants than for those foraging on functionally âfemaleâ plants. Greater reward in porate pollen (including andromonoecious species) may be connected to the potential to generate a pollen tube.
Using data from 37 studies on 22 pollinator-dependent wild plant species across Europe, Herbertsson et al. investigated whether flower visitation and seed set of insect-pollinated plants decline with an increasing proportion of arable land within 1 km.
Page et al. conducted a hierarchical meta-analysis of 168 studies and extracted 1564 single visit effectiveness (SVE) measures for 240 plant species. They paired SVE data with visitation frequency data for 69 of these studies. They used these data to ask three questions: (1) Do honeybees (Apis mellifera) and other floral visitors differ in their SVE? (2) To what extent do plant and pollinator attributes predict differences in SVE between honeybees and other visitors? (3) Is there a correlation between visitation frequency and SVE?
Nanoparticle cellular internalization is not required for RNA delivery to mature plant leaves â www.nature.com
Zhang et al. employed non-biolistically delivered DNA-modified gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) of various sizes (5â20ânm) and shapes (spheres and rods) to systematically investigate their transport following infiltration into Nicotiana benthamiana leaves. Generally, smaller AuNPs demonstrated more rapid, higher and longer-lasting levels of association with plant cell walls compared with larger AuNPs. They observed internalization of rod-shaped but not spherical AuNPs into plant cells, yet, surprisingly, 10ânm spherical AuNPs functionalized with small-interfering RNA (siRNA) were the most efficient at siRNA delivery and inducing gene silencing in mature plant leaves.
Deep learning improves macromolecule identification in 3D cellular cryo-electron tomograms
Moebel et al. present DeepFinder, a computational procedure that uses artificial neural networks to simultaneously localize multiple classes of macromolecules. Once trained, the inference stage of DeepFinder is faster than template matching and performs better than other competitive deep learning methods at identifying macromolecules of various sizes in both synthetic and experimental datasets. On cellular cryo-ET data, DeepFinder localized membrane-bound and cytosolic ribosomes (roughly 3.2âMDa), ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylaseâoxygenase (roughly 560âkDa soluble complex) and photosystem II (roughly 550âkDa membrane complex) with an accuracy comparable to expert-supervised ground truth annotations.
Ectomycorrhizal plants trade plant-assimilated carbon for soil nutrients with their fungal partners. The underlying mechanisms, however, are not fully understood. Mayerhofer et al. investigate the exchange of carbon for nitrogen in the ectomycorrhizal symbiosis of Fagus sylvatica across different spatial scales from the root system to the cellular level.
In vascular plants, more rigid leaves have been linked to lower photosynthetic capacity, associated with low CO2 diffusion across the mesophyll, indirectly resulting in a trade-off between photosynthetic capacity (An) and bulk modulus of elasticity (Δ). However, Perera-Castro et al. evaluated mosses, liverworts, and Chara sp., plus some lycophytes and ferns, and found that they behaved as clear outliers of the AnâΔ relationship
The barley immune receptor Mla recognizes multiple pathogens and contributes to host range dynamics
ettgenhaeuser et al. show that three resistance genes, Rps6, Rps7, and Rps8, contribute to immunity in barley to wheat stripe rust. Rps7 cosegregates with barley powdery mildew resistance at the Mla locus. Using transgenic complementation of different Mla alleles, they confirm allele-specific recognition of wheat stripe rust by Mla. Their results show that major resistance genes contribute to the host species specificity of wheat stripe rust on barley and that a shared genetic architecture underlies resistance to the adapted pathogen barley powdery mildew and non-adapted pathogen wheat stripe rust.
The U1 snRNP component RBP45d regulates temperature-responsive flowering in Arabidopsis
Chang et al. identified the splicing factor RNA BINDING PROTEIN 45d (RBP45d), a member of the RBP45/47 family in Arabidopsis thaliana. Using sequence comparison and biochemical analysis, we determined that RBP45d is a component of the U1 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein (U1 snRNP) with functions distinct from other family members. RBP45d associates with the U1 snRNP by interacting with pre-mRNA-processing factor 39a (PRP39a) and directly regulates alternative splicing (AS) for a specific set of genes. Plants with loss of RBP45d and PRP39a function exhibited defects in temperature-induced flowering, potentially due to the misregulation of temperature-sensitive AS of FLOWERING LOCUS M as well as the accumulation of the flowering repressor FLOWERING LOCUS C.
Careers
We are now seeking highly motivated researchers who have extensive postdoctoral experience and who are ready to develop leadership roles, on tenure track positions. We invite applications from ambitious researchers in any areas linked to the key strengths of the Cell and Molecular Sciences Department, but we are particularly keen to hear from scientists working in, or keen to move into, the following areas: Work areas aligned with the key strategic aims of the IBH and APGC, Potato genetics, Physiology and genetics of soft fruit, Integrated pest management & molecular plant pathology.
Facilities Manager - Biological Sciences Responsible for all aspects of operations relating to these facilities, and the line management of technical staff in the discipline of Biological Sciences, this leadership role in the discipline oversees matters relating to management and Safety, Health and Wellbeing (SHW) of teaching and research laboratories.
Investigating the role of TOR kinase in the rice blast fungus | Doctoral Training Partnership This project will investigate the control of plant infection by TOR kinase, a nutrient-sensitive central controller of cell growth. TOR is implicated in many human diseases and is the target of rapamycin, a drug with many therapeutic uses. Its role in fungal pathogenesis is, however, not well understood. The project will characterise TOR kinase in M. oryzae, investigate its activation and regulatory control, identify its downstream phosphorylated protein targets, as well as its ability to control infection-associated autophagy, which is essential for rice blast disease.
Lecturer (Terrestrial Ecology)
An exciting and rewarding opportunity is now available for a Lecturer (Terrestrial Ecology) to join our team in January 2022. You will join a team dedicated to providing a caring yet stimulating intellectual environment for our students to enable them to develop the confidence, knowledge and skills they need to succeed.
Project Manager (HE) GPSEP [Temporary Cover] (Part Time) The Project Manager for Higher Education will jointly oversee initiatives for post-16 audiences. This exciting and creative role would suit an experienced engagement professional. You will work closely with members of the GPSEP team and external consultants to design and deliver ambitious student engagement projects. This role is a job share with a Project Manager and includes shared line management of a Project Coordinator.
Lecturer for Crop Systems Analysis Are you an ambitious crop scientist, plant ecologist or ecophysiologist with a keen interest in small-scale university education and the use of modelling approaches? Then we have an interesting lecturer position at Wageningen Plant Science for you.
Duncan Louis Stewart Fellowship in Natural History â www.winchestercollege.org
The key role and responsibility of the fellow will be to inspire and facilitate the pupils, and the school, as we grow and increase our contribution to, and general awareness of the natural world around us. Winchester College aims to contribute to caring for and protecting our natural world and planet well beyond our own boundaries.
PhD Funded Position in Plant Science We are looking for a Ph.D. student to work on LoblollyPine! Please contact Dr. Cook if interested at NC State Uni.
X-RAY TOMOGRAPHY AND IMAGE ANALYSIS TECHNICIAN, FULL TIME The laboratory of Dr. Christopher Topp at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center is a maize root phenomics lab, innovating uses of 3D imaging modalities to investigate root system architecture. The primary role of this position is to assist the X-ray imaging facility manager Keith Duncan in the operation and maintenance of two X-ray tomography instruments for Topp lab imaging projects and collaborations, and use a variety of imaging workstations to display and analyze X-ray imaging data. The successful candidate will be organized, independent, have strong communication skills, desire to learn, and work with outstanding collaborative capability.
Senior Ecologist The successful candidate will provide technical ecological advice to clients and staff to ensure the delivery of high-quality ecological services.
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