đ±TWiB September 27, 2021
Here comes another collection of stories shared by people following @BotanyOne on Twitter. One of the advantages of seeing what other people are sharing is picking up things you would otherwise miss, and I'll admit Notes from the Physics Lab is not on my list of weekly reads. But the post on how to create a literature review could be relevant to many people beyond physics.
On my work list for next week will be catching up on producing some audio versions of posts that didn't get the audio files. You can listen to the files we produce on the web pages of the posts, on Spotify and on other podcatchers by adding https://anchor.fm/s/49a2320/podcast/rss as the source. I'm trying to get Apple to list the files as a podcast, but this is slow.
There should be another issue with you next week, until then take care.
Alun (webmaster@botany.one)
In Botany One
Navigating your way to a graduate program in the U.S. as a student from an underrepresented minority â www.botany.one Getting to grad school in the U.S. may feel daunting, especially for students from underrepresented minorities. Claire Mauss shares some tips.
Plant breeding systems on the remote oceanic island of Pohnpei â www.botany.one How do the breeding systems of recent colonizing and long established plant species vary on a remote oceanic island?
The Brazilian savanna at risk because of the combination of disturbances â www.botany.one The effects of climate change, fire frequency and defaunation, acting together, negatively affect the structure and function of the Brazilian savanna.
Resolving interactions between plant structure and function â www.botany.one A new study reveals the impact of spatial resolution on accurately representing the interactions between plant canopy structure and function.
Botany provides a tool for defeating art fraud â www.botany.one How do you know that your antique violin really is as old as the seller claims? A close examination of plant cells in the body of the violin could help catch a counterfeiter.
Foliar nutrient allocation patterns in Banksia attenuata and B. sessilis â www.botany.one Banksia attenuata and Banksia sessilis are in the same genus, but their life strategies reflect how they react to poor nutrition.
News & Views
Protect the Okefenokee, an American Treasure â act.biologicaldiversity.org The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and wilderness needs your help. Twin Pines Minerals wants to mine a large swath of land right next to the refuge, risking permanent destruction of the world-renowned Okefenokee Swamp. It's the first step in a plan to mine nearly 8,000 acres.
See some winners of the 2021 Nikon Small World photography contest | Science News â www.sciencenews.org Annual competition features snapshots of the world hidden from the naked eye
Science can rescue farming. Relaxing gene editing rules should be the start As the UK prepares to approve genome editing, a leading food scientist argues it should also ease up on GM crops
Doing a literature review using digital tools (with Notion template) â notesfromthephysicslab.com
"Iâve recently revamped my literature review workflow since discovering Notion. Notion is an organization application that allows you to make various pages and databases. Itâs kind of like your own personal wiki- you can link your pages and embed databases into another page, adding filters and sorting them using user-set properties. The databases are what I use the most. Iâve essentially transferred all of my excel sheets into Notion databases and find it much easier to filter and sort things now. In this post, Iâll go through how I do my literature review and share a Notion template that you can use."
Extinction of Indigenous languages leads to loss of exclusive knowledge about medicinal plants A study at the University of Zurich in Switzerland shows that a large proportion of existing medicinal plant knowledge is linked to threatened Indigenous languages. In a regional study on the Amazon, New Guinea and North America, researchers concluded that 75% of medicinal plant uses are known in only one language.
Insects are vanishing from our planet at an alarming rate. But there are ways to help them In Germany, flying insects have declined by 76% in 26 years. In the UK, common butterfly populations have fallen by 46% since 1976. We should be alarmed by this insect apocalypse
âAmericaâs Oldest Park Rangerâ Is Only Her Latest Chapter - The New York Times â www.nytimes.com Betty Reid Soskin has fought to ensure that American history includes the stories that get overlooked. As she turns 100, few stories have been more remarkable than hers.
We can now bioengineer catnip instead of extracting it from plants â www.newscientist.com The key ingredient in catnip, called nepetalactone, can now be brewed in genetically engineered yeast. The chemical is a highly effective insect repellent, but catnip plants (Nepeta cataria) donât contain enough of it to make production from these commercially viable.
Scientific Papers
Grape hyacinth (Muscari spp.) is one of the most important ornamental bulbous plants. However, its lengthy juvenile period and time-consuming transformation approaches under the available protocols impedes the functional characterisation of its genes in flower tissues. In vitro flower organogenesis has long been used to hasten the breeding cycle of plants but has not been exploited for shortening the period of gene transformation and characterisation in flowers.
Diverse phosphate and auxin transport loci distinguish phosphate tolerant from sensitive Arabidopsis accessions Phosphorus is an essential element for plant growth often limiting agroecosystems. To identify genetic determinants of performance under variable phosphate supply, we conducted genome-wide-association studies on five highly predictive phosphate starvation response traits in 200 Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) accessions.
Uniparental nuclear inheritance following bisexual mating in fungi
Some remarkable animal species require an opposite-sex partner for their sexual development but discard the partnerâs genome before gamete formation, generating hemi-clonal progeny in a process called hybridogenesis. Yadav et al. discovered a similar phenomenon, termed pseudosexual reproduction, in a basidiomycete human fungal pathogen, Cryptococcus neoformans, where exclusive uniparental inheritance of nuclear genetic material was observed during bisexual reproduction
Transposition and duplication of MADS-domain transcription factor genes in annual and perennial Arabis species modulates flowering â www.pnas.org
Annual and perennial species differ in their timing and intensity of flowering, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Madrid et al. hybridized closely related annual and perennial plants and used genetics, transgenesis, and genomics to characterize differences in the activity and function of their flowering-time genes. They identify a gene encoding a transcription factor that moved between chromosomes and is retained in the annual but absent from the perennial.
Strategies for engineering improved nitrogen use efficiency in crop plants via redistribution and recycling of organic nitrogen Global use of nitrogen (N) fertilizers has increased sevenfold from 1960 to 1995 but much of the N applied is lost to the environment. Modifying the temporal and spatial distribution of organic N within the plant can lead to improved grain yield and/or grain protein content for the same or reduced N fertilizer inputs. Biotechnological approaches to modify whole plant distribution of amino acids and ureides has proven successful in several crop species. Manipulating selective autophagy pathways in crops has also improved N remobilization efficiency to sink tissues whilst the contribution of ribophagy, RNA and purine catabolism to N recycling in crops is still too early to foretell. Improved recycling and remobilization of N must exploit N-stress responsive transcriptional regulators, N-sensing or phloem-localized promotors and genetic variation for N-responsive traits.
Microtubule-based mitotic spindles contain a micron-sized mixed-nucleotide zone | bioRxiv
Current models infer that the microtubule-based mitotic spindle is built from GDP-tubulin with small GTP caps at microtubule plus-ends, including those that attach to kinetochores (K-fibres). Catrogiovanni et al. reveal that K-fibres additionally contain a dynamic mixed-nucleotide zone that reaches several microns in length. This zone becomes visible in cells expressing fluorescently labelled EBs, a known marker for GTP-tubulin, and endogenously-labelled HURP - a protein which they show to preferentially bind the GDP microtubule lattice in vitro.
TRANS-ACTING SIRNA3-derived short interfering RNAs confer cleavage of mRNAs in rice Plant TRANS-ACTING SIRNA3 (TAS3)-derived short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) include tasiR-ARFs, which are functionally conserved in targeting AUXIN RESPONSE FACTOR (ARF) genes, and a set of non-tasiR-ARF siRNAs, which have rarely been studied. In this study, TAS3 siRNAs were systematically characterized in rice (Oryza sativa). Small RNA sequencing results showed that an overwhelming majority of TAS3 siRNAs belong to the non-tasiR-ARF group, while tasiR-ARFs occupy a diminutive fraction. Phylogenetic analysis of TAS3 genes across dicot and monocot plants revealed that the siRNA-generating regions were highly conserved in grass species, especially in the Oryzoideae.
Iwase et al. observed a significant overlap between WIND1-induced genes and genes implicated in cellular reprogramming, vascular formation and pathogen response. They demonstrated that WIND transcription factors induce several reprogramming genes to promote callus formation at wound sites. In addition, they showed that WIND transcription factors promote tracheary element formation, vascular reconnection and resistance to Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000.
More frequent droughts and rising temperatures pose serious threats to tropical forests. When stomata are closed under dry and hot conditions, plants lose water through leaf cuticles, but little is known about cuticle conductance (gmin) of tropical trees, how it varies among species and environments, and how it is affected by temperature. In contrast with the hypotheses of Slot et al., gmin did not differ systematically across the rainfall gradient; species differences did not reflect phylogenetic patterns; and in most species gmin did not significantly increase between 25 and 50°C. gmin was higher in deciduous than in evergreen species, in species with leaf trichomes than in species without, in sun leaves than in shade leaves, and tended to decrease with increasing leaf mass per area across species. There was no relationship between stomatal and cuticle conductance.
Careers
Assistant or Associate Professor - Plant and Crop Science Applications are invited for an Assistant or Associate Professor of Plant and Crop Science to join the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick in the UK.
Graduate Research Dr. Ashish Ranjan (Plant Path) and Dr. Laura Shannon (Hort Sci) are hiring a PhD student to map scab resistance in diploid and tetraploid potatoes starting Fall 2022. Scab is a major potato disease which effects marketability resulting in losses for growers.
Principal Ecologist EcoĂireann is a small consultancy seeking to appoint a Principal Ecologist to enable the delivery of the extensive range of work opportunities which have been developed across our operations since 2016. This will be a lead role within the company and comprises a great opportunity to shape the organisation and the projects we work on, lead complex elements of project delivery, promote staff recruitment and development, and contribute towards the organisationâs Quality, Health & Safety, and Environmental Management systems.
The Department of Forestry at Michigan State University invites applications for a 9-month tenure-system position at the Assistant Professor rank in Forest Genetics/Genomics (50% research, 25% teaching, 25% extension); the position offers potential joint affiliation with cross-departmental institutes/centers (e.g., Plant Resilience Institute) and graduate training programs (e.g., Plant Breeding, Genetics and Biotechnology Program). We seek an outstanding scientist to conduct research in tree or forest genetics/genomics, with a view toward improving forest health, productivity and resilience under multiple environmental changes.
Assistant Professor The School of Biological Sciences at the University of Utah invites applications for two tenure-track faculty positions at the Assistant Professor level beginning as early as August 1, 2022. We encourage applications in the broad areas of plant physiology and plant ecology, and seek to hire one candidate in each of these main areas. We are particularly interested in candidates with overlapping strengths in any of the following areas with respect to plant ecology: community ecology, species interactions, stable isotope ecology, and global change ecology.Â
2 x UK Year of Service Green Start Environmental Traineeship for 18 - 24 year olds based in Manchester
Postdoctoral researcher in population and comparative genomics Jobs and vacancies at SLU. Read more about each job by clicking the job title. Please, follow the instructions closely when applying.
Associate/Senior Editor Nature Biotechnology We are seeking a researcher to join our team as an Associate/Senior Editor. Editors at Nature Biotechnology critically evaluate manuscripts for suitability for the journal, select appropriate peer reviewers and manage the peer review process as well as other editorial tasks designated by the Chief Editor. Candidates must have a PhD in an area relevant to molecuar biology, omics, computational biology or plant biology; there is a strong preference for postdoctoral experience and a strong research record.
Postdoctoral position in plant photobiology The successful candidate will be based at the Center for Integrative Genomics under the supervision of Prof. Christian Fankhauser to work on a project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation entitled âEnvironmental and molecular determinants of aerial organ positioning in Arabidopsis.â The candidate will use a combination of experimental approaches including molecular genetics, biochemistry, cell biology and plant photobiology. The University of Lausanne offers a world-class international research environment with state-of-the-art facilities.
Lecturer/Senior Lecturer - Plant Science In this role, you will make significant contributions to the teaching effort of the department, with your work involved around the study of plants at the level of the individual plant. You will have the ability to address grand challenges of our age, including plant responses to climate change and improving food quality and security to support thriving communities.
Data Scientist Testing by Design
Provide technical contributions in a fast-paced team environment to accelerate our efforts on building an analytics-driven product pipeline;
Independently perform statistical analysis, computer programming, predictive modeling and experimental design for a testing network;
Build cross-functional relationships to collaboratively partner with the business and effectively network within the Data Science Community;
Use advanced mathematical models, machine learning algorithms, operations research techniques, and strong business acumen to deliver insight, recommendations, and solutions;
Develop sustainable, consumable, accurate, and impactful reporting on model inputs, model outputs, observed outputs, business impact, and Key Performance Indicators (KPI);
Present compelling, validated stories to all levels of organization, including peers, senior management, and internal customers to drive both strategic and operational changes in business.
Land Stewardship Coordinator â www.jobsthathelp.com Schlitz Audubon is looking for a Land Stewardship Coordinator to take a role in conservation and land management activities. The primary purpose of the position is to restore and conserve the land using established best management practices. The Land Stewardship Coordinator will help train and supervise volunteers and interns in invasive species removal, restoration plantings, prescribed burning, and other essential land management projects. Felling and processing hazard ash tress is another key role for this position. In addition to leading these activities, the Land Stewardship Coordinator will educate passing school groups, preschool classes, and general trail users on ecological land management. This position reports to the Director of Conservation.
In this study, using a fluorescence-based CK sensor (pTCSn::nls:tGFP), Triozzi et al. performed a high-resolution tissue-specific temporal characterization of the sequential activation of CK response during root infection and nodule development in Medicago truncatula after inoculation with S. meliloti. Loss-of-function mutants of the CK-biosynthetic gene ISOPENTENYLTRANSFERASE 3 (IPT3) showed impairment of nodulation, suggesting that IPT3 is required for nodule development in M. truncatula. Simultaneous live imaging of pIPT3::nls:tdTOMATO and the CK sensor showed that IPT3 induction in the pericycle at the base of nodule primordium contributes to CK biosynthesis, which in turn promotes expression of positive regulators of nodule organogenesis in M. truncatula.
Molecular mechanisms of endomembrane trafficking in plants
Aniento et al. summarize the current statet of knowledge on plant endomembrane trafficking, with a focus on four distinct trafficking pathways: ER-to-Golgi transport, endocytosis, trans-Golgi network-to-vacuole transport, and autophagy. They acknowledge the conservation and commonalities in the trafficking machinery across species, with emphasis on diversity and plant-specific features. Understanding the function of organelles and the trafficking machinery currently non-existent in well-known model organisms will provide great opportunities to acquire new insights into the fundamental cellular process of membrane trafficking.
November/2021: Fully-funded PhD position in forest ecology and remote sensing I am seeking a Ph.D. student interested in working on forest ecology, remote sensing (GEDI, UAV-lidar, TLS..etc), and programming (R and C++). The successful candidate will join the Forest Biometrics and Remote Sensing lab (Silva Lab) at the School of Forest, Fisheries and Geomatics Sciences (SFFGS) - University of Florida (UF) in Summer or Fall 2022.
Glover Group: Iridescence in flowers â how and why? This project aims to understand both how and why some flowers produce iridescence. Iridescence occurs when the colour of a surface appears different when that surface is viewed from different angles, and can only be produced using structural methods, not pigments. Both iridescence, and structural colour more generally, have been well studied in the animal kingdom, where they are responsible for the bright wings of many butterflies, the wing cases of beetles, and the spectacular plumage of birds such as the peacock. Flowers also produce iridescence colours using structural means, although they are generally less striking than the animal examples. You will study the mechanisms by which iridescence is generated, using molecular genetic techniques in our model system Hibiscus trionum. You will also study the function of iridescence using our bee behaviour facility to assess how bumblebees respond to transgenic flowers with altered iridescence properties.
Glover Group: Development of the light-focusing prism cells of California poppy This project aims to understand how the unusual prism cells on the petal epidermis of Eschscholzia californica, the California poppy, develop. The petal epidermis of this flower consists of prism-like cells in which the ridge of the prism is filled with cell wall material. This is highly unusual as petal epidermal cells tend to be conical in shape, composed primarily of vacuolar material, with only a thin cell wall. The prism cells focus incident light onto the carotenoid pigments found in the petal, located at the cell base. Using cell wall to fill the top of the prism ensures that light is focused to the base of the cell, not to the centre, and so reaches the plastid-containing pigments. This novel cell morphology has not been described in any other system, and we do not know how it is built - you will use a range of developmental, molecular and comparative techniques to find out.
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