September 5, 2022

🌻 TWiB September 5, 2022

I had a panic putting this together as I saw only four Botany One stories this week. Then I remembered I took Monday off. I'll be ready for another holiday shortly, as the translation system is glitching again, so that's another task for the coming week.

As usual, here's the links that you've all been sharing. One of the things that really caught my eye was a photo below that becomes a lot more impressive if you click on it. If you click on it, you'll Lauren Whitehurst's video of the Shampoo Ginger in action. I'd never seen that before.

The next collection should be with you around the same time next week. Until then, take care.

Alun (webmaster@botany.one)

In Botany One

Marchantia Mothers Switch Off the Father's Genes After Sex — botany.one New research from the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Biology finds evidence of 'genetic imprinting' in a non-vascular plant for the first time.

Modelling perennial grass phenology — botany.one Predicting phenology can provide insight into better management.

Plant Remains in Coffin Pillows Betray Burial Beliefs — botany.one A top-quality pillow is essential for a good night's sleep, but what pillow do you need for the longest sleep? A study of pillows in Polish graves shows that Catholics and Protestants had different ideas.

Botanists find nectar can be a source of antimicrobial compounds — botany.one Plants regularly have unprotected sex. How do they avoid unwanted infections?

News & Views

Is it time we ditched the word ‘gardening’?

James Wong notes that young people with an interest in plants are using many terms to describe their hobby, but one word they might not use is gardening, if they don't have a garden.

Kentish Town tube station's "secret" garden — www.ianvisits.co.uk Kentish Town tube station regulars know the ticket hall is filled with plants but may be surprised to discover a whole garden can be found hidden away in the station yard.

The loneliest trees: can science save these threatened species from extinction? — www.nature.com There are trees so rare that only a single specimen remains. Some conservationists want to save them all — but others question this lofty goal.

Where the buffalo roam, endangered prairies thrive — www.nationalgeographic.com A study 29 years in the making shows how bison reintroductions can create richer ecosystems and resilience against climate change in North America.

Why four scientists spent a year saying no Saying no is a skill — and practising it improved our science.

Ferns finally get a genome, revealing a history of DNA hoarding and kleptomania — www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu Ferns are notorious for containing massive amounts of DNA and an excessively large number of chromosomes. Defying all expectations, a fern no larger than a dinner plate currently holds the title for highest chromosome count, with a whopping 720 pairs crammed into each of its nuclei

Lab leaders wrestle with paucity of postdocs — www.nature.com Even high-profile scientists are struggling to recruit qualified postdoctoral researchers.

Burning native forest wood waste for electricity shouldn’t be classed as renewable energy, Senate report suggests Climate bill inquiry says government should consider establishing a transition authority for coal and gas workers

Scientists Issue “Warning to Humanity” that Tree Species Extinction Could Bring Economic as well as Ecosystem Crisis — www.bgci.org Scientists who revealed ⅓ of tree species are facing extinction call on leaders to do more to protect threatened species, as new research reveals the impact of extinction on humanity and planet

Improving Plants, People & Tools: It's all in a Day's Work for a Plant Breeder While Patricio R. Munoz specializes in blueberries, when asked what type of plant breeder he is, he simply describes himself as one that "uses all the tools, methods and techniques available to help breed crops faster and more efficiently."

Scientific Papers

Composition of continental crust altered by the emergence of land plants — www.nature.com

The evolution of land plants during the Palaeozoic era transformed Earth’s biosphere. Because the Earth’s surface and interior are linked by tectonic processes, the linked evolution of the biosphere and sedimentary rocks should be recorded as a near-contemporary shift in the composition of the continental crust. To test this hypothesis, Spencer et al. assessed the isotopic signatures of zircon formed at subduction zones where marine sediments are transported into the mantle, thereby recording interactions between surface environments and the deep Earth. Using oxygen and lutetium–hafnium isotopes of magmatic zircon that respectively track surface weathering (time independent) and radiogenic decay (time dependent), we find a correlation in the composition of continental crust after 430 Myr ago, which is coeval with the onset of enhanced complexity and stability in sedimentary systems related to the evolution of vascular plants.

An outer nuclear membrane protein promotes a polarized nuclear position and the future division plane during asymmetric cell division

Cell polarity establishment and asymmetric cell division are universally important, although proteins important for polarity differ in plants and animals. Zea mays stomatal development serves as an excellent plant model system for asymmetric cell division, especially the asymmetric division of the subsidiary mother cell (SMC). In SMCs, the nucleus migrates to a polar location, after the accumulation of polarly localized proteins but before the appearance of the preprophase band. Ashraf et al. examined a mutant of the outer nuclear membrane protein, which is part of the LINC (linker of nucleoskeleton and cytoskeleton) complex that localizes to the nuclear envelope in interphase cells. Previously, mlks2 (maize linc kash sine-like2) were observed to have abnormal stomata. We confirmed these stomatal defects and used cell markers to pinpoint the precise defects that lead to abnormal asymmetric divisions.

A highly polymorphic effector protein promotes fungal virulence through suppression of plant-associated Actinobacteria

Plant pathogens secrete effector proteins to support host colonization through a wide range of molecular mechanisms, while plant immune systems evolved receptors to recognize effectors or their activities to mount immune responses to halt pathogens. Importantly, plants do not act as single organisms, but rather as holobionts that actively shape their microbiota as a determinant of health, and may thus be targeted by pathogen effectors as such. The soil-borne fungal pathogen Verticillium dahliae was recently demonstrated to exploit the VdAve1 effector to manipulate the host microbiota to promote vascular wilt disease in absence of the corresponding immune receptor Ve1. Snelders et al. now identified a multiallelic V. dahliae gene displaying ~65% sequence similarity to VdAve1, named VdAve1-like (VdAve1L). Interestingly, VdAve1L shows extreme sequence variation, including alleles that encode dysfunctional proteins, indicative of selection pressure to overcome host recognition.

Increasing temperature and vapor pressure deficit lead to hydraulic damages in the absence of soil drought

Temperature (T) and vapor pressure deficit (VPD) are important drivers of plant hydraulic conductivity, growth, mortality, and ecosystem productivity, independently of soil water availability. Schönbeck et al.'s goal was to disentangle the effects of T and VPD on plant hydraulic responses.

The generality of cryptic dietary niche differences in diverse large-herbivore assemblages The diversity of ungulates in African savannas has inspired generations of biologists to investigate how similar species coexist, which requires that each be limited by different factors. Resource partitioning is key to understanding this diversity, but prevailing theories of competition and coexistence disregard the taxonomic identity of food items. Using high-resolution data on thousands of large-herbivore diets from 10 savannas, we identify several apparent generalities. Sympatric herbivore species eat different plants in differing proportions, and variation in the strength of these differences supports the hypothesis that interspecific competition and species’ traits interact to shape diet composition and food web topology. We conclude that partitioning of food plant species, while difficult to detect, contributes to the niche differences that stabilize coexistence.

The Arabidopsis SAC9 enzyme is enriched in a cortical population of early endosomes and restricts PI(4,5)P2 at the plasma membrane | eLife

Lebecq et al. functionally characterized the putative phosphoinositide phosphatase SUPPRESSOR OF ACTIN9 (SAC9) in Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis). We found that SAC9 depletion led to the ectopic localization of PI(4,5)P2 on cortical intracellular compartments, which depends on PI4P and PI(4,5)P2 production at the plasma membrane. SAC9 localizes to a subpopulation of trans-Golgi Network/early endosomes that are enriched in a region close to the cell cortex and that are coated with clathrin.

Seagrass (Zostera marina) transplant experiment reveals core microbiota and resistance to environmental change

Zostera marina (seagrass) is a coastal marine angiosperm that sustains a diverse and productive ecosystem. Seagrass-associated microbiota support host health, yet the ecological processes that maintain biodiversity and stability of the seagrass leaf microbiota are poorly understood. Adamczyk et al. tested two hypotheses: (1) Microbes select seagrass leaves as habitat such that they consistently host distinct microbiota and/or core taxa in comparison to nearby substrates, and (2) seagrass leaf microbiota are stable once established and are resistant to change when transplanted to a novel environment.

Global patterns of vascular plant alpha diversity — www.nature.com

Sabatini et al. show that alpha diversity is consistently high across grains in some regions (for example, Andean-Amazonian foothills), but regional ‘scaling anomalies’ (deviations from the positive correlation) exist elsewhere, particularly in Eurasian temperate forests with disproportionally higher fine-grained richness and many African tropical forests with disproportionally higher coarse-grained richness.

mRNAs, proteins and the emerging principles of gene expression control — www.nature.com

Buccitelli and Selbachh review recent mRNA–protein correlation studies in the light of the quantitative parameters of the gene expression pathway, contextual confounders and buffering mechanisms. Although protein and mRNA levels typically show reasonable correlation, they describe how transcriptomics and proteomics provide useful non-redundant readouts.

Dynamic genome evolution in a model fern — www.nature.com

Marchant et al. present a chromosomal genome assembly and associated methylome, transcriptome and metabolome analyses for the model fern species Ceratopteris richardii. The assembly reveals a history of remarkably dynamic genome evolution including rapid changes in genome content and structure following the most recent whole-genome duplication approximately 60 million years ago.

Farm income and production impacts from the use of genetically modified (GM) crop technology 1996-2020

This paper updates previous estimates for the global value of using genetically modified (GM) crop technology in agriculture at the farm level. In developing countries, the average return was $5.22 for each extra dollar invested in GM crop seed and in developed countries the average return was $3.00.

Careers

Ulm-Lab | Open positions

POSTDOC POSITIONS AVAILABLE

UV-B Perception and Signalling in Marchantia polymorpha (for details see pdf)

UV-B Perception and Signalling in Arabidopsis thaliana (for details see pdf)

Assistant Professor - Global Change Biology The Department of Integrative Biology (IB) at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor faculty position in the area of global change biology, broadly defined. The potential start date is July 1, 2023. We seek an exceptional scientist whose research bridges temporal scales and levels of biological organization and who uses new analytical, empirical, or theoretical tools to address fundamental questions in global change biology such as: how do physiological, ecological, and evolutionary systems respond to forces of global environmental change; how do new species form, diversify and coexist in changing environments; and how do molecular evolution and adaptation shape changing genomic and ecological landscapes.

PhD Student (m/f/d) - Local and Systemic Responses in Root-Microbe Interactions In the frame of the DFG funded priority programme “Deconstruction and Reconstruction of the Plant Microbiota: DECRyPT” (SPP 2125) a PhD position is available for three years in the Department of Cell and Metabolic Biology of the Leibniz-Institute of Plant Biochemistry (IPB – www.ipb-halle.de/en/) in Halle (Saale), Germany.

Assistant/Associate Professor, Ecosystem Services Under Climate Change, Biological Sciences. The Department of Biological Sciences in the Faculty of Science at the University of Calgary invites applications for a full-time tenure-track faculty position in the area of Ecosystem Services Under Climate Change, with a start date of January 1, 2023 or later. The successful candidate will be appointed at the rank of Assistant Professor (tenure-track) or in exceptional cases as an Associate Professor (with Tenure). 

Assistant Professor The School of Integrative Biology and the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign seek an individual working in the broadly defined field of quantitative plant biology. We are interested in candidates who will devise or apply innovative quantitative approaches to advance the empirical or theoretical understanding of fundamental questions in ecological, evolutionary, organismal, physiological, biochemical, molecular, or genomic plant biology. We are particularly interested in researchers who can address questions that integrate across multiple spatial or temporal hierarchical scales. Methods of interest include, but are not limited to, machine learning/artificial intelligence; advanced statistics; mechanistic modeling; “big data” analytics. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, biodiversity, ecosystem function, food security, climate change biology, biosystem design, and bioenergy.

Research professor in plant genomics The Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) is looking for a research professor in the field of applied plant genomics (tenure track: associate or full professor). The research professor's tasks include planning and conducting ambitious, innovative and multidisciplinary research projects, and securing of long-term funding from various funding sources.

Postdoctoral Position in High Throughput Phenotyping to Improve Crop Production We are seeking a candidate to conduct research on advancing development and application of high throughput phenotyping techniques to improve understanding of crop physiology-environmental interactions with the goal of breeding more productive and resilient crops.  The successful candidate will conduct research primarily at the RIPE Aerial Phenotyping Platform (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U89zXRslzI4), a 4-Ha cable-based outdoor phenotyping facility, but will also have opportunity to contribute to other ongoing research as part of the RIPE Project.

Tenure-Track Faculty Positions in Developmental and/or Cell Biology and/or Molecular Epigenetics The Ohio State University invites applicants to apply for two tenure-track faculty positions at the Assistant Professor level in the Department of Molecular Genetics. Investigators using any experimental system to address fundamentally important biological questions in any area of Developmental Biology, Cell Biology, and/or Molecular Epigenetics are encouraged to apply. Applicants with interest and expertise in imaging, quantitative biology, computational biology, systems biology, and/or integrated approaches will be especially competitive.

Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Plant Science (0.8fte) The School of Biological and Environmental Sciences seeks to appoint a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Plant Science. This is an exciting opportunity to join a collaborative project funded by the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). The project is Optimising Miscanthus Establishment through improved mechanisation and data capture to meet Net Zero targets (OMENZ).

Post-doc in multiplex genome engineering of the maize yield related genes Feeding the growing world population under changing climate conditions poses an unprecedented challenge on global agriculture and our current pace to breed new high-yielding crop varieties is too low to face the imminent threats to food security. The  ERC  project BREEDIT, aims for an expeditious evaluation of combinations of potential yield contributing alleles by unifying ‘classical’ breeding with gene-centric molecular biology. The acronym BREEDIT,  a  word fusion of breeding and editing,  reflects the basic concept of combining breeding with multiplex genome editing of yield and growth-related genes

Postdoctoral Fellow (Plant-Microbial Interactions Group) Berkeley Lab’s Joint Genome Institute (JGI) is looking for a talented Postdoctoral Fellow to perform research on plant microbe interactions with an emphasis on the computational identification and comparison of phages directly influencing root colonization potential.

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology: Assistant Teaching Professor for Field Biology The Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) at the University of California (UC), Santa Cruz invites applications for an Assistant Teaching Professor for Field Biology. The primary focus of this position is the teaching of introductory field courses within the undergraduate curriculum in EEB, including student-centered, inquiry-based courses with overnight field trips. A key aspect of the position is guiding student-led research projects on a wide range of organisms and habitats.

Postdoctoral researcher Plant Microbiota Interactions The research group 'Plant Microbe Interactions' at the Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Basel (https://duw.unibas.ch/en/plant-microbe-interactions/) is welcoming applications for a postdoctoral position. We investigate fundamental questions of root microbiome biology and we want to uncover how plants benefit from their root microbiota for growth or defense. The open position is part of the Swiss-funded ERC project 'Decoding microbiota feedbacks on plants - mifeePs' that aims to uncover the mechanistic basis why certain plants respond with better growth to microbial feedbacks.

Postdoctoral Researcher (Hogenhout Group) — www.jic.ac.uk Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral researcher to join the group of Prof Saskia Hogenhout (twitter: @SaskiaHogenhout) at the John Innes Centre (JIC) to study molecular processes in host-pathogen interactions. The overall aim of the project is to structurally and biochemically dissect molecular machineries that enable parasites to modulate host processes and alter host development.

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