Cells, Genes & Molecules
Settling the debate: Plum ‘yews’ are in a separate family to yews
New genomic study assembled the plastid genomes of plum yews to understand their evolution.
Growth & Development
Coffee and the Leaf Economics Spectrum: size matters
Martin and Issac quantified size-dependent variation in eight leaf traits in a single coffee genotype (Coffea arabica var. Caturra) in managed agroecosystems.
Close Encounters
Fungal highways for P-solubilizing bacteria
New study in New Phytologist reveals that nutrient-solubilising bacteria can travel on fungi hyphae if the fungi provides a source of energy.
Ecosystems
Living on the edge of fragmented forests: distance, insects and fungi impact plant traits
Seedling establishment is a crucial bottleneck in plant population dynamics, but seedlings don’t behave the same way fully-grown trees do.
Growth & Development
Tea buds are prepared for the cold by remembering past weather
Cold hardiness, acclimating and de-acclimating from cold temperatures can help plants prevent or reduce frost damage to their tissues. Through complex molecular networks, plants can
Computational Models
SoyFACE for 3D soybean canopy modelling under elevated carbon dioxide
New mathematical model dissects how soybean plants might grow larger in the future.
Ecosystems
Global climate change and grasslands: soil microbial diversity to the rescue!
New study the journal New Phytologist reveals the importance of soil microbial diversity for tolerating or recovering from drought, warming and nitrogen deposition.
Ecosystems
Very fine roots act as renewed carbon sink in rewetted peatland forest
New study suggests that rewetting peatland forests could increase their climate change mitigation function.
Cells, Genes & Molecules
Lessons from Mediterranean olive domestication: keep wild relatives close by and do not “overselect”
New study in the journal BMC Biology found that Mediterranean olives have almost as high genetic diversity as olive cultivars
Ecosystems
How do plants colonise new territories?
The research suggests that different categories of species have dissimilar seed germination niches, which contributes to explaining their coexistence.
Growth & Development
Sunshine makes oats healthier
Study discovers the importance of light conditions and biosynthetic regulation of mixed-linkage glucan in oats.
Taxonomy & Evolution
Polyploid plants take a leaf out from the invasive species book
The extent to which propagule pressure limits the establishment of local polyploid populations remains to be determined, because we know so little.