Cells, Genes & Molecules
Early Lateral Root Development Is Driven by Thirst
Roots are critical for plants to find water and nutrients. They can also be expensive to grow, so a plant needs to send them in the
Plants & People
What real people think about plants
Vickery’s Folk Flora: An A-Z of the Folklore and Uses of British and Irish Plants by Roy Vickery, 2019. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. For the
Ecosystems
Migration of plant species will not compensate for losses in diversity in a warming world
Climate is likely to change faster than many plant populations can travel, reducing biodiversity in the future.
Ecosystems
Consider alternative designs and trait integration level for better ecosystem analysis
To fully understand how an ecosystem fits together, consider how alternate designs may achieve the same end.
Growth & Development
Arabidopsis halleri: a model system for studying population differentiation and local adaptation
Whilst studies on Arabidopsis thaliana have generally been highly molecular and/or genetic in nature, most studies using A. halleri have addressed adaptation and variation in adaptive traits in the species’ natural habitat.
featured
Plant blindness in smartphone identification applications – are we passing on our biases to our helpful apps?
It is well-known that people are better at identifying animals than plants and this relative inability of people to identify plants is increasingly termed “plant
Cells, Genes & Molecules
Lichen algae remodel their cell walls in response to drying
Lichen algae respond to desiccation with both a controlled collapse of their cell walls and a bit of biochemical remodelling.
Plants & People
Ancient botany for the 21st century
Vergil’s Green Thoughts: Plants, Humans, and the Divine by Rebecca Armstrong, 2019. Oxford University Press. When I first heard about Vergil’s Green Thoughts by
Computational Models
tealeaves: an R package for modelling leaf temperature using energy budgets
Plants are able to grow, survive and reproduce under a wide range of temperatures. Examples of plants that thrive in temperature extremes include cushion plants in
Cells, Genes & Molecules
Scientists find critical receptor that allows plant cells to pass stress signals
Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is well-known for its role in cells as acting almost like currency for energy storage. Research by Elsa Matthus and colleagues shows
Cells, Genes & Molecules
Anaesthetic blocks trap closure and wounding response in Venus Flytraps
Diethyl ether renders flytraps unable to close their traps or respond to wounding using a mechanism with parallels in animals.
Ecosystems
Drivers of intraspecific variation in seed dispersal are diverse and pervasive
Intraspecific variation in the quantity and quality of seed dispersal has important ecological and evolutionary consequences, yet it is generally ignored in favour of focussing on