Growth & Development
Under-producers have a greater effect than super-producers on fruiting patterns in masting trees
Smaller plants are the main drag on both seed production and synchrony in their populations.
Ecosystems
Where do halophytes grow? Influence of elevation, flooding, and salinity in a non-tidal saltmarsh
Unpredictability means that the traits needed to survive in seasonally flooded marshes are different to tidally flooded marshes.
Growth & Development
The off-switch is not the on-switch for rhizome development in tall fescue
When drought passes the signals to restart the development of rhizomes in Festuca arundinacea are on different regulatory pathways to the signals that turned it off at the start of the drought.
Computational Models
You get a better model of the forest when you look at the individual trees
The computing principle GIGO states that if the data you put into a model is garbage, then the output will be too. Jie Yang and colleagues
Growth & Development
Going below ground: how some of the diversity in plant root morphology arose
A major transition in plant growth habit may have driven evolution of certain root traits
Growth & Development
When weather becomes less predictable, so do reproductive traits
Both within a plant and within a population, trait variability increases with unpredictable precipitation.
Computational Models
From computer to field: can in silico modelling can help us to optimise rice for possible droughts?
Advances in computational models may allow us to quickly predict responses of important food crops to environmental stresses in the field, and to identify the genetic basis of these.
Computational Models
Going nuts: simulating macadamia’s carbon allocation in Australia
Study proposes a new computer model for simulating macadamia tree carbon allocation.
Ecosystems
Is age just a number if you’re a plant? How plant responses to the environment change with age
Trait sensitivity to the environment is most visible during earlier stages of development, after which intraspecific trait variation and relationships may stabilize.
Cells, Genes & Molecules
Fruits of all colours: how green-stripe tomatoes get their distinctive colour pattern
How fruits or flowers produce particular colouration or colour patterning is a question that often has complex answers. It may also seem to be a relatively
Cells, Genes & Molecules
Higher cytokinin levels give Dutch tomatoes an edge
Greater secondary xylem development in Dutch cultivars may be the source of their lead over Japanese cultivars in fresh fruit weight.
Growth & Development
A long-lasting connection? Links between genome size and stomata size in plants
The variation in genome size between different plant species is enormous, with a variation of 2300-fold in flowering plants alone. Whilst variation in plant genome